I started to lose my hair around 19yrs old…slowly thinning over time and the hairs on the front of my scalp would just stop growing after a certain length (about 1″). I saw my barber regularly and one day I recalled him telling me, “Well… you better get married early…” which ended up being the last time I went to him. I decided if I was going to go bald, I was going to do something about it at least. A few days later, I called the Hair Club for Men here in Orange, California and set up an appointment for one of their “free consultations”. 

I walked in and saw there were two other men sitting in the lobby with baseball caps on, looking nervous. I thought, “Hey, I may have a friend or two here after all.” Ironically, I was called ahead of both of them, and was asked to sit in a comfortable room and watch a video. After the 10min video about who HCM is, what they do, and how it works, I felt confident that they may be able to do something about my ::ahem:: problem. I met with a very friendly older woman who discussed the options with me, what they would recommend, and what it would cost (roughly). After all was said and done, the procedure was to cost $1,300.00 and would involve routine hair appointments to adjust/cut the “matrix” (a glorified toupee that is glued to the scalp..literally). I decided to go ahead with it and in two weeks I was scheduled to return for the procedure. I was soon after escorted into a special room and sat down in a room reminiscent of a dentist’s office (chair and all). My head was measured, a hair sample was cut, and they took pictures of my head from both sides, front, and back. Soon after, I left, and was ready to return in two weeks. 

I counted every day on my calendar and when two weeks rolled around, I was ready. I even went so far as to shave my facial hair (go-tee) to try out the “new look” for all it was worth. I went in and with little-to-no wait, I was escorted to a room that looked like a beauty salon. The top of my head was shaved, leaving the sides. They put the Matrix on top, with unusually long hair still attached to it. They would begin to cut the hair shorter and shorter until a semi-reasonable, desired look was achieved. About 30min later, I was done and it looked a lot different than I was used to. 

I was scheduled to return in 3 days to make sure that all is going well, and if any adjustments needed to be made. Arriving home, I saw my family and was greeted with smiles and congratulations. Considering I had been struggling personally with the reality of my own hair loss, I thought it was a relief of having to deal with one less insecurity. That night was the most difficult time I had ever had sleeping. The matrix itched horribly and would pull on my scalp if I laid on the pillow in any direction except facing straight up. I was starting to get stir-crazy until I finally learned to sleep on my back the whole time. What an ordeal, but I figured it was a small price to pay at the time. 

Probably the first thing I began to notice is that the hairline in the front (and I saw this in the commercials, but carefully photographed) of the hairline is unusually thick…and not natural looking at all. I remember saying something to the girl who was fitting/cutting it, and she said, “Oh, just put some more glue on it..” and was handed a bottle of skin adhesive.. I was starting to have doubts at this point. 

A day or two go by, I’m of course noticed at work, but sensitively of course. Later on, I started to feel the itching coming back; I found relief in the sharp end of a letter opener and would periodically poke at spots that would cause me to itch. On the way home, I noticed that the Matrix was starting to come up off my scalp…peeling back. I panicked and didn’t know what to do. I called HCM and told the receptionist what was going on. I was advised to wait until my appt. in 3 days and to just press down on it with a comb if it continues. 

When I got home, it was a nightmare… the glue that they applied was actually causing me to itch more. I promptly headed over to HCM and told them what was going on. I was seen right away and they re-applied the matrix w/ a different type of glue they had. It didn’t help, the next day I found the matrix on my pillow almost completely peeled up. Mortified, I called them again and advised them of my problem. I was told, “Well, you’re just going to have to work it out somehow.” I went down to HCM and they took another look at it and did another re-application. Again, the next morning…same problem. I followed every instruction they gave to the letter and was having worse and worse luck. The last phone call I had with HCM was strictly, “We can’t do anything…sorry…just bad luck..”. I asked for a refund, even a partial one, and was told in a staunch voice, “No Refunds, period.” 

After I got off the phone, I started to cry… I felt both taken advantage of, ugly, and just plain screwed. I took a walk to the medicine cabinet and proceeded to remove the matrix myself. IT HURT! It took about 20min and a pair of small hair-cutting scissors to get through the glue and hair that was trapped underneath the glue. I think this was the worst nightmare I had ever gone through, and ended up feel so ashamed of myself for this. Not a religious person, I even began to think this was sort of God’s punishment for vanity. Regardless of what it was, it sucked, and I started to think that I couldn’t be the only one going through this. I took a Bic razor to my head and after a good shaving, I was completely bald. 

I called my credit card company and explained to them, briefly, my situation. The lady I spoke to at BofA was more than sympathetic to my situation and felt that I had a compelling reason to get a refund if for nothing more than dissatisfaction. I have to say that BofA was pretty cool about the whole thing and seemed to work pretty hard at trying to get my money back. After I called BofA, I contacted the BBB and submitted a formal complaint against HCM for the whole thing. After a few letters were sent, both the BBB and BofA decided on my behalf and I received a full refund from HCM providing I sent the matrix back to them. I suppose I was very lucky because I was told early on to contact both the BBB and my credit card company by my family–I didn’t even want to think about it at the time but they pushed me to fight it. 

It is now 2, almost 3 years later and I still see the commercials on the television every so often. I can’t help but remember those two guys in the lobby, waiting nervously as I was to see if they can fix their hair problem. I’m here to say that I neither thought better of myself or my looks by going through that whole ordeal. 

Perhaps by writing this I give someone else considering HCM some perspective to what I went through with it. It’s exactly as advertised procedure-wise, but the results are not at all what you see on television. After a while, I began to notice other men and the hairlines they had and would think to myself, “there’s a Hair club job”. Later on, a girlfriend of mine said to me, “What’s up w/ that guy’s hair over there?” I looked and noticed it was a HCM job. I then told her the story of it all and even though we aren’t together anymore, it really calmed my insecurity, “Why? It’s not the only thing we look for, ya know… I’d rather you be bald and who you are.” I guess it’s just hard to know that ‘inside’ and no one can really tell you when you have your mind set on something. 

My advice is to just do the best with what you’ve got, save your money, and just stay in good shape and health. Try Rogaine but I found it to dry my scalp, and would cause flakes. I stopped using it after a year or so and didn’t notice much, if any, difference. I’m not saying it didn’t work or that it won’t work for you, but I didn’t have any positive or negative reactions to it other than the dry scalp. 

I don’t think the HCM is a bad organization or anything, but I do believe they fill a niche of preying on peoples’ insecurity with a service that (at least in my opinion) isn’t very successful at all.  I think the real pity is how many people who have had experiences like mine or worse and not been able to do anything about it.

Best of luck to you all… be confident in yourself–everything else will follow.

Cheers..

John P. ]]> http://baldrus.com/archives/hair-club-for-men-horror-stories/feed/ 24 http://baldrus.com/archives/transplant-terror-stories/ http://baldrus.com/archives/transplant-terror-stories/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:29:49 +0000 Tony http://baldrus.com/?p=76  

Hair transplants? What the doctors don’t tell you! A letter of personal experience from Carl from Lahaina, Hawaii. Guys if you are thinking about getting a hair transplant, think long and hard about it! The things most of these doctors don’t tell you is that your hair is going to keep receding behind the transplant area and that you never know how far back it is going to go. You will wind up taking the Propecia and Rogaine cocktail for the rest of your life unless you are willing to let nature takes its course. When you let nature take over you wind up loosing a lot of the hair behind your implants, which can make your head look pretty strange. You will become a prisoner to your implants and actually go through loosing your hair twice: once, before the implants, and then later, as your hairline recedes behind the implants. When I got my procedure done I was in my late 20’s and had started loosing my hair at about age 21. Of course, with all the great advertisements on implants, I started my search, and after about 7 years I found someone in my price range and decided to go through with the procedure. What I didn’t know was that one procedure was going to follow another and another and another since they didn’t do the thousands of graphs that they do today. They put larger Plugs in which were rather obvious, so over a period of four years they had to go back and make the plugs smaller which resulted in more scarring and greater sensitivity on the top of my head. Not to mention the fact that every time they take from the donor area it winds up getting larger as well. I had shaved my head numerous times before I got the implants and got quite a few compliments about how good it looked. This was about ten years ago and bald wasn’t quite in and at 28 I had thought I could attain a youthful head of hair via implants…I would give anything to be able to shave my head again and have my freedom and natural appearance! Even though my implants look pretty natural I get tired of having to cut my hair certain ways in order for them to not be obvious. The thing is, under bright lights or the sunshine it is hard for implants not to be seen and you always wonder if its obvious or not. What happens a lot of times is that we get implants to be more attractive and confident and then nature pulls its tricks on us and we wind up loosing our confidence and feel like a vain and foolish person in the process. Think about it, if you’re a single guy and get serious with a lady, you will eventually have tell her that you had implants and are on Rogaine etc…how will you feel about that? You may find people looking at you out of the corner of your eye and wonder if they are checking out your implants… Many people say, “Who cares what other people think?” Well, if you are thinking about getting implants, you must be somewhat concerned about what people think? So, please think long and hard about it before you do something that can’t be reversed. Carl

]]> http://baldrus.com/archives/transplant-terror-stories/feed/ 21 http://baldrus.com/archives/bald-man-of-the-year/ http://baldrus.com/archives/bald-man-of-the-year/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:31:03 +0000 Tony http://2010.baldrus.com/?p=43 Tony@baldrus.com]]>

General Ray Odierno, Commanding General, United States Forces – Iraq

We want to honor all of our Bald Military Heroes.  Please send us your nomination and their photo.  Send to Tony@baldrus.com

Yul Brynner was born in Sakhalin, Russia on July 11, 1915 and to celebrate his magnificent shaved dome and for being the iconoclast of baldness, Bald R Us has designated Yul Brynner’s birthday as The First Annual International Bald Holiday.“

International Bald Holiday
July 11th Annually

To honor bald men, on July 11th:

• Men around the globe will abandon their comb-overs, burn their hairpieces, flush their hair growth potions and shave off their hair transplants.
• Employers will be encouraged to give their bald employees the day off (or at least ½ day off).
• We will encourage restaurants to give a 50% discount to bald men & women.
• We will encourage clothing and other stores to offer discounts
• We will encourage baseball and other sports clubs to offer free entrance to all who are bald
• Women will get whiplash as they admire your passing pate
• We will set up testosterone donation centers for bald men to donate some of their abundance to the testosterone lacking hairy guys.

If you have additional suggestions as to how we can celebrate July 11th , or if you are a business owner, or have influence with the media or those who can either promote or contribute to The First Annual International Bald Holiday, please E-mail Tony@Baldrus.com

I know what it is like to worry if people know you are wearing a piece I know what it is like to be mad at Mother Nature because it is “too’ windy or sunny. I know what it is like to be with a bunch of people at a bar or out watching the game and an HCM commercial appears on TV (and you feel so uncomfortable). I know what it is like to be waiting between new systems because you are hoping that the next one will look better than the one you have on. I know what is like to regret every starting with the fake hair thing and knowing that you have to keep wearing it for the rest of your life even though you really want to take it off and throw it in the trash. I know what it is like to be scared to take the plunge and take the hair off. What will people say? Will they laugh? The answer is, I don’t know. But what I do know is that after the 2 days or so of anxiety that comes from seeing coworkers who had not seen the real me or friends who have never seen the bald me comes a new sense of freedom and pride in yourself that I know you have not felt in a long time.

My advice is to get rid of it… live your life as you. Don’t hide. Be proud…remember you got the fake hair to make yourself feel better about yourself and, if now you feel worse, just get rid of it. Everyday that goes by is one day more of feeling insecure. Get back control of your life. People do not make fun of bald men people make fun of bald men wearing hair or using combovers …be free, be you, be bold, be bald…

Jim

Dear Tony,

I just shaved my head Friday and I gotta tell ya it feels GREAT!! On top of that I unloaded my conscience and told my wife about being a hair club member (make that ex-member). She said she knew all along but she kept quiet so as not to embarrass me. Oh well I at least have a cleared conscience now and a cool head. Thanks for the advice.

A fellow bald guy,

Matthew

Shaved your head?  Thinking about it?  Let us know!  We may post your story here.

If you have a better way to keep your pate free of unwanted growth, please tell us about it and we will publish it here.