A man whose receding hairline left him "looking like Dracula" has revealed how he turned to hair transplant surgery after cruel "jokes" chipped away at his confidence.
Jamie Robinson was desperate to style his hair like celeb heart-throbs David Beckham, Harry Styles and Justin Bieber, but instead found himself combing his hair forward in a bid to hide his his thinning, receding hair.
"David Beckham was the number one guy I wanted to emulate. He changes his hair every six months and looks fantastic with all of them," Jamie, from Burnley in Lancashire, recalled.
"At the time there were all these young lads like Justin Bieber, Harry Styles and Zayn Malik. All these blokes were trying all these hairstyles and I remember thinking it would nice to at least have the option. The frustration was the option being taken off me. If I slicked my hair back then I looked like Dracula."
The then-27-year-old's confidence continued to plummet after work colleagues started "bantering" about his hair, and making jokes about his hairline making him appear older.
"When I was working in a factory setting, the little jabs started coming from the lads. They said things like 'how old are you now? One strong gust of wind and that'll be gone' and all that sort of stuff," he said.
"Obviously with fellas it's just seen as banter but stuff like that starts to make you think 'is there something wrong here?'
"Looking back at older pictures I did think 'my god it has gone back and the condition is nowhere near good enough'. It mainly affected me in the sense that I was limited to what hairstyles I could do.
"It affected my confidence as I didn't have the freedom to style it as I wanted and was limited to just one hairstyle - a short back and sides with my hair combed forward. I'd see people on telly where they'd have quiffs and long hair and slick backs and I was getting frustrated with that."
Although Jamie had always been interested in the prospect of a hair transplant, he had no desire to travel abroad for surgery. It wasn't until he saw Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson talking about his procedure on This Morning in April 2018 that he discovered he could have the treatment done here in the UK.
He said: "I'd never risk a surgery abroad because there would be no aftercare so I just dismissed the idea. But one morning I was having breakfast watching telly and George Sampson was on This Morning discussing a hair transplant he'd had at Juvida.
"He showed before and after pictures and after seeing that I did a bit of research and discovered it was only a 40-minute drive away from me. The concept of a hair transplant clinic being so close had never crossed my mind.
"When I thought of hair transplants in England I thought of Wayne Rooney spending £30,000 in Harley Street but this was a 40-minute drive away in Skipton and cost £5,495."
The then-aerospace engineer underwent an eight-hour procedure at their Skipton clinic where individual follicles were taken from the back of his head and inserted into sparse areas of his scalp by hand.
Just 12 months after having the procedure in August 2018, Jamie was able to proudly style his locks in a variety of ways, sending his confidence "through the roof" - so much so that he also bagged himself a girlfriend.
And, it wasn't just Jamie who was thrilled with the results, colleagues who'd previously teased him and advised him to "go bald gracefully" were soon eating their words.
Jamie said: "I worked with a lot of 40 and 50-year-olds who had the attitude of 'just go bald gracefully'. We're in an era now where men don't want to go bald.
"Some people look great bald and that's fantastic but I look like a bag of potatoes with a bald head when it's shaved. At first I had a load of grief from people at work but I thought 'I can either run from it and try and keep it secret or I can tackle it head on'."
With Jamie's permission, Juvida shared photos of his before and after, and it wasn't long before someone he knew saw them online and shared them trying to make fun of him.
"I posted a status saying 'we're in an era where women can transform everything - lips, boobs and bum - and no-one bats an eyelid. Why is there a stigma with men?' Because I tackled it head-on I took away the power of anyone trying to give me grief," he said.
"After that and a year later those comments soon were 'wow best decision you ever made, it looks amazing'. It came full circle."
After receiving hundreds of messages from other men contemplating the procedure, Jamie eventually ended up giving up his job and going to work for the clinic as a patient consultant to help others through the same journey.
"What I love most about my job is seeing men whose confidence has gone and seeing them take the plunge and seeing their transformation over the course of a year, it's the greatest feeling ever," he said.
"The procedure has been life-changing for me, I look younger, I feel younger and my confidence has gone through the roof.
"I've also become friends with the people who did the treatment and now become colleagues with them. It's given me a new career path and I have a more fulfilled life because I get to help hundreds of men."
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