Gandolf

Very nice result, you can tell he must be pleased. How would you describe this guy's donor hair in regards to density and hair diameter?

Hey Joe, I'm just curious, in a case like this where H&W offers minor touch up work after a procedure, is it done via FUE?

I, too, feel from these pictures that you have made steady progress through each time interval. I guess I'm just not seeing what you're seeing that makes you think the 170 day picture is better than the newest one.

I think your results look quite dense to be honest. Do you really not think you've made a big improvement?

Wow! That is one crazy experience you had with those letters! I always saw Larry Shapiro's prices and wondered how he could undercut the competition so badly, I guess if you're going to charge for a number of grafts and not actually deliver, that explains it. Did your last letter to the attorney end things with them?

Wow man, that's a great result. I'm glad everything worked out for you so well.

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/160367-hasson-wong-really-say-11.html#post2263229

I'm not sure he was insinuating that either, but I definitely do think he was making an attempt to try and discredit you, and a pretty lame one in my opinion. I also think he might be missing the big picture that several of the posting here are trying to make. Rather than focusing on the trivial nuances of these individual posts, this is more an issue that some patients of Dr. Feller seem to think he is unable to ever concede in the slightest when he may share some element of the blame in a situation. Here is a quote Dr. Feller made on another thread on this forum which was referencing an actual HT result and not a deposit issue, but still highlights the same points nevertheless. **************************************** So lets set the standard right here online from now going forward: If a patient has a transplant and it doesn't grow well, the reason is physiological UNLESS a patient can substantly demonstrate that the surgery did not rise to the level generally accepted throughout the industry. If a perspective patient can't accept this standard, then he is not a qualified patient and should not request nor be acceppted for a surgical procedure. ****************************************

Very interesting. I have to say, in the after pictures of these 8,000-9,000 mega session pics, the donor areas don't ever look to be depleted at all which would back up this claim. What is highest number of TOTAL grafts H&W has ever done for a patient over multiple procedures?

Very nice placement of grafts, it definitely made a big improvement in his appearance.

VERY similar to my feelings when I met with him a month ago for my consultation. I also felt that there was a complete lack of attention to detail and that he was not thorough at all with me. For example, I got there in the afternoon and as I was in the waiting area, the patient they had just finished up that morning came and sat down all bandaged up, the nurses had just finished with him while Feller was in the other room meeting with another consult who had had a prior surgery with him (I will add that this returning patient was very happy with his results which I could over hear from them talking, for what it's worth). I had to wait until about 45 minutes after my scheduled time to be seen, but when it was finally my turn I went in and met with Dr. Feller. Again, he was very nice and friendly, but it really bothered me that he took a quick look at my hair and said "oh, did you see the patient in the waiting room? You're him. I would do the same exact procedure, 1800 grafts." I should note that while the patient he referenced had a similar pattern as mine in that he had full coverage on top but had bad recession in the hairline, his hairloss had pregressed significantly more than mine had AND Dr. Feller said he was 22 (I'm 28) so basically this guy had experienced more hairloss than I had in probably half the time and Dr. Feller made a quick 10 second diagnosis that we would get the same procedure. I remember feeling like it was some "cookie cutter" type of approach. And he didn't ask me some of the questions that I know from reading here are VERY important. For example, he didn't ask me any anything at all about my family history, when my hairloss began, etc., I had to volunteer all of this information after he had completed his information and was asking me if I had any additional questions. I was concerned about the low graft count and the hairline he drew in on my head which honestly looked like it was drawn right over top of my existing hairline. His response was to the effect of "well I could go lower but I don't recommend it at your age, you can always have it lowered at a later date." While I respect his opinion and appreciate that his plan would cost much less than I had anticipated, it didn't make any sense to me to go through all the hassle and cost of having the procedure done to not get what I want and to have to come back later to alter it. We aren't talking about filling in future loss here either, which I understand it always a possibility. So, the cancellations from the weeks earlier were already a red flag but I knew there was no chance I was going to go to him after the consultation. Even though I spent hundreds of dollars on the gas money and 2 hotel nights, I still felt it was money well spent as I could confidently narrow down the field of available HT doctors in my search and was glad that I hadn't booked and sent the money like some of the others here did. ********** I also want to add that when I got there and was waiting, the lady at the desk had me fill out paperwork about my medical history and there was also a form where they advised VERY clearly about their non refundable $2,500 deposit for booking a case which I had to sign. So apparently they had added this for their consults which is good but obviously does nothing for the people like Bobilero and Salami who paid in the past and didn't get this notification. I would imagine that they probably had a number of issues with the deposit disputes with guys who booked before having a chance to meet with him from out of town and that's why they are now being more direct about the notification.

Well both Dr. Feller AND Spex chimed in on this thread and didn't claim to have notified him in any way other than posting the terms on the website, so whether or not they notified him isn't really in dispute here I don't think. If he had been notified verbally or in writing I'm sure one of them would have mentioned that in their rebuttle at some point.

This had to have exceeded any pre-surgical expectations this patient could have possibly had.

Differentiating between which HT doctor is best out of Rahal, Hasson, and Shapiro is like asking whether you would rather have a one night stand with Scarlett Johansson, Charlize Theron, or Anne Hathaway. There truly is no right or wrong answer.

Do you honestly consider this to be intimidation? It sounds to me like the OP exhausted all options to try and resolve this amicably before coming here to the forums. Dr. Feller can certainly make a cogent argument for not refunding such an old deposit, but if he truly ducked all the phone calls by the OP (and since Dr. Feller himself didn't try to dispute that claim when he posted here I would assume that its true) then I don't see anything at all wrong with coming on here.

Yeah and plus I'm not a patient of his, I ended up going with Dr. Rahal. Either way I'm not asking for my money back as life is too short and stressful enough to make a federal case about a few hours worth of salary, I only got into this stuff with the lady on the phone to try as hard as I could to get them to honor the appointment but she made it clear that it wasn't going to happen so I had to chalk it up to bad luck and make another appointment and luckily the 3rd time was the charm and they honored the appointment.

I didn't bother doing that as I'm sure it wouldn't have resulted in anything being compensated by them. For me it just wasn't worth worrying about. And yes, my story is 100% true.

You can rest assured that he is at least going to read the thread, the comment about not reading it is about as believable as his comment about losing money on the OPs deposit. I think this thread would also be a valid place for me to comment about my recent experience with a consult I had at Feller Medical last month. I had my appointment (which was set up about 2 months in advance) cancelled at the last minute not once, but twice. The 2nd time I got a call literally 24 hours beforehand and was already on the road, I had left work early and was in the process of driving to NYC. When I set up my appointment with the clinic, I made it very clear that I was driving in from out of town and even asked about hotels and such. On the first cancellation phone call I received from their clinic, I had a few days notice so it was pretty easy for me to rearrange my PTO at work and change my hotel dates but I wasn't able to do it the second time around because I was literally due that same day at the hotel and they charged me for that night. I explained the ramifications of the last minute cancellation to his office rep who called me, but her response was essentially "oh well, too bad for you." So, in the end I lost an extra day and a half of PTO which didn't cost me money per se but it's a scarce commodity that's valuable to me and I had to pay for the hotel a 2nd time when I actually ended up going out to NY the following week. Obviously the fall out for a patient like myself is much less than it would be for a clinic who has to pay staff and pass up the opportunity to do a surgery, but I did lose 100 bucks on the hotel and the PTO is worth about 500 bucks if calculated based on my wages. If something like this is "about principal and not money" as one of the previous posters said in his post then shouldn't things like this work both ways? I chose not to air any of this on the forum last month after my consultation with Feller as he seemed like a nice guy and because I know things happen and I'm sure he had a reason for cancelling my appointment. I am only doing it now because I think it was wrong to talk to the OP in the arrogant, self-aggrandizing manner that he did here when the situation was essentially reversed. I also want to add that none of the cancellation stuff was mentioned in my consult with Dr. Feller so he may or may not know the details of the calls I had with his staff, but I believe it reflects on him and his practice nevertheless.

I'd say that the benefit of this discussion goes beyond just the deposit issue but how a clinic handles their problems in general. I found the posts by Dr. Feller to be somewhat rude and condescending and wonder if this might be indicative of how a more serious problem (like a bad result from a procedure) might be handled. And again I view the comment about the clinic "losing money" over the unrefunded deposit to be outright dishonest which admittedly is just my own opinion but I'm glad I had a chance to read and see the response of the clinic to be able to form my own opinion so i disagree with Bonkenstonker about the discussion being pointless.

For my recent consult with Dr. Feller I had to arrive the night before as I came from out of town and I stayed at the Quality Inn in Floral Park, NY which was about a 10-12 minutes drive from Feller's clinic but was way cheaper than the Andrews and all the hotels recommended and closer by. I think the base rate was 85 dollars but there were all these idiotic hotel taxes so it came out to just over 100 dollars which is actually still quite cheap in that area. However, there is a saying "you get what you pay for" and in this case it was true. The room was tiny and you could hear everything going on in the surrounding rooms, the "free breakfast" was a complete joke, and I swear on my life there were hookers coming and going and turning tricks in some of the rooms nearby You could hear them moaning thru the paper-thin walls. The area was so sketchy they had all these signs in the parking lot warning that you are being videotaped, etc. I guess the take away is that you should probably bite the bullet and stay in the hotels recommended above and don't be cheap like I was. I was able to tolerate it as it was only one night and I didn't much to spend more than 8 hours sleeping but it would have been miserable for someone having surgery and being stuck in the room 24/7 for a few days. Hope this helped, lol.

Very clean looking work. I will be excited to see how this progresses as I'm seeing more and more good stuff from Dr. Radha.

Bobilero, Thanks for sharing your story here as I do think it's helpful for us to see how these clinics handle things that don't go smoothly. While your situation is too multi-faceted for me to pick a clear side, I will say that my opinion of Feller medical has been reduced not due to the refusal to refund the money, but due to the way they handled this here in their postings. And I agree with you that they didn't take a loss on this case if you cancelled your January 2009 date in September 2008. That, unfortunately, was a flat-out untrue statement on their end in my humble opinion. I'm sorry things didn't work out the way you wanted with all of this but all of the postings here, happy and sad, go into the collective knowledge base which helps people make their best informed decisions which is what makes this forum so great.

Did the hair loss derail your movie career?

Your GF is very cute and definitely doesn't "need" a nose job, but I can understand why she wants one. Just do the research and only do it with a top tier doctor as nose jobs have one of the highest complication rates of all plastic surgery. The upside is that a mis-shaped nose is the most notable to one's appearance as it's right in the middle of the face so the benefit can be great if done properly.

Yeah I've only receded a tiny amount in the front-middle, it's the corners that are killing me and my hair is very straight and fine and the few styles I could pull off are all impossible now due to the recession in that area. I know there are many people here with worse hairloss that will look at my before pictures and tell me I don't need any work done, but this has affected my life in a big way and Dr. Rahal has many pictures of guys my age with similar hairloss who come out of surgery looking amazing so I see no reason not to move forward.