bismarck

I'm curious about this as well. According to the Spanish forums, Couto, Freitas and Lorenzo are on hold.

Eric, do you have pictures before and after your surgery that weren't taken by the clinic? Really odd writing in this post, can't tell if language barrier or advertisement.

I remember a number of years ago there was a guy that tried to do his own self-FUE, like literally at home with surgical tools he bought on the Chinese black market. It was one of the funniest things I had ever read. Could someone refer me to that post or the guy's name?

That's a great approach to having your best chance for success. Just try not to look in the mirror or take selfies every 5 minutes if you can, you will thank me later. Now it is just a waiting game. I anticipate a great yield for you. Perfect timing with the quarantine.

Yeah but if we were in China we'd be put in jail or killed for speaking out against the government. At what point does "concealing the truth to avoid panic" become "lying to lead people to the slaughter"? Hospitals are disgusting right now. Avoid unless very sick. The heroism and tragedy of Li Wen Liang makes me so mad. We have got to get it the fuck together.

I think it's a 50:50 chance that plaquenil will work as a meaningful ionophore, I suspect those results are apocryphal. Hopefully not. But make no mistake, there will be another pandemic after this one. Whether it's COVID 20 in the fall or another zoonotic crossover. These infections are becoming more frequent and more deadly with China's increasing population, urbanization, and their absurd love of wet markets. They literally have already opened the markets back up and kicked out the journalists. If they don't fix it, we will have to enact a long term travel ban on China. It is a troubled country with little to no business ethics at the cost of human lives and individuality. You could see this with Tiananmen Square, Mao Ze Dong, Chiang Kai Shek, the warring states, it has been going on for thousands of years. We are not going to stop it with tariffs and UN sanctions. A travel ban will be the only solution, which will certainly destabilize world peace efforts. Unfortunately, the Chinese are giving us no other choice. If we do not isolate them, we will degenerate into a broken shell of our former selves. Hantavirus, SARS, COVID 20, each wave will make us progressively weaker till we finally can't fight back. People are not talking about it because it's not politically correct, but the Chinese have got to evolve their shitty dietary practices. It's a strange combination of a rural country background with the most rapid urbanization the world has ever seen. The perfect storm.

Trump finally just acknowledged the death count to projected at 240k in a best case scenario. That's twice the number of Americans that died in World War I and the number of soldiers that died in World War II. Without extending the shutdown, we are looking at 1.5 to 2.2 million, which would be the greatest disaster the United States has ever faced. Period. So 2% should be taken the fuck seriously. I think it's pretty irresponsible to refer to this as the flu or fear mongering, as some in this thread have been suggesting. Even the title of this thread seems absurd at this point. There is not going to be a hair transplant industry for most of 2020. And certainly no meaningful new research or procedural development for 5-10 years after if the depression happens.

My hunch would be that the community hospitals have better numbers because they are sending their sickest patients to the tertiary care centers at the main medical hubs. Right now if someone tests positive for corona, the family is not allowed to visit, even if they're dying. It is unfortunately necessary.

I don't know the details of that article but a lot of ventilation is putting the body on shutdown until it can recover -- this applies to heart attacks, strokes, sepsis, treatable cancer, etc. You really are dancing on a razor's edge in the ICU even in good times. Death is everywhere. Right now, things are horrible. Particularly in New York but LA is following close behind. Docs, nurses and support staff are getting sick. Everything elective is shut down. When you're overwhelmed at that level, crazy shit is gonna happen and mistakes are going to sky rocket. It's just human nature. You couldn't even run a Chipotle at the pace hospitals are going right now, and intubation is harder than making a burrito bowl.

Being put on a ventilator is pretty painful, particularly with infected lungs. There are many shades of grey to sedation.

Yes I agree. I would add that this is true only if the dermal papillae/stem cell are transplanted, not if its the shaft or some other part of the hair follicle (ie. the stem or root). And if a follicle is in telogen, the chances of getting the stem cell perfectly are unlikely if you can't see it, particularly because you're not even aiming for that hair, you're aiming for the one that you can actually see. There's been a lot of discussion about this in the past, I think the answer was no one knew if dormant follicles were being successfully transplanted, it stands to reason that some are, but if it's by blind luck, it's probably not many. In those with denser donor hair more often, in those with less dense donor hair less often. It would be pretty tough to test this hypothesis so I'm not sure of what use it is at this point. Remember Nigam's supposed "stem cell duplication" from a few years back? He was trying to divide stem cells intentionally under high magnification and didn't have much success.

Interesting. Do both husband and wife operate? Also conan, are you on finasteride?

Ah let me explain. Here is a hair follicle: I would imagine that, even with magnification loupes, these would be pretty hard to see if dormant. So if an adjacent "sleeping" follicle is partially removed, all that brings with it is cellular debris. My guess is that this dead follicle would cause some inflammation when implanted next to a living follicle (as opposed to the surrounding connective tissue/plug). I could be totally wrong though, it might bring growth factors and extracellular matrix with it that helps growth, or induce just the right amount of hormesis to promote follicle development. I should have probably just not said anything, it's really not a helpful theoretical discussion.

Keser I really haven't come across a subpar result from Keser here. You mean on other forums?

Wow thank you for being so thorough. Look forward to continued updates. Also I'm not sure if you mentioned this already, but are you on any medication or therapy?

Rolando, I believe splitting is more often done with FUT type techniques where you don't have as much ability to choose finer follicles for the frontal hairline, but I'm not sure about this. Perhaps doing a combined FUE/FUT would be a wiser choice in scenarios involving finer frontal hairline work as it would allow you more flexibility in choosing donors. I agree though, you are really putting the follicle at risk of being damaged if not done correctly.

There's also a great deal of variability in how you count splits. Let's say you have a bundle of three hairs and you implant three separately to your hairline -- is that 3 grafts or 1? Does the extraction or implantation matter? I think the Spanish docs might have a different standard of counting compared to other clinics, possibly because they take such a large punches. Again the results are phenomenal but the donor looks way more chewed up too -- the yield comes at a cost. Here you go

I was at a music festival and a girl rejected me telling me she didn't like dating older men. When we spoke more I realized she was 4 years older than me, and I accepted that my hair was a problem.

You made the right choice--I would place Hattingen with the 'hyper-elites' of transplantation (ie. with Couto, Konior, Keser, Hasson and Lorenzo). Their clinic has an almost obsessive level of attention to detail that I have rarely seen elsewhere. I believe the surgeon(s) are actually Laura and Severe Muresanu a husband/wife duo. Hattingen is the town and clinic where they operate. This is FUT, correct? And what medical hair loss treatments have you tried or are you using? Are you on finasteride/dutasteride, ketoconazole or minoxidil? Please keep us updated, I think you are going to have an amazing result by the end of the quarantine.

I mean we shouldn't lose perspective. The average American, regardless of age, is more likely to die from the coronary artery disease they develop being sedentary during a prolonged lockdown and from the alcohol they drink during the following unemployment than they are ever likely to die from COVID 19. What I respect about the murkiness and ambiguity of the hair loss industry is that it's taught me to have a healthy skepticism of authority figures and popular opinion alike -- I'll believe it when I can run a comb through it. Hair multiplication, piloscopy, hair tonics, fue/fut, anybody that follows hair loss for awhile develops a real strong distrust of anybody claiming to have 'the cure' or 'the answer'. At the same time, if you're on this forum it means that in addition to skepticism, you still remember how to hope for something better. That even in the midst of a shitty situation, something good can happen. So that's where we have to be my fellow hair loss sufferers. Let's take the lessons the industry has taught us about emotional resilience, skepticism and optimism and apply them to an international crisis on a scale most of us have never seen. God only knows where this will end up. I hope everyone is okay by the time things are through. We have a duty to think of the most intelligent response, and that is balancing quarantine with economic slowing. Lives will be lost no matter what we do, the key is finding the lowest point on the curve till we reach the inflection point.

Listen to Fauci not Donnie.

I think if the economy really starts to stagger and we're unable to transition jobs online, we may experiment with a stratified quarantine where we have those at risk remain on lockdown, but even then. There's not an easy way out of this one.

Is it crazy to be thinking about home defense strategies right now? Shit.

I wonder what things are going to look like after 3 months of unemployment for a large portion, if not the majority, of the working class. Will you feel safe walking alone at night? This really feels like a tipping point.