To HT or not HT... a documented Journey to Turkey

(Istanbul, August 2022) Blinded under a procedural light with 3 Turkish women actively prepping 10 anesthesia incisions into my head, I lay in the foreign land wondering: how the fuck did I choose this place for a hair surgery?

My receding hairline started around 23 years old and ended at 33. During those interim 10 years, this genetic unpleasantry contributed to a lack of self-confidence, a mass over indexing towards hat purchases, and an astronomical budget allotted for hair growth products. A receding hairline signified (to me) inadequacy, stress, and an unbalanced life. Wearing baseball caps as a coping mechanism helped bypass those exposed moments while projecting a youthful style, but when business meetings, weddings, Christmas photos and other respectable events commenced, I felt naked reverting to exposure, and a mojo diminished.

This was now my top priority: Solving my receding hairline.

I had three options:

1. Go bald,

2. wear a wig,

3. or get a hair transplant.

Removing the solely obnoxious option out of the equation, I had distilled the pro’s and con’s of shaving my head versus getting hair procedure.

Would I now be ‘the bald guy’? There were numerous gentlemen of high magnificence who fell into this category: Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos, Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci, Gandhi, and even Churchill. Could I join the ranks of untethered men? Surely it would be quite liberating to never deal with that pathetic mop on my head again. However, I was also moderately overweight (not fat, more just… Jumbo Petite). Bald dudes were identified as sexy. Chubby bald guys? No bueno.

Or should I venture towards getting a hair transplant - bite the bullet, take the excruciating pain and a $15k hit to my bank account? I could get the hair line I always wanted and join the ranks of men who reestablished their hair lines through procedural effort: Tom Brady, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Lebron James. The challenge here was affordability and selecting a reliable surgeon.

I was approaching 30, it was time to make a serious move.

Over the next 3 years, I dedicated hundreds of hours towards researching this topic of hair restoration and transplants. It entailed numerous clinic consultations, speaking to patients who underwent HT, and the navigating the web of a 4.2-billion-dollar industry overwhelmingly influenced by advertisements, search optimized information, and clinic-driven reviews. It was purely chaotic…. a cumbersome process no gentlemen should ever blindly navigate.

Fast forward to today, not only did I find the right solution on the other side, I also documented every step of my journey along the way. For the helpless bunch who experienced the lack of confidence I had, are lacking a starting point in terms of research, and are inundated with web advertisements and unverified, biased reviews – I bring you Hair Bear… the first unbiased, transparent guide to hair restoration. No clinic affiliation, no paid reviews, no bullshit.