Eyebrow Transplant - choose your provider wisely!

Last year I had an eyebrow transplant done with Dr. Maas in San Francisco. Although he comes across as knowledgeable and experienced, my surgery and post-surgery results have proven otherwise. First of all, Dr. Mass was late on the date of surgery and I saw him when I was already heavily sedated. He never drew the shape of eyebrows on me that I could agree on and proceeded to cut the back of my head to get the donor hairs. As I found out later, after Dr. Maas placed random holes in my eyebrows, two inexperienced right after med school residents got to work placing hairs randomly into my eyebrows. As a result, I ended up with uneven eyebrows, with hairs placed in wrong directions that I had hard time managing. The whole procedure was done in 3 hours, which is extremely fast because usually an eyebrow trsnsplant procedure takes at least 5 hours. When I was leaving and looked at myself in the mirror, my eyebrows were sparse and looked assymetrical and of not similar density. Needless to say, I was not happy, but hoped the eyebrows would get better. Wrong expectations. After the surgery, Dr. Maas did not even bother to see me. He sent his resident for almost all follow-up appointments except one where he gave me some ludicrous explanations why my hairs were growing in the wrong directions and do not even cover my eyebrow tatoo. The last straw was when I had to wait for him for two hours. I ended up leaving with the decision to never come back.
Instead, I started researching doctors who specialize in eyebrow transplants to fix Dr. Maas' botched job and came across Dr. Dauer and Dr. Epstein. Having read multiple reviews and looked at multiple before and after photos, I decided to go with Dauer as eyebrow and hair transplants are the only procedures that he does as opposed to Dr. Epstein who performs other procedures. After a Skype consultation with Dr. Dauer discussing pros and cons of an eyebrow transplant and his approach to the procedure, I knew I would be in good hands.
Fast forward a few months, I flew to LA for my procedure. After I filled out the paperwork, Dr. Dauer came in and drew the shape of eyebrows that we agreed upon followed up by markings with a pen. I took an antibiotic and something calming and was taken to the operation room where the doctor did the cut to get a strip of my hair to harvest transplants, closed the wound and then made holes in my eyebrow for transplants. Then his technician (only one) started painstakingly putting hairs in the direction of the eyebrow growth. When she was done, I was given an opportunity to look at my eyebrows and make suggestions. Dr. Dauer came back several times to take look as well and make a few tweaks. The same process was followed on the other eyebrow. The whole procedure took approximately 7 hours. What also impressed me that a technician who was separating the hairs for transplants noticed a few hairs with white roots (grays) and told me that she would eliminate those (who wants gray eyebrows?) This kind of attention to detail from the staff and from the doctor who came back at least three times at the very end of the procedure suggesting additional hairs to be put in, confirmed that I chose the right doctor.
After the procedure, I got severe swelling and bruising in both eyes, which was expected, but my eyebrows look full and have a perfect shape. See pics 4, 5 and 6. I will post more updates as my healing process continues.
All in all, I was very satisfied with the procedure. Now I hope that most of transplants will take ( I had roughly 250 grafts put in into each eyebrow) and I will never have to spend time in the morning drawing my eyebriws. Dr. Dauer and his staff are true professionals who have experience, skills and more importantly the degree of care about their patients and the outcome of their procedures, that truly stand out compared to other doctors. I only wish I went to see him in the first place.

I haven’t washed my eyebrows yet, but started noticing some sparse areas, which I hope will blend in with the rest of the eyebrow once the hairs fall out and then regrow.

The scabs are almost gone and a few hairs fell out. However, the eyebrows are still full and I don’t need to wear makeup.