bismarck

I think this will be my last post on this forum -- have scrambled my password and e-mail to make sure I'm not tempted to come back. Really can't deal with this place anymore and will be going the way of Spex and Mickey. Good luck everyone.

Sorry.

I am so sick of this fucking bullshit virus. It's ruined everything. I don't even know who to be mad at anymore. Just tired.

What a miracle it would be if plaquenil was a cure. My hunch is it won't do anything for most, but will cause prolonged QT syndrome and sudden cardiac death in a minority of those who take it, and then these deaths will be mislabeled as heart attacks instead of as a medication effect.

But that's speculation. I'm not going to pretend speculation is fact. That's for politicians, political pundits and armchair warriors.

Just now, CosmoKramer said:

Listen man, I’m not trying to say you personally are not doing your best to save lives, that’s not my motive...I’m just fed up with all the bullshit inconsistencies, mismanagement, sheer lunacy that is going on...and almost non of it based in logic nor science. We have to admit that and not have our head in the sand if we all want to get through and past this.

I really wish I could take you to my work and see what is actually happening without the media filters. It's not good.

6 minutes ago, CosmoKramer said:

 

Yes, literally nothing to see.

Dude, no one's reading your posts anymore. If you were on Reddit, everything you wrote would be down voted off the screen.

On 5/18/2020 at 5:43 AM, Panamera13 said:

Here is Texas, even last month during the quarantine period, the people in parks were NOT wearing masks. When a county judge passed an order to making wearing a mask mandatory many of my friends got offended saying - The government can't take away our freedom and it's against the constitution.

Also, Costco has made it mandatory to wear masks before coming in and are even giving you a mask if you don't have but some of my friends call it taking away freedom.

PS: I wear a mask wherever I go since it;s not a big deal anyway, my freedom/rights/constitution are not bothered much if I wear a mask for my or others safety. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6-7oYSjeb4

Go figure that Texas cases are increasing. That's what you get when you have too many Kramers and not enough Jerries and Elaines.

3 hours ago, JayLDD said:

I suspect from the way you write you come from an incredibly privileged background, the mere assumption you wrote previously of Cosmo being hate filled because he has a different opinion on you on lockdowns itself is delusional and quite sad from someone who tries to put forth a persona that (attempts) to reflect an academic ethos and having opinions dictated by data.

Add up the collective public debt created by previous presidents prior to Obama, It’s not looking drastically different to what a single years deficit might be in the US after this. That’s mere months of damage from lockdown in a country that even prior to this event had debt to GDP at crisis levels. Significant numbers of the population were living paycheck to paycheck before the crisis, future generations and the current younger generation are looking to significantly lower social services for significantly higher costs in terms of tax revenue, including the threat of mandatory inflation through printing currency to counter debt issues.

Individuals nor the government have the ability to deal with this for extended periods, the youth unemployment rate and participation rate currently are horrific to any sensible person. The economic realities for what this would look like in 12 months are scarier than the death rates. Sensible social distancing practices including masks and mandatory self isolation for those with at risk diseases and over 65 strikes a balance between economic reality and saving lives.

I think in a situation like this in which there are no good results and everyone wants the best for their country that it’s the worst time possible to throw around politicized insults without a holistic understanding of consequences to all approaches. If you cannot acknowledge the economic issues, I am not going to call you a terrible person, but you’ve objectively made very clear you have severe Trump derangement syndrome you’re totally out of touch with economic and social reality. And I say that as someone who doesn’t support Trump, my ideal candidate was Yang.

Youre clearly not effected economically, the vast majority of the country and every other country however are. 

As an aside, Cosmo’s conservative memes about the state of the health director shouldn’t offend a single sane individual except in the sense that a woman in that state is a health director. Virtue signaling at its worst, again an easy thing to focus on when you’re totally out of touch with economic realities. A state heath director shouldn’t look like a decaying zombie, get the fuck over it. The signaling to the public it gives is significantly worse than her hurt feelings.

You know nothing about me or what privileges I have or haven't had. That's the problem with this discussion. All these assumptions. I'm not on the street begging, but you're not in an ICU with flooded lungs. Don't underestimate your own lack of perspective.

I'm as sick of this shit as much as everyone else here but I am also seeing people dying. There is no easy way out. Incidentally, I do agree with you that Yang was the best of the crop. I think most reasonable people do, but again what does this have to do with anything.

I don't know what you're referring to as far as the state of the health director. The thing I found most repulsive about his posts were his theories about the secret lab in china concocting a virus and his backseat commentary on complicated medical procedures.

10 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

I really feel that you have my stance on FUE vs FUT mistaken. I do not favor one procedure over the other, and in fact I’ve often advised FUT over FUE. That said, I’m going to speak my own personal truth and state that FUE is in fact a viable treatment, and the growth is similar to that of FUT when performed by the right surgeon. Most of our surgeons perform both procedures with only one clinic being primarily FUT based. 

I really don’t see how I favor one procedure over another. I’m never married to any particular idea. I think it’s important to weigh the pros and cons yourself, but just because I don’t agree with one surgeon about a technique doesn’t mean I favor that one over the other. It’s important to understand that people can change in ideology.

My thoughts have changed a lot since I posted on a very popular thread 5 years ago. I have since become a moderator, and I’ve spoken to over a dozen world renowned surgeons on a personal level about both techniques, and I’ve conceded that FUT is a more efficient technique with on average 5-15% more growth. I just wanted to clear the air, because that is a misconception if you really believe I’m pro-FUE or anti-FUT. 

As for the format, those are interesting suggestions. Perhaps I’m too old, but I cannot stand the reddit format. Feels very anonymous, which I guess has it’s benefits, but I don’t get the sense of a community. That said, the downvoting is an interesting one. We do have live chat now,  but perhaps it’s not as good. Yes, the multi-quotes need to be improved. Thank you for the suggestions on how we can improve. If you ever think of any others please let me know. I will see if we can implement some of these changes, and if they would make sense for our community.

I'm not going to go through old posts, but it seems at times that you expressed things that I perceived differently. Perhaps I am mistaken.

There is community on Reddit within the smaller subreddits, but certainly you are right. It's the largest forum in the English speaking world so you have a constant flood of new ideas and it is difficult to establish accountability. But that doesn't mean you can't learn from their strategy. Another thought is to encourage the non-surgical side of the site to take market share from the more medical hair loss sites out there. Perhaps you could also collate databases of patient submitted cases, similar to how it is done with surgeon submitted cases.

Also maybe giving us 5 minutes to copyedit our posts after submission before we get the "Edited by <x>" tag. Though probably that would be just for me. 

On 5/17/2020 at 8:52 PM, Melvin-Moderator said:

Well, the forum is still doing pretty well, the traffic hasn’t really changed. That said, what part of the website do you feel is buggy and clunky? What suggestions do you have to improve the site?

As for staying non-partisan. Being a moderator doesn’t mean not having an opinion. Part of what makes this site great is healthy discussion, and at times you may disagree with what I have to say, and that’s okay. I’m not a politician, I’m not here to please everyone, or to say what everyone wants to hear. I don’t want this place to be an echo-chamber like so many places on the internet.

My job is to keep things fair and balanced, not to a robot who agrees with everyone. As previously mentioned, there will be times when I upset members, because I may need to make a decision for the greater good of the community. If you try to please everyone, you please no one.

That said, I’m really interested to know how you think we could improve the site and make it more user friendly, I’m definitely guilty of being biased with this forum, but I like to hear feedback and constructive criticism, as that’s the only real way to improve.

Melvin, I appreciate your point and I certainly agree that you are entitled to your opinion. However, I would ask that you weigh this against your responsibility to maintain the forum as a neutral ground to encourage hair loss sufferers to visit, and (just as importantly) encourage sponsors to advertise here. If I were in the shoes of a physician considering promoting their practice and I saw the administrator of a site make posts that favored one procedure when I felt they were even, I might be discouraged to advertise there as it would be perceived as a hostile market. This is just my perspective, but I'm really trying to help you see what it might look like to an outsider. Some might perceive it as you using your admin status as a bully pulpit. Especially when many believe that the FUE vs FUT answer is not clear. 

Same thing with controversial topics like COVID response. Whether or not you're right, this is a highly politicized issue and really has nothing to do with the purpose of this site, which is hair restoration. As an admin, your goal should be to administer a site about hair loss. Of course you can express your opinion, but take off the admin hat. It has nothing do with hair and obscures the purpose of the site. I've run forums myself in the past, and regretted every time I got involved with something that took away from the site's true purpose. Users are free to say what they want but I would really suggest you keep your bottom line in perspective. If you have to chime in, do it with a duplicate account and don't comment on your own posts/threads. It's commonplace on reddit and sometimes necessary because status matters so much on forums. The internet is no longer a democracy.

Regarding the formatting of the site, the Reddit format should be followed closely if you can. Allowing downvotes, having a window on window format, and integrating live chat are a few basic points. The quote flexibility structure and image posting are really difficult to work with if you're trying to multi quote or add images.  These revisions could be stitched together in a matter of weeks by someone with decent back end experience in something like MEAN stack. If now is a time that sponsorship has dropped, you could experiment with new formats to bring back former advertisers when this goddamn pandemic has ended. It could be 2021 at this point.

I am really appreciative that you have tolerated my disagreements with you as we certainly don't always see eye to eye. That is a classy move and I respect you for that. I will do my best to curtail my comments as they often can come across in text differently than in my head. My apologies if you believe I am one of the people that has contributed to what you're describing as denigration. My intent is almost always to encourage active discussion and non-groupthink.

Cosmo: If I need help with any intubations I'll send you a DM!

Cosmo: We are going to value different things. But you have a tendency to call "fake news" any information that doesn't agree with your preconceptions of the world. Despite your previously stating how much you hated big orange, like him you particularly take offense to things when they cause financial harm. This is not unreasonable, but you take it too far.

-Theories that China created the virus and is sending spies around the world are xenophobic and bigoted in their intent. While everyone is angry at China right now, to deny facts that you don't agree with, and create conspiracy theories for the ones you hope are true is truly disrespectful.

-You initially doubted claims that the virus would ever raise beyond 60k, then when it did, you started questioning the methods of documentation in autopsy reports. The chain of reasoning that leads to a probable cause of death by the pathologist has not changed. Nothing is ever 100%. This just you doing another 'fake news' bit.

I don't deny that the economic devastation this has caused is profound. And that the deaths from that may end up being incredible. But if we didn't quarantine, these effects would hae been much worse. The media is certainly exaggerating things to hurt Trump, but this does not mean something very serious is not occurring. 

I'm going to end with the first comment you made in this thread:

On 3/12/2020 at 10:18 PM, CosmoKramer said:

Until I see the super wealthy and their family members as wells as all these panacea-paced politicians or their family dropping dead, then I’ll be more concerned (and yes, I’m aware some celebrities and politicians are possibly infected, but until I see their funerals, I’ll take each day as it comes).

It sounds like now you should be more concerned.

Melvin, it sucks that you're hurting but I have to point out two things

-A large part of the reason the forum is losing traffic is because the software is old, buggy with a clunky interface. This discourages new users, particularly younger ones. Especially as current 20-somethings start balding, the loss of traffic will be devastating. The quarantine may be a good time to consider investing in the site as far as a software upgrade.

-The one thing Bill did really well was to stay non-partisan in discussions. You have a well-intentioned tendency to take sides, whether it's in threads about FUE vs FUT, threads discussing whether the Coronavirus is real or not, your support of the surgeon that did your own transplants, etc. This is not moderator behavior. If you need to do this, create a separate account and post without the admin status under your name. Otherwise it is really discouraging to users who don't agree with you.

Taking a break from taking care of COVID patients to go back through this thread and reading for some amusement.

Dear lord CosmoKramer is a moron. Complete utter moron.

r/agedlikecheese

17 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

If you ask even clinics that are known as FUT clinics they will tell you they perform FUE 50% of the time, when I spoke with Dr. Muresanu of Hattingen, he told me his practice was 50/50. Now, would an ethical doctor really be performing a technique that is vastly inferior and provides no cosmetic benefit? I doubt it. 

Well, it provides an obvious cosmetic benefit on the back of your head.

12 hours ago, gillenator said:

Either way,  we have to keep in mind that we are only going to see examples of a clinic's best work whether FUHT or FUE.

In many cases it really comes down to the skill of the surgeon because either method can be argued when comparing the best work done as well as substandard work.

Very true. Also, even if we restrict our searches to patient submitted cases, our minds tend to focus on the extreme positive and extreme negative results unless we are very careful because those are the most interesting.

4 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Failures occur from both procedures, I think there is a common misconception that FUT is some how "fail-proof" in fact, some popular surgeons led the community to believe in this dogamatic view, which of course is a load of garbage. The skill, experience, and talent varies widely from surgeon to surgeon, as do their results. Now, I will contend that there is a real problem with 'black market' FUE performed by untrained technicians with no experience, however, high-quality surgeons such as Dr. Shapiro, Konior, Gabel, and Hasson and Wong have all admitted that FUE in their hands is just as good as FUT. 

So the question isn't about the surgical technique itself, it's about the person executing the technique. In the wrong hands, FUT and FUE can cause permanent damage to both the donor and recipient zones. There is no doubt that biases exist, and they exist on both sides, as previously mentioned there was a popular surgeon on here who vehemently attacked FUE and was very dogmatic in his approach. I think surgeons who perform both FUE and FUT on a consistent basis are a lot less bias and are willing to dive in to the advantages and disadvantages with both. Now, there are cases where FUT may be out of the question, and vice versa, but I think the vast majority of patients benefit from having both procedures, and certainly this maximizes their donor supply better than just one or the other. 

Lastly, when listening to these dogamatic statements made by certain surgeons on a crusade to dispel an entire surgical technique altogether, I'm reminded of a quote from Dr. Konior, who happens to perform both procedures with excellent results and yield.

 

I have had extensive conversations with three of the names you have mentioned, and across the board they indicated to me exact opposite of what you stated: strip is unequivocally superior for yield. Not for me in particular, but in general. So I'm not sure where you're coming from with that statement. Perhaps they changed what they said to you because your stance on FUE is so strong and they knew your surgical history, but I was very careful to come in neutral when I spoke with them. Or perhaps their opinions changed over time--my conversations were recent. One of us has fake news on this one.

Blake Bloxham and Feller certainly don't agree with you. Feller has had his problems, but I don't think Blake is coming in trying to sell one procedure over the other for personal gain. I fundamentally agree with his opinion that FUT is better for yield and repeat procedures, FUE is better for not having a scar. I don't think they will be equal for quite some time, though we will not likely know this for sure for at least a couple decades.

But I really don't think it's even debatable at this point.

48 minutes ago, duchaine said:

no sides at all. 
But, during the last 2 weeks, I'm suffering "puffy eyes". I don't know if it is because oral minoxidil or because I'm sleeping too much  during quarantine or just because I'm getting old
 

Oral minoxidil works, till it fucks up your heart. Buy a blood pressure watch if you can and monitor/correlate symptoms. Be careful.

The great thing about this thread is it taught me how to find the "unfollow" option.

Any updates? Aisha seems to be one of the higher volume new clinics as of late. Techs did the extraction? Who was the surgeon? Also meds/age?

A 6 month update would be great!

Edward, What are you trying to show? Before afters/follow up?

Can you put these in your own thread so we have some context?

You made a smart choice going to Hattingen. One of the best in Europe I think. Keep us updated either with your own pictures at home or when you are next able to be at the clinic.

Outside of Keser I wouldn't trust anyone in Turkey. Pekiner was apparently his trainee at some point but I do not believe has the same skill level yet.

Are you sergen/isergen on the dutch forums?

Clean, clean work.

On 4/9/2020 at 12:32 PM, Melvin-Moderator said:

The same could be said the other way, the only surgeons who bashed FUE, were the ones who don't perform FUE on a large scale. Trust me, I've been here long enough to see the shift, not only in the philosophies but in the results. It's not a versus to me, because at some point, I think even those who chose FUT in the beginning will benefit from FUE at some point down the line. So you see, both procedures have their benefits, and at some point most patients will benefit from both.

I disagree. Of course it is often FUE (OR) FUT not FUE (AND) FUT for many.

FUE is a horrible idea for some people, FUT is a horrible idea for others. Specifically some people would be better off starting with strip as it provides a higher lifetime yield of follicles. Others would be better with FUE because they are hoping their native hairs will last or they don't mind a shaved head with pockmarks.

Perhaps your bias is due to your mostly focusing on cases here and not looking across forums, but trust me: FUE failures are a lot more common than FUT. I judge a "failure" as one that both the patient themselves and the community believes to be a poor result. Of course this is limited by picture quality, patient age/medication/scalp character, etc. but it is consistent.

This is undeniable and has not changed in the last 8 years. In some parts of the world, Turkey in particular, it has gotten significantly worse. This does not suggest surgical techniques are advancing, but decaying in favor of medical tourism and chop shops. I do not make this statement lightly--it is based on the cases I've accumulated and catalogued over the past decade from the 7 major hair loss forums, and it is unequivocally true based on my numbers. I would be happy to publish the actual data I've collected, it would be pretty eye opening for many I think. Perhaps one day the yields of Lorenzo and Couto will be seen across the industry, but we are not there yet.

48 minutes ago, gillenator said:

Biden not only had his horrendous plugs thinned out, I believe he had more grafts added with updated grafting methods.

He certainly had his procedures revised. I'm going to try and find a current pic of him without filler to show what I mean. I'm thinking of a recent interview where his scalp looked like elbow skin.