I Got a Hair Transplant Before My Wedding

When I was in high school, I started to notice thinning along my part line. At first, I assumed it was just damage from my flatiron. I used it daily because I wanted my hair to look like everyone else’s at school. (It was the Abercrombie era, and everyone had straight hair.) My mom tried to get me to give my hair a break, but I didn’t listen. I did hope that if I stopped heat styling, it would get better, though. Around that same time, I was diagnosed with PCOS.

In my mid-20s, I finally gave up my flatiron and started embracing my natural texture. I stopped flat-ironing my hair and started deep-conditioning daily. My hair became significantly healthier, but the thinning didn’t stop. That’s when I realized something else had to be going on.

Eventually, I saw a dermatologist who sent me to an endocrinologist, and I got the diagnosis: androgenic alopecia, a form of hair loss caused by hormonal imbalance. I felt like I’d wasted years being in denial and I blamed myself. I didn’t want to believe I was balding, and I didn’t want to stop heat-styling my hair, so I left it untreated for longer than I’d like to admit.

I tried everything I could, from oral and topical minoxidil, spironolactone, to PRP injection and microneedling. Some treatments helped a little, but the top of my scalp stayed thin. I wouldn’t leave the house without using root powder to make it look denser and less noticeably thin. I never wore my hair up because there wasn’t enough hair on the top of my head. I’d delete photos if my thinning part showed, and I’d make people untag me on Instagram. I hated how much it impacted my daily life.

When I got engaged, my first thought was excitement. My second thought was my hair. I didn’t want to look back at my wedding photos and only see my scalp. It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, and I knew I wouldn’t feel confident unless I felt good about my hair.

With the support of my fiancé and family, I decided to get a hair transplant.

I chose to do FUE, follicular unit extraction, in Brazil, where I’m originally from, at Instituto Fio a Fio with Dr. Tales Coutinho. The cost was significantly more affordable than in the U.S. (less than $2,500), and I found a highly reviewed doctor with a lot of experience working with women. That last part really mattered to me. That meant they didn’t pressure me to have a larger donor area for extraction. Most men are comfortable with this because they don’t mind a buzz cut, but it wasn’t a look I was comfortable with. My scalp wasn’t as advanced in baldness as a typical male patient’s anyway, so it wasn’t necessary to extract as many follicles. The doctor agreed.

The day of the procedure was, weirdly, kind of chill. They numbed my scalp with local anesthesia, but I was awake the whole time. That part stung a little, but once it kicked in, I didn’t feel pain, just some light pressure of someone touching my head. I was so calm, I even had a protein shake snack break mid-procedure. It did feel like it took forever and got boring, but once I was done, they wrapped my head and sent me home.

I had to sleep upright for about a week, surrounded by neck pillows to keep my head from bobbing. That was uncomfortable but manageable. The worst part was the itchiness — like, can’t-think-straight itchiness. Apparently, that’s normal and is a sign the follicles are growing. My clinic gave me a thermal water spray to help soothe it, and I definitely kept that close by at all times. I also had one ingrown hair that turned into a pimple, but it healed on its own with regular washing and didn’t cause any major setbacks.

What I didn’t expect was how emotional the healing process would be. On day one, I was horrified looking at my bloody scalp, scabs, and half-shaved head. I knew it was temporary, but it still triggered intense anxiety. What if it didn’t work? What if I’d made a mistake?

The wound was jarring and bloody. You can’t wash your scalp immediately after surgery because it could disrupt the newly implanted follicles. After nearly a full day of having needles poke at your scalp to implant the hairs, there’s quite a bit of bleeding. The hair on top was caked with blood, and a cluster of small white dots, each marking an implant site.

I was also anxious that the shaved area in the back wouldn’t grow back.
Within a few weeks, the scabs fell off. I was still very cautious, though, because it was a wound. I mostly stayed inside, and if I had to go out, I wore a hat. I wasn’t hiding, my friends and family knew I’d had it done, but I was focused on healing properly, so I avoided most activities to reduce the risk of infection.

Around month three, my hair started to grow in, and by six months, I could see a real difference. The transplanted hair was about two-to-three inches long by then and blended in naturally. By the time my wedding came around ten months later, I wore a slicked-back updo, something I never would have even considered before the transplant. (I did add some extensions as well.) I do still take Nutrafol and use oral and topical minoxidil to support growth, but I’m tapering off the oral meds soon. I didn’t want to stay on oral minoxidil long-term because of side effects like excessive hair growth on the face, legs, arms, and rest of my body and the potential impacts on pregnancy down the line. These are common side effects with oral hair-growth drugs — if your hair is growing more in one place, it’s growing more in others — and my doctor did say the growth might stop, but that doesn’t mean that the implanted hairs fall out; they just stop growing as fast.

It might sound trivial, but something as simple as your part line can really affect your self-image. It wasn’t just insecurities about my looks, but rather a constant reminder that something was wrong with me.

The results have exceeded my expectations — I’ve stopped obsessing over photos. I wear my hair however I want, especially in updos.