Shadow of the EMpire State

Way, way too late to the game. I guess they've finally come to realize that a strip-only shop is no longer a sustainable business model.

"Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been three years since my last FUE operation."

Dimensions and angles can be tough to judge from photographs, but I wonder whether the hairline is low enough.

Haha. There's actually a scene in Tootsie, where Dustin Hoffman, disguised as a woman, is having a conversation with a woman who has no idea that he's a man. Anyway, the woman says, "I just want men to be honest. I would love to have a man come up to me and say, 'You know, I find you very interesting, and I'd really like to make love with you. ' " So he files that away. Then, later in the movie, when he's dressed as a man, he approaches the same woman at a party. And of course, she has no idea who he is. And he says, "You know, I find you very interesting, and I'd really like to make love with you." And she responds by throwing her drink in his face. Haha. Too good.

It doesn't concern her, and I wouldn't tell her. This notion that men are obligated to confess every microscopic detail of their lives is a symptom of our increasingly feminized society, and contrary to popular belief, it's not something that women want. Sure, they say that they want honesty----until the truth is something they don't like. Then they ditch you, and you're left asking, "What happened to honesty?" At *best*, getting a hair transplant makes women think you're insecure and by extension, weak. At worst, it makes them think you're going to look like a freak. Either way, it's a bad deal.

I think this is a good result, but I wouldn't call it extraordinary. They took a rather conservative tack with the hairline and temples, and they used a fair number of grafts to accomplish it.

Strip: the corrective cosmetic surgery that requires a corrective cosmetic surgery.

I can see why you might want one. But on the other hand, you're very young, so your doctor would likely know less about your long-term pattern than if you were 30 or 35. Might be safer at 30.

Getting back to my main point: cost should not be weighed too heavily. Getting your ideal surgeon is more important than saving a few grand.

There's something that needs to be said but hasn't. And it's simply this: surgery should not fall under the banner of things on which you try to save money. If you want to shop around to save money on a TV or a car or a computer or a refrigerator, fine. After all, as long as you know the make, model, and serial number, the product will be the same regardless of where you buy it or what you pay for it. But professional services are different. Professional services are not "products" in the sense that TVs and computers are. They are not uniform. They differ from provider to provider. And when you're talking about medical services---which necessarily implicate your health, safety, and appearance---you had better make damned sure that you're choosing the best person for the job, not the guy whose prices are easier on your wallet. As for Turkey, I wouldn't go there if you paid me. Literally. ISIS forces control several border cities, and the Turkish government has done nothing about it because many of the people there are in sympathy with ISIS. Worse still, the most recent intelligence states that ISIS is now interested in extrajurisdictional abductions, i.e., beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq.

It just occurred to me that this is a woman! What a strange, strange balding pattern for a woman to have. I mean, that couldn't be her natural hairline, could it? This is hair loss, right?

Looking good, although, in fairness, the "now" pictures are rather fuzzy.

That's surprising.

What are you worried about? Injuring the grafts? I doubt very much that it would have any effect.

The discovery of your hair loss was not unlike mine. Like you, I kept my hair longer and always obscured the hairline. Then, one day, I tried cutting it shorter, and I couldn't understand why it didn't look right. I kept thinking that I'd gotten a bad haircut! Then, of course, the reality set in. My advice is to get to 30 and then decide. In layman's terms, by the time you're 30, the DHT faucet's been on awhile, so you can gauge your hair's reaction to it and plan accordingly.

Calling this patient a NW 2 is a bit of a stretch. He was a NW 1 before surgery. Still, at 39, the procedure was a safe bet.

How did I misrepresent what you said? I'd say being on the forums for 10 years implies a fair degree of experience, given that I've seen thousands of transplants play out over that time-----to say nothing of the ones I've seen in person. The hair-transplant industry. That's not what I said. What I said was that if a patient isn't happy at seven months, it's unlikely he'll ever be happy with the outcome. The best results are precocious. Well, it's not a conspiracy, but yes, the hair-transplant industry as a whole is absolutely dedicated to lying. It has been for years. It's one of the most deceptive, dishonest industries going. Now there are exceptions, but on the whole, its historical reputation ranks alongside used-car salesmen and cold-calling stock brokers.

A troll? I've been here for years.

Enough with this. I've been here 10 years. They can give you all the 12-to-18-month garbage they want, but if you're not happy after seven months, chances are you're not going to be happy. That's the story that's played out over and over on these boards. The 12-to-18-month line is used as a device to calm the patient down, to allow more time to go by, and to hope that it damps the patient's anger.

Not blown away by the front. I wonder how many grafts were put in the crown.

This is well done.

Utterly so. I'll repeat what I wrote in a thread: in my experience over the last 10 years, Joe has been the fairest and best clinic liaison on the internet. He's never tried to sell me on anything, and I've always found his opinions to be knowledgeable and, more to the point, as objective as one could reasonably expect from an employee. It's important to remember that Joe has never pretended to be a roving patient advocate. Like the rest of us, he needs to earn a living. And he earns that living by working for cosmetic surgeons. That's always been well known. Accordingly, feigning shock and outrage upon realizing that *some* of his opinions might be colored by bias toward his employer is a bit much. We're all a little biased. If I installed kitchens for a living, and a friend asked me for a recommendation, I would recommend myself. And so would 99% of people. That's just something that has to be weighed when assessing the recommendation.

Well, these pictures paint a very different picture. Here, you appear to be a 3V, whereas in the bicked pictures, you looked like a 5+. So that's good. But you're still only 25. If you could wait until 30, you'd probably be better off.

I'm sorry. I didn't realize you only wanted opinions that you agree with.

I don't think you're a candidate. The bald area is simply too big relative to donor supply.