GHI,

I suppose it is all semantics.

I just think that stating that one procedure of 3948 grafts is deceiving. Many patients will interpret that is "in a single day". Please state how many days it took to perform each procedure in all of your posts to eliminate confusion. This should be stated in the subject as well.

You can add pictures to an album by clicking the "Edit Album" icon in the bottom right hand corner of the gallery.

Thanks,

Bill

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Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Larry,

Welcome to our forum community. I enjoyed "talking shop" with you a few days ago at the ISHRS meeting in Las Vegas. As you know, I've been a big sckeptic of FUE over the years for many reasons, including the big promises that have too often been followed by patient photos that show immediate post op results but very little follow up. Unfortunately, many of the physicians and clinics that were associated with FUE in the past had very low ethics and poor results at very expensive prices in my opinion.

I hope that you and your group will present FUE - both its pros and cons - responsibly online and thus establish legitamacy for this procedure.

I commend you for presenting long term follow up photos, which do show real improvement and good donor healing. Your use of the smaller 0.75 punch does also hold promise for truly minimizing cosmetically visible scarring in the donor area. Of course, successfully scoring and excising follicles with such a tiny punch with out transecting the follicles is very challenging.

I look forward to you disclosing more about your process in time.

Best wishes, Pat

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Pat,
Thank you for allowing us to post in this forum. We look forward to helping educate the community on both the negative and positive attributes for FUE and other procedures. We also look forward to your visit to our clinic.

You are correct, most offices who attempt to perform FUE have a very difficult time harvesting full, intact grafts. I experienced the same concerns when I first started working on the FUE procedure back in 2002. FUE is a skill set that must be practiced, evaluated, and practiced some more. The reason most offices are using larger punches is because they are incapable of harvesting 2-5 hair follicular units. We have spent the better part of the past five years attempting to perfect the FUE process with a .75mm punch. We have done this because this is the largest punch that can be used that will consistantly provide NON-VISIBLE SCARRING in the donor. Obviously the smaller the punch the more challenging it is to harvest multi-hair follicular units. We have spent the better part of the past year compiling data to prove our abilities in FUE. We are now able to harvest 2-5 hair units without comprimising the overall hair count. What we mean to say is we measure our transection rates by each transected hair per graft, not each transected graft. Example, if we attempt to harvest 100 grafts each with 3 hairs we will have a 2-5% transection rate. This means for the total 300 hairs, we will consistantly harvest 285-294 total hairs from the 100 grafts. We know this sounds impossible by todays standards, but we are willing to send in transection rate sheets to back up this claim. If you would like them, please give us a fax number and we will provide you with the documentation from the patient charts, names and dates excluded of course.

Now for the negatives of FUE. The one main negative would have to be the amount of time needed to perform this procedure. We have diligently tried to speed up the donor harvest. The problem is we are more concerned with accuracy than speed. To date we schedule our patients for 800-1000 FUE per day. A 3000 graft FUE case will take 3-4 days to perform. This is very taxing on the patient. When asked, the patients who have had both strip and FUE which method they preferred, the majority of them state they prefer FUE.

Another concern for FUE is the placement process. Due to the harvest, the FUE graft does not have adipose tissue around the base to aid in the placement of each graft. This makes placing FUE grafts very challenging. The graft, without the adipose, is extremely delicate. If the technician places the FUE graft as if it was a strip graft, often times the graft yield will be compromised due to damage at the bulb. We have worked out a two person placement technique that allows us to place these grafts without damaging the exposed dermal papilla.

FUE is just like any other advancement in medicine. The idea is impossible until some one takes the time to try and figure out the process. Remember, approximately 10 years ago, follicular unit transplants were impossible? Remember when 3000 graft strips were impossible?

We look forward to answering questions about our FUE procedure. If anyone has any additional questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

__________________
Patient Co-Ordinator
Global Hair Institute
I am a salaried employee of GHI.

GHI,

Thank you for a very honest post on FUE.

This is not a problem at all. Accuracy is far more important than speed. I rather go into FUE for 5 consecutive days to get a quality job than going in 1 or 2 days with a high transection rate. Yet I understand the benefit to expediting the procedure as long as accuracy is not compromised.

This is certainly a concern that I have heard a few times by reputable clinics yet sadly there are many that deny this as an obstacle to overcome. Can you describe your two person placement technique? I'd be interested to hear about it.

Once again, thank you for your honesty in recognizing the hurdles that need to be overcome in order to achieve a succesful FUE transplant. I look forward to learning more about your clinic in time.

Bill

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Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

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To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Bill,
We are by no means finished with learning about FUE and h/t in general. This is a new dawn in h/t, (please pardon the poetry).

The most important thought we took home from the ISHRS meeting is we need to learn more by true scientific method. Let us hypothosize a solution, then check it's merits,not the other way around.

We hate to be particular, but we are GHI, Global Hair Institute, not DHI.
Thank you,
GHI

__________________
Patient Co-Ordinator
Global Hair Institute
I am a salaried employee of GHI.

GHI,

Whoops...sorry about that. GHI is signficantly different than DHI. I did actually know that - my fingers just slipped .

Thanks,

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

View our hair loss articles on EZineArticles.com

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletters | How We Recommend Physicians

-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Mr. GHI

The photos look great, look forward to more with a follow up after one year.

Thanks for the candid view on FUE and listing the down sides to it. Just as strip has its down sides as well. The patient can make a better decision having all the info INCLUDING the risks and downsides.

Having said that, I think FUE will get better and better maybe improve on the use of body hair for transplants. While I do not think BHT is a solution by itself it can supplement or be used to fill in scars.

Bill,
We have uploaded additional photos. See the photo gallery and let us know if these are the kind of photos you would like to see.
Thank you for the help with our first couple of posts.
GHI

__________________
Patient Co-Ordinator
Global Hair Institute
I am a salaried employee of GHI.

GHI - these results look great. Moreover, it is refreshing to see an articulate and well-thought out case made for FUE with a full understanding of its problems and limitations. Do you have any other FUE mega-session photos you could share with us? I am interested in this procedure and have had consults with Feller and Armani. Feel free to PM me. Thanks.

Pat - interested to know whether you are intending to visit this clinic?

Perfect Fit,

Pat and GHI has a chance to meet face to face at the ISHRS conference. Pat and I have talked about GHI and I believe that Pat intends to visit them at some point in the future. I'll let Pat address the specifics because I don't know them

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

View our hair loss articles on EZineArticles.com

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletters | How We Recommend Physicians

-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.