California

@Pyrat, I wish you all the best. You seem to be on the right track. No sense in rushing. The more you research your HT Surgeon, the better decision you will be able to make. I just wanted to jump in here to set the record straight on one thing......the statement "low cost clinics that rely on young technicians to do the hair transplant" does NOT apply to Dr. Bhatti/ Darling Buds. Dr. Bhatti does all his procedures (pre-op consulting, anesthesia, extraction, slit making, plantation supervision etc.) himself. He has no franchise clinics, no junior doctors and/or technicians doing what the HT Surgeon should be doing. All the best to you. Regards, California

Let's just agree to disagree. You have your mind made up and I do not have the time and energy to "convert" you. As mentioned before, I respect your opinion BUT we fully trust the HT Patients to do their due diligence and make educated decisions. As far as your "advise" goes.....all is can say is .......Thank you, Dr. PHIL Best regards, California

As mentioned before, we had taken the forum moderator into confidence and asked for permission before posting the Patient information. We have a lot of respect for HRN and it’s members. This is an excellent patient advocacy forum. But, we cannot be used as a punching bag by anyone and can’t watch passively while our hard earned reputation is attacked online. I urge you to reach out to Dr. Bhatti Patients and ask about him and his clinic. He never up-sells. Most of his patient discussions revolve around the conservative approach of not tapping into too much donor in one go and save for the future procedures. If making more money was our goal, then we would have started multiple franchise offices in India (like many other clinics). Dr. Bhatti has only one clinic for a reason- he wants to do all his procedures himself. He is a humble and down to earth person and very easy to talk to. He takes his Patients satisfaction very seriously. After all that, when he gets slandered online with “money accusations”, he is within his rights to defend his good name. You would do the same if you were him. At the end of the day, you and I can write essays for and against Dr. Bhatti but it is the Patient's that have to do their own due diligence when choosing their HT Surgeon. I wish you all the best. Regards, California

You are welcome to your opinion. Again, Patients will have to do their own research and make their own decisions. This site itself has 181 pages of documented results from Dr. Bhatti Patients. You conveniently choose to overlook the hundreds and hundreds of satisfied Dr. Bhatti Patients (use the search button) and pick on 4 or 5 and then make the blanket statement, "because the work is so terrible and it warranted attention"! In regards to the one instance that you are referring to where the Patient information was posted on this website, we had the permission of the forum moderator to do that. They had checked with that Patient first. Again, you seem to be motivated to unearth any "skeleton" that you can find. Keep digging my friend. I wish you all the best! I did a quick search for Dr. Bhatti to look up the latest posts from his past patients and this is what came up: BTW....this came up just on the first page of the search. There are another 181 pages to go..... Regards, California

"others can search through Dr Bhatti's results for themselves and make up their own minds." I couldn't agree with you more! Regarding my comment about your "mission", couldn't help noticing you showing up on the threads that have negative overtones about Dr. Bhatti. Again, picking up 4-5 cases out of thousands.......that sounds harsh to me. I did not say that Bill was an authority. But he did happen to run this site for many many years and did get recognition as someone who knows a thing or two about HT's...... I wish you all the best. Regards, California

"The clinic you mentioned though routinely delivers terrible work" Transplantedphil, don't you think that that is a very harsh statement? Dr. Bhatti has Patient cases posted on this Forum itself from 2012 on wards. I do agree with your statement that no clinic can deliver perfect results (I would add "all the time" to that statement). Hundreds of documented HT Patient cases over the last 10 years should be taken into consideration before "judging". Picking on "3 results" (out of thousands of cases) sounds unfair. I am "dumbfounded" that you are "dumbfounded" because this Patient shortlisted Dr. Bhatti for his HT procedure. I respect your opinion but wanted to share my opinion too. Best regards, California

Hi Inquisitive, Just an FYI At Dr. Bhatti/Darling Buds India Clinic, we publish our pricing on our website. We try to make it as transparent as possible. No ambiguity,. No confusion. No surprises. No other branches. No other doctors. Just a “one doctor show”......Dr. Bhatti. Here is the link: https://darlingbuds.com/hair-transplant-cost-packages Best regards, California

Hi Inquisitive, I don't think that you can claim GST back (if visiting India) like you can in the UK. I am not a 100% sure on this but I have never heard of any visitor getting the GST back when leaving India. You seem to be on the right track. I would highly encourage you to research as much as possible before selecting your HT Surgeon. This is one thing that you can't afford to mess up on. Cost is important but what sucks more is the loss of donor grafts (if results are not good). If you have any specific questions in regards to Darling Buds/Dr. Bhatti, please feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer your queries. We wish you all the best. Regards, California

Hi Petroholic, I have been following your HT progress. You have done an amazing job at documenting your HT journey so far. Thank you! Your hair looks awesome. That hair length and style looks good on you. Regards, California

Hi Indian_Canadian, Please note that you have the option of connecting with Dr. Bhatti via Skype. That way, you can have a virtual face to face conversation with the Doctor and make sure that you get all your questions answered in detail. We wish you all the best. Regards, California

Lenney, Your hair looks awesome! No wonder your “family says that it looks good and strangers can’t tell”. Your documentation of your HT journey is amazing. Thank you for your time and efforts in sharing your journey with the community here. Enjoy!!! Best regards, California

Hi Jacob, Thank you for sharing your HT journey. Really happy for you. Thanks also for your kind words about Dr. Bhatti. I am glad that you liked the city of Chandigarh! Please keep the updates coming. Best regards, California

Hi Vermaj, Your hair looks great! Thank you for sharing the pictures. Best regards, California

Interesting topic. Reminded me of an older write up by Dr. Bhatti. Sharing here because of it's relevance: My ABC of BHT: BHT is presently my favorite field! Though FUT is undoubtedly the Gold Standard of surgical hair restoration and shall always remain so, FUE rose in popularity due mostly to the fact that it has opened the horizons to a limitless supply of grafts by expanding the traditional donor availability. The other advantages may be debateable but this has no opposition even from die-hard FUT surgeons. Thanks to FUE the patient base has markedly increased in size. Repair cases and cases with extensive balding which were shunned earlier, can again think of getting back a “head full of hair.” I have a very different approach to a client with balding which I feel shall be progressive in the long term. I goad all patients with a long term plan for their progressive balding to allow me to harvest beard grafts (besides scalp grafts of course) for a better hairline definition and mid-scalp fill and keep their remaining scalp grafts as a rain check for future requirements especially in the crown. For example, for a 25 year old with type 3 vertex pattern, I would plant scalp hair within the first 1.5 cm along the hairline, mix scalp grafts with beard grafts in a laid down optimal ratio till the highest point of the head. For the crown area I would encourage him to accept a low density preferably with chest grafts or chest grafts with a sprinkling of scalp grafts. I never use beard hair for the crown area. It is only to be used for the mid-scalp and just behind the hairline. For me and my patients “only ABC is GOOD!” : I am not fond of using any hair other than beard, chest and axilla (in this order of preference) since leg, arm, belly hair, in my experience, take a long time to grow if at all. (A- Axilla, B- Beard, C-Chest). In darker racial group I do not venture outside the ‘shadow area’ of the beard which lies on and behind the jawline and above the Adam’s apple due to the possible risk of visible scarring). Given the fact that in a second session, you can harvest usually half the number of grafts again after a gap of 6 months, realization shall dawn upon you that an average patient (except East Asian) has a large donor area just waiting to be harvested. This realization is fast becoming the game changer today in the field of surgical hair restoration. As you read my thoughts on BHT, more and more clinics the world over are busy honing their skills to harvest more and more body grafts with lesser and lesser transection rates. Time is also of the essence and therefore the growing demand for motorized systems, especially the Safe Scribe which is simple, safe and efficient. Body hair, mostly alone, has been routinely used at my clinic for the following indications- 1. Hair transplant cripples 2. Extensive baldness with a poor donor area of the scalp and, 3. Camouflaging wide FUT scars. You can see some of my cases later where almost exclusive BHT was done for want of healthy scalp grafts. This is slowly becoming my core competence area. I am wedded to the Harris Safe Scribe System since 2010. It works very well for me even for BHT. With a surgical background I am more comfortable working with motorized systems than manual instrumentation. I use the manual punch only for areas like legs, arms etc.- areas I am not very fond of doing since this hair in my experience does not grow to the full satisfaction of my clients and myself. I use the following punches for BHT- 0.7 mm customized sharp punch for beard grafts harvest when there are mostly singles and if 2-3 I may use a 0.8 mm punch If there be any questions you may have for me, I would be pleased to answer to the best of my ability.

Hi ndubya, The good news is that the ugly duckling phase won't last long. The grafts might go but will surely come back soon, in full force and then stay! Shelly's famous poem comes to mind, "If Winter Comes Can Spring Be Far Behind" Wishing you all the best. Regards, California

Hi Warmachine, I agree with Melvin's advise. Past, posted results would be a good gauge of the HT Surgeons work. I also suggest researching as much as possible. This is a very crucial decision and not something that you can afford to mess up on. We have a finite number of grafts on our head and those have to be carefully utilized. Cost is important but should not be treated as the first factor. We wish you all the best. Regards, Caliofrnia

Hi keysersoze, All good, my friend :) Keep up the good work. I wish you all the best. Regards, California

Keysersoze, are you serious? You say that "my statement should be addressed as it's completely untrue". What is untrue and what is a falsehood and disservice? You copy/paste comments that I made on September 7, 2014 and without even attempting to understand the context, pass a judgement. You are the prosecutor, the judge and the jury! Those comments from 5 years ago were made specifically to point at a thread that I had included in that post. That thread was in regards to Dr. Bhatti's recommendation on HRN. I had referred only to the Patients that had posted on that particular thread. I never implied that Dr. Bhatti' has never had an dissatisfied Patients. That is just not possible for Dr. Bhatti and/or any HT Surgeon anywhere in the world. My statement does not need to be addressed. It is actually your statement that needs to be addressed. Don't you think? Best regards, California

Thank you, Melvin.

So, I guessed right.....you used to work in films and read scripts. See, I solved that mystery For the record, Dr. Bhatti's business is doing great. We are fully booked for the next so many months and that has been the case for years now. Thank God and thank our Patients for that. As mentioned before, Dr. Bhatti rarely posts on this forum but when someone attacks his integrity, he does have the right to defend himself. That topic has been beaten to death already and the thread locked up by Melvin. The "clinics with their backs against the wall" comment was not for our Clinic but for those folks who would stoop to any level to get business. Dr. Bhatti's Patient's know what kind of a person he is. A few years ago when I met him in San Francisco, I asked him why he wasn't getting onto the franchise bandwagon and opening franchise clinics in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi. His response was, "I live in Chandigarh. My Clinic is in Chandigarh. I take care of all of my Patients myself. If I open up franchise clinics, I will have to have other doctors do the procedures and I won't be able to guarantee the work. My reputation means the world to me". Honest truth. No conspiracy

Wow.....transplantedphil....wow......what an imagination! Shouldn't you be writing scripts for some detective movies? What a "connection" you made! What a mystery you solved!. Sherlock Holmes must be turning and tossing in his grave!!! Let's analyze your thought process.......Mathur knows California and wants to help advertise Darling Buds/Dr. Bhatti's Clinic. He posts on this forum asking for recommendations for a Clinic in North India. Ahmedabad_guy responds to the posts and mentions 2 clinics to Mathur, one of them being Dr. Bhatti's. (BTW, you forgot to assign a role/character to Ahmedabad_guy....is he connected to Dr. Bhatti too?).....then barberman1986 (who BTW has been documenting his HT journey on this forum since May 2018, joins in this "advertising conspiracy" all the way from UK and recommends Dr. Bhatti's Clinic. Mathur cleverly throws in the nugget of information that he was working in Silicon Valley. California latches on to that information and starts a conversation since he happens to be based in that part of the world too.......What a clever "advertising" scheme......all the way from India to UK to California....... Wow....talk about conspiracy theories! And you call it "scripted"? Man......your imagination sure runs wild! On a serious note.....are you serious? Do YOU even believe what you are suggesting? The word PREPOSTEROUS comes into mind........ Thanks, California

jj51702, I can assure you that it must have been a coincidence. I have not been active on this forum for months because of some personal reasons. Thank you for your response. All the best. California

For some reason, as soon as some folks on this forum see "Darling Buds/Dr. Bhatti" being mentioned, they feel obligated to jump in (uninvited) on those threads to post their offensive comments. "Cash Grab"......."Bhatti hair restoration network".......not sure what their real agenda is....? The Patient originating this thread asked for recommendations for an HT Clinic based in North India that does FUE. He was pointed to Dr. Bhatti's Clinic and another Clinic by a user on this Forum. After that a Dr. Bhatti past Patient chimed in with his recommendation. The Patient said that he was living in Silicon Valley, California. I reached out asking if he was still based in the Silicon Valley and if yes, I could meet up with him in person. He responded saying that he was back in Indian now and would be visiting the San Francisco Bay Area in December and would like to meet with me for sure. Dr. Bhatti (who rarely posts on this Forum) advised this Patient to get on propecia. All I see is a friendly and amicable communication between this Patient and our Clinic. Why these folks (who have nothing to do with this Patient and/or our Clinic) have to be rude and discourteous, is baffling.

Hi Thornbush, Dr. Bhatti is based in Mohali (Chandigarh), which as you would know, is very close to Delhi. He does do Patient consultations in other locations (within Indian and outside of India). I am sure that he guide you since you have already reached out to him. Regarding the facility, the the Clinic is located inside the new 5-Rivers hospital, the first ever plastic surgery only hospital in India. A big percentage of Dr. Bhatti's Patients come from the Western countries and their feedback has indicated that they found the facilities, hygiene, quality control etc. at Darling Buds at par (and at times better) with any comparable HT Clinic in the West. I would highly encourage you to visit the Clinic and see for yourself. Sharing some pics of the Clinic https://darlingbuds.com/why-choose-us Best regards, California