About Dr. Aflatoon
My journey in hair restoration started more than 30 years ago. In medical school, I met a great classmate, Max, who was 10 years older than me at the time. This very smart microbiologist had a Ph.D. degree from Southwestern University in Texas but decided to change his career to become a physician. He and I became very close friends and subsequently roommates.
Max was slightly out of shape and had lost almost most of his hair. His personality was very reserved and timid. He did not really enjoy going out to meet others and was a homebody.
One day, while we were studying, Max opened up. He revealed that he had developed significant depression and anxiety about his hair loss. Max started to lose his hair in his mid-twenties. By the time he turned thirty, he had lost most of his hair. He felt unattractive and depressed about this change in his appearance and felt that everyone was looking at his bald head.
Over time, Max had become very insecure and withdrawn. He was looking to make a change in his appearance and address his insecurities. Max had discovered a physician at the university who offered hair transplant procedures and, after a consultation, made the decision to proceed with the transplantation. He wanted me to be present for his procedure.
At the time I was a bit baffled by his thought process. I had no idea how hair loss had such a significant emotional and subsequent social impact on a person’s life. But I reassured him that I would accompany him to his procedure and would support him all the way.
The day of Max’s surgery, the nurse shaved the back of his head, and his scalp was anesthetized. A sharp knife slashed the back of his scalp from ear to ear… a “shark bite” was taken and handed over to a nurse. Blood was squirting all over the place. His skin was sizzled by a cautery to prevent bleeding. Now he had only half of his residual hair on the back of his head. Sutures were used to close the gap. He was jumping around like a fish from pain.
Meanwhile, the nurse on the other side was going to town on this piece of skin. She took out an instrument that looked like a small cookie cutter. The nurse turned the skin into hundreds of small round pieces with tiny hairs sticking out. These pieces looked like a small round green pea. And the original skin now looked like a byproduct of a shotgun adventure.
Our esteemed dermatologist grabbed another sharp knife. Several slits were made on top of his scalp. The small pea-size skin pieces were then pushed inside those slits… I could not have been more shocked by this crazy process. Yes, this was how hair transplant procedures were done in 1992. It was the best that could have been offered to patients at the time – I will never forget this horrific experience.
I went on to become an orthopedic surgeon, then a sub-specialist in orthopedic oncology and subsequently spinal surgery. Over the years, I have done a significant number of flaps and skin transfers to cover defects. Every time I look at a skin transfer, the preserved hairs remind me of the horrific operation I witnessed in 1992.
Over the past decade, significant advancements have been made in hair restoration procedures and technology. We have learned that we can take one hair follicle at a time – instead of the cookie cuts and pea size transfers that had horrific outcomes. These follicles can be taken one at a time and transferred to a new location on the scalp using a transfer method known as Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE).
Having had such a traumatic experience at my young age, I set out to learn more about this exciting new procedure. I traveled the world and witnessed the procedure done in different manners. All were done by harvesting one hair at a time, using small handheld devices, by a hair specialist technician. This was a much more reasonable procedure than I had witnessed several decades earlier. But it was a bit tedious and required significant concentration. Imagine removing thousands of individual hair follicles one at a time… after a while, fatigue sets in and mistakes can happen.
A couple of years ago, I was driving in Cyprus when I noticed a billboard on the highway promoting a robotic hair transplant option. This was the first time that I had heard about this technology. I was not sure if my eyes were playing tricks with me… ROBOTIC HAIR TRANSPLANT! I had to learn more about this technology.
After doing some research on Google, I realized that the robot was being made back home in California. I had never heard anything about this back in California where I lived, and instead had to find out on an island thousands of miles away.
Once home, I was determined to acquire the technology and offer it to my patients. I was mad that I had to find out about this robot on a billboard in Cyprus! What if I had never gone to Cyprus? Why hadn’t this been better promoted in America? The robot takes the fatigue out of the procedure. This machine with AI technology can take the hair follicles one at a time. It was a game changer.
I have now established a state-of-the-art facility equipped with the latest hair restoration robot system in Huntington Beach and set out to help all those who suffer from a balding head. It’s my goal for no one to suffer emotionally, mentally, or socially like my friend Max – or for them to suffer a barbaric procedure like he did.
