HK500

I will agree with Bill and NNelly, for example you frequently hear that the plastic surgeons in Brazil are the best.... These general statements really do not mean anything until we narrow it down to the specifics (the Dr. name, his specialty area, his track record, etc ...), there is only 1 or 2 (can't remember exactly) HT Doc from Brazil recommended on our HTN site and I am sure that Brazil has tons of surgeons who claim being the best at doing HT. The results will affect you for the rest of your lifetime so why take a chance when there is no reason to?

That's quite an exotic discovery Pat, I guess I speak for most of of us located in North America. I will have to say that the work looks good from the photos presented to us. We have established high standards on this forum and if a US clinic was to present such photos we would immediately ask for better, more varied angles with accurate detail of the procedures such as grafts and hair counts, etc ... It's the only way to make sure, short of having a veteran member of the site experience a procedure personally.

Any volunteers?

I may sound overly cautious but to me the work I see from such pictures is inconclusive at best, the pictures do not substantiate much in an attempt to determine the quality level of this clinic, there are no after pictures shooting down on the hair (camera well above hair, lens axis perpendicular to the top of the scalp) in close up which is the most critical angle, as several members have previously posted we all know that thick wiry hair on a darker skin tone will look fantastically dense especially if the camera axis is mostly parallel to the top of the scalp. If I were the owner of this clinic I would not try to make a case before my dossier is fully ready to be inspected under a microscope by the members of our demanding forum.

Welcome to the board, I also concur with the experienced members who already replied to your post.

Get on Finasteride ASAP, preferably 1/4 Proscar/day it's very affordable, especially the generic version.

Check your progress after 6 months and then one year with pictures taken from the same angles and the same lighting.

You should be getting nice results from the medication and you're still too young to get a HT so Finasteride and Nizoral or Nioxin shampoos are your best bets.

The first step for you would be to post pictures here or even better post an album and you'll get lot's of good advice from experienced members.

Welcome to the Board,

You'll find a wealth of information on this forum and it's affiliated sites if you are willing to take the time to read and learn from the members and their experiences.

1- It would help if you posted several pictures of your hair, many members will give you unbiased evaluations.

2- Are you on Finasteride and if so for how long? (Propecia, Proscar)

3- Stick with the recommended Doctors or even better, the Coalition Doctors.

4- Yes, the price quoted seems higher than most, most Docs will give a discount after the first 2000 or 2500 grafts.

We are all looking forward to your pictures and further discussions.

You're not going to get much better than H&W anyway, the donor site scar will be very well handled, IMHO the density/thickness of the hair around the donor site is the main factor not the color.

Darn Hair Trouble

Fascinating Cousin, thanks for this and please keep us posted on the future developments.

Hello D A Y,

Hairbank gave you good advice. The good news is that your relatives seem to have kept a mostly abundant head of hair, even though this is not always a reliable indication it is a positive reference in your favor. Definitely go see a dermatologist AND a HT Dr., you'll hear interesting opinions, you're too young for a HT but the HT surgeon will give you an evaluation based on a different perspective from the dermatologist, and finally use this forum and read and learn as much as you can, the information you find here will be more helpful than anything else.

Redness is almost always very temporary, mine disappeared in less than one month. The cobblestoning or pitting, I like to compare it to the dimples of a golf ball, I don't think you can say dimpling though, anyway, this is an issue I have and I am not happy about it because it'll never go away, one Doc told me it was because the blades were too large, the Doc who did the HT said it's because of too much depth ..... I think it may have to do with both, but I suspect the instrument size is the main culprit.

Nice report Bill, I wonder if we have any members located in Florida, it might be worthwhile looking into this further since they made an invitation to whitness a HT.

I got a call back from DHI this am, I had e-mailed my pics and the same Dr. J. Ravid called me back. He said he was glad to speak with a patient who knew what HT is about since many patients even after several HT still do not understand the finer points. I found out they are HQ'd in Greece and he wants to schedule me for late January in Florida (their only US facility) when the world renown master who trained him will be in town (I did not get his name). I had requested a density of at least 40/cm2 in the frontal area only and some temple point and density work also, all based on 1200 FU by strip removal. He said they could easily get to 60/cm2 + thanks to their unique instruments and techniques. He agreed that would be a good count but he prefered it to be around 1500 to 2000. They can do up to 2500 in one sitting. They only count hairs and not FU's (Pat would love them ), so my 1200 FU's with strip excision is obviously not quite relevant. They will, for example, extract a 3 hair FU in one punch and transplant it in one punch, if they cannot obtain enough single hair FU (they are careful to not transplant multiple hair FU close to the hairline), they will subdivide them in single hairs and transplant them as such. The price structure is $8.00 PER HAIR, but he discounted it to $5.00 per hair for me. They have a guarantee of successful regrowth, he told me it's made public on the website and legally binding and if they did not stand behind their work he would be out of business.

I am looking forward to your comments.

From your pictures it all looks good, sometimes it takes a year before you'll see serious growth, at 6 months you usually have a nice spurt, you seem to be on track from your pictures, keep in mind that everybody's metabolism is a bit different.

We call it BHT (body hair transplant), run a search, you'll find a lot of info here, I'm afraid it's not very positive so far.

Isn't Billonhead's frontal hairline a bit high? His temple points do not even cover his cheekbones .... I dunno about this Dr. Mobogo .....

Chucky,

Thanks for relating your experience with DHI, sorry to hear it went that way. I read in the DHI website that they offer a GUARANTEE, how can they get away with such a low hair survival rate after extraction and transplantation and not come through on their guarantee? Did you call them on that and what was their response? When they extract a Multiple FU of say, 3 hairs, do they extract it as one FU? And do they transplant it as a single whole 3 hair FU or do they slice as 3 individual one hair FU and then transplant 3 separate FU?

Cousin,

I'd think Dr. Mobogo would have the best advice regarding UV's since he sounds like he's from a sub tropical climate ....

Ooohhh, yeah, I forgot, you first have to track him down ....

I have not been to H & W but from all the readings and testimonials I would feel 100% confident going there. The questions you have would be best answered by calling the office directly, many US patients fly to Vancouver for their HT's so by running a search you'll find their stories here (all positive) I don't recall someone flying in from the UK though.

I saw the pictures, you have to navigate the site a bit, the most disturbing one is the opened scalp before strip closure .... the others are just obvious scars form previous strip HT's and what looks like a reduction but the patients are shaved so obviously .... Why would you do that anyway? (I mean shave this way to reveal your scars)

I looked at the website and called them today, I have to get a quote after they see my pictures, I'll report back here when I have more news.

Nice work, you should be very happy with the results, I am looking forward to seeing your pictures at 3 months.

Definitely, if you run the search "Find a Surgeon" at the top of this page you are able to find Coalition surgeon Keene

In the others to consider:

Paul Straub in Torrance

You got good advice from NervousNelly, the more reading you do on this forum the more familiar you'll be with the most modern techniques, look at the photo albums (in this forum) and the member's hair blogs by clicking on their links, mine is posted below. You'll probably get decent results from your HT from seeing your photo and you'll have the knowledge to expand your choices should you want another one.

He should be open minded about it. Another solution is this: set up a free consultation with a HT Dr. and at the end ask him to write it up for you, he should do it no problem, for free and you'll have gotten a consult out of it as well, if he is nice he might even give you some free Propecia samples . Two birds with one stone .....