Experience with Dr. Pak - Los Angeles, CA

I had my first encounter with NHI about 7 years ago when they were in their Century City office. At that time, I was in my mid-20’s and hoping for a solution to my hair loss. It’s not me in to quit and I was determined not to quit in my battle with DHT or whatever was causing my hair loss. My hair loss came on pretty fast. I noticed I was avoiding social situations because “my hair just didn’t look right”, wearing a hat everywhere I went, and allowing hair loss to define my social life. Looking back, I missed out on a lot because I was afraid of Toppik or some other concealer washing out of my hair or being revealed in some way.

Through my research, I found that Dr. Rassman is a pioneer in the hair loss field and had a stellar reputation with both his peers and former patients. My initial and subsequent consultantions were with both Dr. Rassman and his associate, Dr. Pak. Both Dr. Rassman and Dr. Pak are quite personable, likeable, and professional. The staff is also courteous and seems happy to be at NHI.

Ultimately, Dr. Pak became my go-to doctor. Dr. Rassman was a bit out of my price range and I felt confident that Dr. Pak could deliver just as good – if not better – results than Dr. Rassman or any other of the “well-known” doctors out there. In fact, Dr. Pak performed Dr. Rassman’s hair transplant. I like Dr. Pak’s approach. He provides practical solutions that have been established and vetted by other experts and remains open-minded about other approaches.

At NHI, there are options for the traditional strip approach (leaves a linear scar, but yields more hair and is probably more efficient), FUE (avoids the linear scar, but has lower yield, is less efficient, and can still leave small white dot scars), SMP (scalp micro-pigmentation that creates an illusion of greater density without actually moving any hair), and a robotic assisted FUE (I do not have experience with this particular procedure).

Everyone has a different hair loss pattern and there can be an array of different plans to address an individual pattern. Since I already had a scar, I wanted to revise my existing scar. Dr. Pak was able to reduce the size of my existing hair while harvesting some hair and moving that to the top. Every surgery will leave a scar; the goal is to minimize the scar. At times, I have found it socially and professionally advantageous to have my hair shorter. Even under the best conditions: top doctor and ideal healing, there still will be a perceptible scar if the hair is cut shorter. Therefore, I found the FUE was useful in filling in the linear scar. This combined with SMP has been a great approach for me in minimizing the appearance of the linear scar.

I am one to thoroughly research an issue. There is a decent amount of information out there and a ton of misinformation regarding hair loss causes and potential solutions. There are also a multitude of various hair loss clinics providing a variety of services. It’s easy to fall for a product, program, service, or clinic that provides you an “exciting” or “novel” way of solving hair loss permanently. While the biotech industry seems to be pumping out a decent amount of innovation, there has yet to be a “cure” or permanent solution to hair loss. It’s only been about 10-12 years since I started my battle with hair loss and I have seen my fair share of new and “innovative” clinics, procedures, creams, lotions, and entire practices rise and fall. NHI has remained a constant and has a fairly balanced and pragmatic approach to the slew of “research” and “developments” in the field. They are open-minded to new ideas, but remain focused on what is proven and what works.

My experience with Dr. Pak has been extremely positive and I would highly recommend him to anyone else seeking a doctor in this particular field. I can tell that he sincerely cares about his patients. I am impressed by his technical expertise, creativity, and his compassion. Hair loss is extremely frustrating to deal with. Together, Dr. Pak and I came up with a plan for achieving the result I wanted within the parameters of what the current science allows. Perhaps when the science changes, we can update our goal and our plan. Regardless, I plan on continuing to follow up with him – they also have great ice cream at the office.