Bayer

bro66, Can you provide pictures? Who is your doctor and have you been in touch with him/her? Do you have redness, itching, or any other problems aside from pain? Please advise. Bayer

Hi JohnC, Welcome to the forums. I think that having found this site prior to your next HT will be a real help. Although Los Angeles is well known for plastic surgery, the best HT doctors are geographically dispersed. Please see the following link for some top notch doctors. http://www.hairlosslearningcenter.org/hair-loss-content...s/our_physicians.asp While you will find some of these doctors closer to your location than others, I think that geography should not be your primary determinant. You should view before/after pictures and have consultations with various doctors on the list. Can you share any pictures with us? Also, are you currently on finasteride? If not, this would be vital in maintaining your existing hair. Feel free to post any questions. Bayer

Hey Middleson, I think I snuck into the January Club by way of my HT on January 30. My HT was for the front 1/3 and I had a lot of shock loss in both the donor and recipient areas. Good news is that both areas are starting to fill in, but as you guys can relate to, the waiting game is hard to play. I will be updating my pictures again at the end of May (4 months). Best of luck. I think that we are through the worst! Bayer

The hairline looks great and the post-op result is incredibly clean. A few recent posters have been interested in having HT done several months before a wedding - not a good idea in my estimation. June 2008 - you have planned this well. At 13 months post-op you will have the full benefit of your procedure. Bayer

Gossamer, Snagging a scab to the point of pulling it out would result in quite a bit of bleeding. From what you have mentioned, I don't think that this has happened to you. Bacitracin is a good idea. Another thing you might want to try is washing your hair before you go to bed, sleeping with a shower cap on while your hair is wet, and then washing your hair in the morning. You might look a bit silly but this works. I picked this up from Dr. Bernstein's site. Cheers Bayer

Alec, I would not classify the Bosley procedure as "normal". Bosley and MHR are "hair mills" with high doctor turnover and high patient throughput. If you perform a "search" under these names on the site, you will find a very low level of satisfaction. You should be looking for a doctor who uses Follicular Unit Transplantation. This produces a much more refined look than "minigrafts" or "micrografts". As far as the "flap" is concerned, this is an outdated and grossly invasive procedure that has often produced disfiguring results. The best advice that I can provide is for you to view pictures of various doctors' work and read the comments of the most unbiased people - the patients. Bayer

A couple of warning signs - the site mentions micrografts, minigrafts and Fleming/Meyer flap. I have no doubt that they would claim to be the best, but from the avaiable information I think that there are better options. Bayer

Gossamer, I was a bit of a "Scab Champion". If you check my pictures, you will see what I mean. I am not sure about long term ramifications. I am growing well at this point, but the final judgement is still months away. My doctor said there will be no long term effects - for what that's worth. Be sure to keep the scabs moist and per Bill's instructions, use your fingertips in a circular motion. Regarding the comb, be careful not to snag any scabs that are still attached to your scalp. Wishing you speedy healing. Bayer

Why is it acceptable to make "bald" remarks around the office? "Fat" remarks directed at people are termed as discriminatory or belittling.

Great follow up, Pat. Of course you should be spending your time doing all of this for free . The fact that doctors are "dropping like flies" from this site addresses the issue of uneducated potential HT candidates viewing this site as credible. Here's to Dr. Goertz swimming on his own. I was just in this site and it has been totally skinned down - no forum. Bayer

Bill, Unbelievable growth. I think that the naturalness of the hairline and overall thickness is really something. Lose the hat! Bayer

I just tried to post on the Doc's Hairclub site to get PFew to address the email exchange between Pat and Dr. Goertz. As I attempted to post, I received the following message: "You have posted to a moderated forum. Your message will not be available until it has been approved. A moderator will review your post shortly. Thank you." Censorship is alive and well! Anyone attempting to post work not approved by the member docs will likely be punted. Bayer

See that Irish Homer has volunteered for European shilling, could I have the Canadian rights? Bayer

Good balanced approach Pat. Leaving previous posts/points in place and providing a time out with a potential for return seems quite sensible. Aren't emails great? Nothing beats the ability and haul out the evidence. Wonder how long your posts and those of members of our Forum will survive on the Docs' Network? Bayer

Congratulations Pfew, through "Blizzard Posting" you have moved up to being a "Hard Core" member! Bayer

Pat, I certainly cannot be accused of being a shill - I had my HT surgery from a non-Coalition doctor and have received nothing but a warm welcome, candid advice, and great support from you and Forum members. One of the "suspected paid", Janna, has been a wonderful source of information and encouragement as well. No argument from me with you making a buck, this is no different from anyone else that works. My thought in banning PerfectFew (Goertz) is that this would provoke a retaliatory ban from the Doc's Hair Club for Men. Unsuspecting balding brothers may stumble onto this site, thinking that they are getting good advice. The criteria for this site permit a local doctor referred to as "Dr. Punch" to be part of this list. I flew halfway across the country to escape his clutches, and would hate to see others fall into the hands of this individual and "doctors" of his kind. As disruptive as this individual is, my vote is to hold the fort and let PFew run. Intelligence will prevail! Bayer

Markky_03, I'll confirm what Bill has mentioned regarding shockloss. This happened to me and my recipient area is only now beginning to look normal - 3 1/2 months post-op. There is no guarantee that my experience would repeat itself for you - but it is certainly a possibility. With something as important as a wedding happening shortly, I would be hesitant to proceed at this time. Bayer

Orion, I looked back through your blog and see a lot of progress over the last month. There is something to be said for the advice of "being patient" that many posters on this site advocate. The uneven growth can be annoying, but I think that this will balance over time - my right side is ahead of my left side. Keep on growing! Bayer

Pat, I would be very interested to know why Coalition doctors would sully their own reputations by being on the same site as the doctor (Goertz) who produced the work which you shared this morning. There may be something I am not seeing here, but this does not make sense from what I perceive their "business" point of view might be. Bayer

Here goes some paranoid thinking. Goertz is in reasonable geographic proximity of H & W. No Canadian doctors are permitted on the new site. Is the H & W quality killing Goertz's business and is this his attempt at retaliation? Bayer

Ricky, Read your last post and was going to reply. Then I saw that Bill said it all... I just have one thing to add...I am 44 and still want a full thick high school head of hair. Hair greed is a lifetime thing. Don't make decisions based on the timing of breaks. Bayer

The doldrums do suck. B spot, Not to keep whining about the shock loss thing, but you really gotta hate it when the previously existing crop isn't around to provide camouflage. Glad to see they stuck around for someone! Bayer

Ricky, I will address the shock loss issue only, as I agree with the others concerning your age and the use of meds. If you look at my pics in the photo section, you will see that I had extensive recipient area shock loss. I believe that all pre-existing hair will come back, except for any native hair that would have been lost over the next year. Also,just because it happened in my case does not make it a certainty for you or others, but it is a possibility. This is likely not welcome news, but I do want to give the straight goods. Bayer

There are lots of items on the consent form, but I thought I would focus on the topic of donor area scarring, as this appears to have been a hot topic lately. "In the donor area, the ellipse of donor skin is removed, and then the two edges on either side of the gap of where the donor strip was, are pulled together and stapled closed. This usually, heals with a fine, white, very faint, pencil sized linear scar, which in 90% of our cases is less then 1 mm wide. In perhaps 9% of the total number of patients, the donor area heals having a linear scar of between 1 and 2 mm wide, In perhaps of about 1 in 1,000 of our cases,a scar is left that is between 2 and 4 mm wide. We cannot remember seeing a scar wider than 5 mm wide that resulted from one of our own surgeries. However, it's likely that sooner or later it may happen. These wider than usual scars can result from the way that the patient's skin heals. Often, if one examines the rest of the patient's skin carefully, one finds evidence of other large scars. Even scars from simple acne, in these patients who make wide hair transplant scars, may have resulted in big pits and craters. With the majority of patients, the resulting scar from a hair transplant should be very slight, usually less than 1 mm wide, so that even with backcombing, the scar should not be too obvious. Certain individuals, especially those who have had multiple sessions and heal poorly, may develop a sizeable scar; but provided that the patient does not shave the scalp, and lets the hair grow to at least 3/4" in length at the back, the scar should not show. The small minority of patients who choose to have their heads shaved after a hair transplant, have to understand that the scar may be readily visible. Those individuals, who plan to shave their heads after a hair transplant, should not have the procedure performed in the first place!" The above is the verbatim text on the consent form which I received several weeks before my procedure. The simple fact is, ANY surgery will leave a scar - anyone stating otherwise is not being truthful. The presence of a certain length of hair allows for the inevitable scars of a hair transplantation to be hidden (unless something goes horribly wrong). Case in point, I recently had surgery on my left eye. The surgeon made the incision through the crease of my eyelid. There is a scar, of course, but it is hidden in the crease and therefore cleverly camouflaged.

Hi Bill, Interesting comments by Dr. Cooley. I had no donor area shock loss from my first two small Bosley (Yikes!) HT's, but my January 2007 FUT (3500 grafts) produced significant loss. The multiple procedure theory may have substance.