JoeTillman

Yes, used to be when I posted as "Jotronic", but I left just over eleven months ago. It seems like forever!

My advice would be to stick to one of those three as they are definitely involved in the surgery beyond drawing the hairline. The same cannot be said for the VAST majority of the clinics in Turkey.

During the 3rd Annual Mediterranean FUE Workshop there were doctors from around the world that had come to take part. This got the attention of the local media and one of the biggest national networks sent a correspondent to the conerference where they interviewed Dr. Erdogan and Dr. Karadeniz. If you understand Turkish, have fun. For those that don't, they were discussing the state of modern hair restoration and medical/surgical tourism in Turkey which is, according to a CBC article, worth about 5 Billion US dollars annually to Turkey's economy. I was just behind the scenes during this interview and it was nice to see surgical hair restoration getting some main stream press. I was able to take a few shots during the interviews.

Cali, You are correct, but I was referring to the FUE side of things, not the FUT side of things. Like Ontop said, we'll contribute it to jetlag:)

Balody, Wow! Great to see you back. Hope you've been well. What have you missed? Not much, same old same old. Oh wait... I'll be in the UK soon so if your salon is somewhat nearby I'll drop in for a cut:)

Thank you Ontop. I appreciate the support. I may wind up in his Charlotte office in North Carolina, not Charleston, South Carolina but regardless, the travel will be documented just the same.

Whenever a button is pressed on someone that hasn't any facts, they usually go off on an insulting tangent. Oh wait... Fact. If you look at the time stamps on our two previous postings there is a gap of well over 24 hours. The next previous post shows a six hour time difference. Fact. You said... I asked you which photos are fake which how you know that food dye is used? You didn't answer the question but instead attacked my manhood. Regardless of how much effort you put into your rebuttal it still doesn't answer the question. I can't speak to her past but the fact is that she now has three years of experience and regardless of her experience leading up to her joining the company she does excellent work now. The legitimacy of your claims are irrelevant. Proven results of which you have refused to share, science that you can't back up, and "facts" that are merely your opinion. One such fact was when you tried to say that trico will cost a patient 15 thousand dollars over the course of ten years. I presented the math of how pricing works to show you that the price of trico for ten years would be 5500.00. Your defense was that you were assuming price jumps which means you expect the price to go up by 300%. You can attack me all you want, I don't really care, but if you are going to make accusations you should be able to back them up instead of slinging sophmoric insults. Regardless, if you find something wrong with my website, list them out and email or private message me. I'll see if your claims are legitimate and I'll make changes based on these truths. If you are all for the truth then you shouldn't have an issue with this and you should be happy to help. In the end, it's all about what you said earlier... And that is all that really matters. Good day.

I wish you all the best with this trial, Dr. Wesley. Good luck!

Shills? Who is a shill? Food dye and marker ink? Where's your proof of this charade? There is not a single tricopigmentation provider that I'm aware of using such tactics. If you are, point them out and I'll publicly shame them myself and maybe even work with Milena to revoke their license for using the Beauty Medical name but the problem is that you can't show these examples you speak of because you're making this up. What I've noticed with you BK2 is that you make claims about the claims of others but you don't back these claims up. It is just talk. I however can usually back my claims. There was a discussion a few weeks back where one poster was supporting your position by saying to find a provider that uses a particular brand of ink because it has the best black in the industry (or some nonsense like that) and that it doesn't fade, guaranteed. I came out with the proof that the ink in question was banned in the UK and the EU for having carcinogenic properties. You said nothing about this but you want to call tricopigmentation techs "clowns"??? Some of the techs I've met so far are among the nicest, most caring people in the hair loss industry and I personally find it offensive that you would use such rash descriptives. They're not walking around like some gold chain wearing douchebags we see on Youtube selling their gangsta SMP. They don't have shill websites with fake identities to sell advertising to competitors and they don't have patients with long term blotching of their results combined with serious color change to blue or green. Permanent SMP companies do, and that is a fact that no one can legitimately deny. You said in an earlier thread that you feel trico is great for some people and that you are being "balanced" in your opinions but if you call this balanced then I think Fox News may have an opening for you on their staff.

If this isn't a classic representation of how our own self image can be distorted then I don't know what is. I've met patients in person where I'm holding a copy of their before picture, where they were completely bald, and a year later I'm holding a copy of a photo I just took to show them the actual difference and they have just looked at me like I was crazy, meanwhile in my hands I'm holding images of what some would assume were two different people because the difference was so black & white. Regardless, it's a stand up result for five months and I'm looking forward to the continued progress for him. Well done, doc! Say hi to the ladies for me:)

Congratulations, Voxman.

As of July 1, 2015 I will be affiliated with Dr. Michael Vories and Carolina Hair Surgery in Charleston, South Carolina USA. I’m exited to be working with Dr. Vories, both publicly and behind the scenes, as I feel he has a lot of potential especially in the North American market. Having just returned from Istanbul where I participated in the 3rd Annual Mediterranean Workshop at the kind invitation of Dr. Koray Erdogan I was able to watch Dr. Jose Lorenzo at work, again, working his magic on a lucky patient. Dr. Vories trained with Dr. Lorenzo a few years ago and, like Dr. Lorenzo, Dr. Vories uses Hans Lion implanter pens for his placement. Dr. Vories performs each procedure himself, from beginning to end starting with extractions and finishing with placement of each and every graft. As far as we know, he is the only such doctor in North America that is involved so much in each of his surgeries. We started to chat a few weeks ago as I contacted him so I could learn more about his practice. With my Hair Transplant Mentor website I get questions about lots of different doctors and with Dr. Vories the inquiries were increasing. I felt it was only fair to call him up and get the scoop because I can’t discuss the man or his techniques unless I find out for myself. After we talked the subject of collaboration emerged and the rest is history. I’ve spoken to Dr. Vories not just about his surgical details but also about his patient care and follow up. I asked a lot of tough questions and based on what I’ve learned I think Dr. Vories is worth considering for hair transplant surgery, FUE style. Near the end of the month I’ll be traveling to Charleston, South Carolina to review Dr. Michael Vories and his clinic. Like Dr. Karadeniz before him, it is quite brave to agree to an announcement BEFORE my review because ultimately it could backfire on him if I don’t like what I see but this tells me he’s confident in his clinic and from what I’ve seen so far, I am too. And yes, I’ll be filming my journey the whole way, boiled peanuts (Southern style) and all☺ Stay tuned!

Regarding piloscopy, I am of the opinion that the scarring will much less than either procedure simply because there is no full depth or even partial depth (as is performed by some FUE surgeons) incision to get the follicles out. One "major" incision of about 1cm is needed to insert the piloscopic mechanism for extraction and that's it. Any scarring will, I believe, be extremely minimal underneath and non-existing superficially but of course it goes without saying, but I will anyway, that I'm not completely versed in all of the details of piloscopy.

It can also happen with FUSS if the incisions are too small for the grafts and they are stuffed in. Again, it comes down to how they're handled in either case. No question that FUE needs more gentle hands regardless.

I don't think that the wirey growth can be attributed to a technique blindly. It absolutely does depend on the skill of the surgeon as I've seen more than my fair share of wirey growth cases via FUSS. Ontop, I did ask this question and I have an interview with a doctor that addresses it. Unfortunately I did not get as many interviews as I would have liked as it was absolute pandamonium during the conference. Everyone had schedules and during the social events it was just too loud to record anything worth while. I'm going to have a more stable environment in September at the ISHRS meeting in Chicago to conduct interviews so I think that will be a more fruitfull environment to work in. I'm catching up on emails and some meetings for the next few days and I still have my videos to edit from my trip last month to Istanbul so please be patient with my updates.

Thanks for the comments fellas. It's been a really busy time here in Istanbul and I've got some thoughts to share in an upcoming blog post. Dr. Erdogan has put together a real winner of a workshop and his entire team are a great to deal with. I've been working with one of the technicians on a small project that I hope to see implemented soon. The surgeries were great and I feel honored to have been included in the activities. Meeting new doctors and reconnecting with old friends, doctor's I've known for years has been a real pleasure. Here are some pics from the event...

What is wrong with this scenario is that, in your father's case the menial work was left to assistants while he delegated and performed the difficult and most important aspects himself. All surgical theaters work this way. What you see in the photo is nothing like your father's experience because there is no doctor involved in the surgery. There is no doctor involve in the extraction, the incision making nor the placement. A doctor does not determine the hair ange, nor the hair direction, and everything is left up to the technicians, of which you have no information regarding their experience, their abilities, much less their ethics and there is zero accountability. If there is a doctor involved at all it is to tell the technicians how many grafts to extract and place and he might draw the hairline. I'm currently in Turkey, for the second time in four weeks, and I'm attending the FUE workshop going hosted by Dr. Erdogan. While here I have taken time to visit one of these mill clinics where I posed as a potential patient looking for consultation. The scenario I witnesed did not have the patients all in one room like in the photo above but it was an equally shocking and disturbing environment. I'll write up a full report, along with everything else going on, next week after I get home.

Why? Becuase I love self-punishment, obviously. Seriously, though; I'm going back because I'm going to be attending the 3rd Annual Mediterranean FUE Workshop hosted by Dr. Koray Erdogan and Asmed. I'm leaving this afternoon, hopping on a jet plane and Dr. Erdogan was generous enough to invite me to the conference and allow me access to any and all doctors that are willing to be interviewed on camera. So here is your chance to get involved. I'll be asking some questions of my own but I want to present your questions as well. I can't promise who will answer your question or if anyone I interview will answer it at all but as long as your questions are fair and respectful I'll present them on your behalf on camera. Copy and paste the list below with your question added in order. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Baldken2, Tyler Green is in fact a fictional character. He doesn't exist. If you do an image search on google, using his profile pic, you'll find only hits on "his" website and one reference to a Hong Kong casino company. That's it. I have already written about this issue several weeks ago and I have the proof. Visit the site in my signature and look at the blog entries. It's right there in "black and white".

Yes, it is quite efficient in the setup, it is very clean and I like the feel. I refer to his clinic as a boutique clinic because you get a lot of personal service that is more "home style" than clinical and since there is only one patient per day there is a personal touch that permeates as genuine. The view isn't bad either. Yes, "killage" was his name but not his attitude, thankfully:) Ontop, "Busy" is an understatement. Istanbul is a very populous city and the traffic is horrendous but I have come to expect this in many of the cities I travel to. Rome, London, Istanbul, Madrid and many others are all like this, plus or minus a few degrees of severity. Johnboy71, I'm glad you're enjoying them! Thanks, guys. I appreciate the comments. They mean a lot when I'm working for hours on all of this footage!

Which would cause you concern? Technicians doing the procedure or them doing a better job than the doc that used to perform FUSS? Regardless, by Dr. Feller's own words it doesn't matter whom is doing the procedure as he just said that FUSS gets better yield than FUE "PERIOD". Do you agree with this statement, that in no scenario will FUE have a higher yield than a FUSS procedure? I'd like to say that there was room to wiggle on this but there isn't because Dr. Feller just removed all options for wiggling. That just seems weird to type:) but you get the point. I stand by my statements, FUSS will have an overall higher yield but I don't think the difference is very high in better hands and certainly not 40% different as Dr. Lindsay stated but I KNOW of cases where FUSS was the primary procedure and subsequent FUE procedures provided better yield. I know it happens. I've seen it. I've spoken to the patients so it is undeniable to me. It is a fact. Now, the other question is one of consistency. Ah HA! But THAT, my friends is another story, and discussion, entirely.

This is a bold statement. So, by the bluntness and undeniable point of this statement, you're saying that any FUSS procedure you have performed that did not have good yield would have had worse yield with FUE. You said there is no parsing of words in your statement so this means that it is blanket, without fail, without exception with no room for analysis of your intended meaning, that under no circumstances would an FUE procedure ever have a better yield than any FUSS procedure, regardless of that FUSS procedure having low or high yield. With all due respect, Dr. Feller, this crosses over from being logical to being nothing more than wishful thinking, in my opinion, because that would mean that every single low yield FUSS case ever performed, that went to have FUE for repair, turned out worse than the previous FUSS procedure itself. If you believe this to be true I respectfully say that you are flat out wrong. The minor yield issues are not going to convert pro-FUE readers into anti-FUE and pro-FUSS readers. At most I think it may soften the perception of FUSS for some, which would be a good thing, but my point is this. FUE has gotten to the point, again assuming better quality clinics, that the diferences in yield are inconsequential for most patients. And this is what reminds me of the battles I used to wage online years ago. Back then, it wasn't so much about FUE vs. FUSS. It was more about the Lateral Slit Technique vs. needles, or Choi implanters, or whatever. I would spend HOURS learning about each technique and posting what I felt were logical points against anything that was not the coveted Lateral Slit Technique. But then something changed. I realized that no matter how right I was, and I was right by the way, to this day;) there were still great results being realized by clinics that did not use the LST. How could this be? They weren't using custom cut blades that produce FAR less physical trauma to the tissue. They weren't shaving the recipient zone before surgery so they can see each and every native hair growing in their true angle and direction. But yet there they were. Great growth, great density and more importantly, a happy patient. Well EFF me! I realized, and this was a hard fact to swallow, that these little details just don't matter in the overall picture. These little details that we "experts" bitch about on these forums means exactly two things to the happy patient. Jack and sh*t. And it is the same thing with these academic discussions of better FUE vs. better FUSS. It can be said, easily in fact, that FUSS is indeed more "popular" than FUE but I think it is a disengenious slant because FUSS was already the overwhelmingly dominant procedure when FUE first gained moderate recognition for what it is. This industry is slow to change, and Dr. Feller knows just how slow it is. Microscopes of all things were not used by everyone, including Dr. Feller, from the start and in fact, for MANY years, a lot of doctors were very resistant to their use instead of the tradtionally used jeweler's loupes. I think that FUE is more poplular if we based "popularity" on the growth curve or even based it on which one is growing and which one is not. According to one presentation given at the ISHRS conference in 2010, FUSS procedures peaked in 2008 and have been in decline ever since, with the FUE adoption rate gaining momentum every year. In 2004 FUE made up 7.2% of all procedures performed by ISHRS members. In 2008 it made up 10.8% which is less than 1% growth per year. In 2013 it was over 30% which shows an exponential increase in adoption year over year between 2008 and 2013 (when the last stats were published on the matter). At that rate it means that roughly half of all surgeries performed will be FUE in the next couple of years. So "popular" is one angle, "fastest growing" or in this case, "growing vs. shrinking" I think is more appropriate. The reasons why it is more popular, or gainining in popularity while FUSS is losing in popularity (it doesn't really matter which way you say it) are not because of the superior yields of FUE. We both agree on this and I wrote an article on the driving force of this change, which is economically based, nothing more. But the economics go beyond the ease and low financial threshold behind FUE adoption rates. The economics are ultimately driven by market demand which brings us to the final point, regardless of yield discussions, regardless of confluence of scar discussions or surface area of this,that or the other. The market doesn't want a FUSS scar and FUE eliminates this and as long as FUE yield is close enough, and yes in some cases superior for any number of reasons in some cases, then FUE will continue to grow in popularity and FUSS will continue to decline.

Hi Fortune, I remember the information, I don't remember where I posted it but I've discussed the issue on various formats over the past several months. The point was that FUE has grown so fast in the past few years because a few companies have made it easier to get started. Neograft, for instance, has a machine that you can buy for 100,000 (or so) and they have a team that comes to your new "clinic" and they train you and perform the first several procedures on your behalf. Anyone with an MD or DO behind his name, and in some US states neither are required, you can have your very own turn key FUE hair trasnplant clinic in a weekend. There is also the lower overall overhead; smaller facilities, less staff, less equipment and then of course the higher cost per graft. It's simple economics and can be likened to the stock market rule of thumb, "buy low/sell high". It is not just Neograft, however. One need only have a punch in hand and they're off to the races, be it hand held manual or hand held micromotor or Neograft. It doesn't matter, the point is that there is much less overhead with FUE, fewer physical requirements (staff, equipment,square footage) so it is cheaper and faster to get started. FUE is everwhere and it will continue to be so whereas FUSS requires a LOT more prep work to get going. Quality is not expected in these overnight lemonade stands and I do not factor such places into my discussions unless otherwise specifically referenced. I think that when we are all discussing the merits of any procedure we are hopefully assuming the respective procedures in relation to them being performed by higher quality establishments. I'll remind everyone, I agree with Dr. Feller in general. FUE grafts will have a lower overall yield but this is in the grand scheme and is a general reference, not as an absolute on a case to case comparison. Furthermore, I do not believe that FUE cases have the appearance of 40% less yield compared to similar FUSS cases as was stated by Dr. Lindsey. Best strip compared to worst FUE? Absolutely yes, but again, we are assuming higher level quality and ethics, or at least I am anyway so this 40% figure just seems unusual to me. Dr. Feller, et al, have their reasons for making the statements they make and agree or disagree you have to at least respect that much. My position, as already stated, is that I support the general notion that FUSS will have a higher yield but I do not believe this automatically means it is a VISIBLE difference or even one that if IS visible is not easily quantified in percentages. Have I seen disasters wtih FUE? Of course, as have most everyone else here, but let us not forget that the majority of the repair cases we see on these boards are not FUE disasters. They are FUSS disasters and the overwhelming theme has been " I wish I had had FUE". Lower yield be damned, be it 5% lower or 15% lower, patients.don't. care. What's funny about all of this is that I've seen some doctors that were FUSS exclusive at one time and they didn't exactly inspire confidence with their work. Several years later their FUE work is unquestionably much better than any FUSS work they ever performed. Does this mean they just have a natural talent for FUE compared to FUSS? Or does this mean that FUE has better yield? It could be argued either way and it may be a combination of both, on a clinic by clinic basis. The point is, no two procedures will be performed to the same level by the same physician, so how can two procedures be performed to the same level as every other physician? If they were, we wouldn't need the Coalition, the IAHRS, and other organizations that at least help to sort the good from the bad. You could just throw a dart at a phone book and go to anyone that is listed and expect the same result as that from the next guy.

This is an unfair statement. You cannot say that a procedure WILL grow better because of the POTENTIAL for another to not grow as well. A more accurate way to say this would be... "No matter how good any particular FUE procedure grows, it would have potentially grown better with a strip procedure because the potential for injured and transected grafts is far lower" There is a big difference between the two statements.

Ok fellas, part 2 is edited and uploaded and "F" me if it wasn't a pain the butt. I hope you guys appreciate this, lol! I'm learning how to edit as I do this so everything about this is completely new to me:) No one is helping me and I'm using software I've never used before. Hair transplant documentary #2 shows the journey from the airport to the hotel. Normally this would be a dull journey not worthy of discussion but in Istanbul there is more to it than what you may expect. I then check in to the hotel and give a preliminary tour of Dr. K's clinic before we head out for dinner. There is a LOT more to come so stay tuned! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC8umJDKpGo