newbie33

What's the significance of that?

Sean, I agree with what you're getting at. Trouble is, manual - by the dictionary definition - just means by hand. So it's a bit ambiguous and leads some doctors to say any handheld device is a manual procedure. (Manus is hand in Latin... And learning is fun, kids!). I agree with the sentiment of the video and many of comments so far. Thanks for doing it, chaps. Would be interested in you thoughts on European doctors who to varying degrees do not themselves score and/or extract the grafts, though it is done without mechanical devices. This goes for some I'd consider the best, such as Lorenzo and Feriduni. We can probably all agree the most risky are those technician-led clinics where pretty much the entire procedure is done by non-doctors. But can a well-trained tech get the grafts out as good as the doctor whose name is above the door (with the doctor making the recipient incisions himself)? And a thought occurs to me as I write 'himself'. It nearly always is a male surgeon. Why is that? Answers on a postcard, please, to...

Good luck chap! Enjoy!

Kevin I was just about to reply with similar comments to Delancey. A full head of hair - even the illusion of a full head of hair - is probably not going to be achieved. So, then, is it worth it? Spending $20 - $30 - $40k of your money. Lord knows how much of your time and worry. To achieve a result you might not be happy with (and bear in mind I think the most difficult thing to convey on here, or in person, is what your expectations actually are - they vary significantly). That said, if you want to pursue it, or at least want to get a better idea of what is possible, then I reckon you're looking in the right direction. Get an in-person consultation with H&W, and maybe the others near you. You can get a feel for how many grafts you've got in the bank, how far they will go and over how many procedures. It's also worth thinking about your hair loss progressing further - those lateral humps might not be there forever - and how that might be prevented (meds) and how it might impact future procedures. Then it's a question of how much all of what you've been told is achievable matches your expectation and if, to you, it is worth doing. (I suspect at the end of all that, you'll end up with a plan to get a very conservative hairline, with a focus on the front third... and after that, seeing how far the grafts will take you). Good luck buddy. PS. hair system = wig.

Thanks all. Especially your pictures Matt. Wasn't how I'd expect it to look... and as the others said, not sure most people who aren't in the know would realise what it was.

Reminds me of:

Hello Dr F My Latin is rusty - that means you did it 'in house', as in your own practice did the previous strip scar, right? If so, what was the logic behind an fue now and not another strip surgery? Thanks.

I've been trying to find examples of how 'average' strip scars look when hair is wet and the scalp becomes more visible. Can't say I'm really found what I'm looking for. For those who've seen or have a strip scar. How visible/noticeable is it when your hair is wet e.g get caught in the rain, go swimming, washing your hair etc.

I will say this for Dr Feller: He has single-handedly revived into common usage the previously almost archaic word 'adjunct'.

Dr Alexander too. Here he is on it: ARTAS Robotic Hair Transplant Biltmore - Phoenix ARTAS Hair Transplant There's some tv footage of Rahal's first patient (or at least one of the first) done using Artas too. He fell of the radar pretty quickly, so who knows if his result was any good (i.e. it probably wasn't very good). Rahal does manual extractions now (and when I say Rahal, I mean his clinic as opposed to him doing it all). Personally, at this stage in its development, I wouldn't get a HT using Artas even if it was free.

Hello Dr Bhatti I said it. I was trying to simplify - perhaps too much - the steps of hair transplants (both fue and strip). So 'extraction' in fue was scoring the graft and pulling it out. But I take your point that cutting around the graft and taking the graft out can be done as two steps by different people. In practise, I've seen the entire extraction (scoring and pulling out) by the surgeon; scoring only by the surgeon and it being taken out by a tech/another doctor; and both scoring and extraction done by a tech, or not the doctor whose name is above the door, so to speak. But thanks for pointing it out. It's another useful thing for people to note when they consider this procedure and who will be doing what. Agree with much of what you say about this topic, especially who does what during an fue procedure.. I guess the doctors who don't do very much of the procedure would point to their results and say what you're buying is their ability to run a clinic (based on their judgement, training, trust in staff etc.) that produces the overall result. As ever with these things, you pays your money and takes your chance.

That's about as realistic a result(s) as I've ever seen for SMP.

I've never seen a good result from this clinic - Lord knows how people end up there. But it's a leap - perhaps a needlessly alarmist leap - to say they're knowingly exposing people to HIV infection.

Lobotomies are a SCARLESS procedure!!! ;-)

Hair transplant: Surgical procedure for removing hair from an area of scalp containing hairs with a high resistance to DHT - and therefore more resistant to baldness - to an area of the scalp with hairs highly susceptible to baldness. Lobotomy: Surgical procedure for severing neurological pathways between the prefrontal cortex and anterior frontal lobes of the brain, leading to inertia and infantilism. So, basically, we can say a lobotomy is the best cure for anyone worrying about baldness.

Looks like you had a relatively small area to fill in and a fairly routine number of grafts required to fill it. How come he said he couldn't achieve the density in one pass?

I can see what you mean about some gaps, though I'm not sure I'd bother to fix it for a while longer. I wonder if this is partly as a result if it being done by FUE? Did you ask Dr Devroye about his thoughts on fue vs strip? And particularly about yield rates? For what it's worth, I've always thought Dr Devroye and Dr Feriduni did the most naturalistic hairlines. Or at least the most aesthetically pleasing to me.

You can probably break HTs down into three key parts. Extraction Cutting out the strip in the strip method, or extracting via some sort of device in FUE procedures. Incisions In both strip and FUE someone needs to make the incisions in the balding area, into which the grafts are placed. Placement When the incisions are made, the grafts need to be put into them. In my opinion, it's crucial for the doctor to make the incisions in either procedure. In some types of FUE, the incisions and placements are done at the same time (this is done via an implantor pen, which both cuts the scalp and places the graft in one go). Therefore it's crucial only the doctor does it. I would rather a doctor perform the extractions in FUE, though plenty of the best don't do all the extractions and some don't do any (Pinning the buggers down on how much they will do, or not do, in your case might prove difficult - you'll get a lot of 'some', 'most', 'me and my team' type of answers). Obviously it's crucial in strip that the surgeon take the strip out. If the type of surgery you get needs someone to place the grafts only, then it's very likely a tech or not the main surgeon will do this. This seems to be pretty standard and doesn't seem to affect the results to any great extent. Hope that helps.

Aveda Grooming Clay. And some Toppik. *nods sagely*

I've defeated my laziness and a actually looked myself. Here's the prices (I got the quote for 3,500 grafts). FUT: Up to 2000 grafts: $5 / graft FUE: First 2000 grafts: $8 / graft Each graft over 2000 grafts in the same surgical session :$3 / graft Each graft over 2000 grafts in the same surgical session: $6 / graft FUT Cost: $14,500* FUE Cost: $25,000* *before tax I guess that's in Canadian dollars. Which GBP has a pretty favourable exchange rate over right now.

That does look like a fantastic result. Fantastic price too! I work that out to be around 3.75GBP per graft (including expenses) or about three quid without expenses. Do you know how much H&W charge for fue?

Then you assume his only motivation was to attract business to himself. And that no one who had previously not considered him then did so after reading that thread.

For us to know if the thread backfired on Feller, you have to know why he wrote the thread - to second guess his motivation. Similarly, to know if his business is better or worse for it, you'd have to be him or his accountant. None of which, even if we did know it, would make a blind bit of difference to the topic of debate - which is really the effectiveness of strip vs FUE (rather than the title of it, which is about popularity). This is really what is wonderful about sticking to objective facts. It doesn't matter if you're a descendant of Isaac Newton or chair of the Anti-Gravity League, if you jump from the 20th storey of a building, the outcome is just the same. Same for the measurable elements of HTs - yield rates don't change whatever you think of strip or fue. And while that's not the beginning and end of the final result, it's an objective indication, and why I'd like to see more studies into it.

Thanks Blake. Very informative. I basically suspected as much, but it's always interesting to get a professionals take on it. And I'm sure as a plastic surgeon Dr Lindsey would have a pretty interesting take on it too. "It depends" is not a bad answer. I think what most patients want is the information to be able to decide for ourselves. I think most grown ups know that very little in life is ever certain.

Here's a question (mostly for the doctors here): Can you tell anything about how a strip scar will look - and the possibility of it stretching - by looking at scars from other procedures the patient might have had?