Severn

I'd say Ron and Paul are pretty much tied at this point for skill. Excellent.

I've been negligent in keeping up my photo logs but will start soon. I will say at 7 months after my procedure I was getting concerned that the growth was less than expected. But at the one year mark I had seen a significant improvement. I've seen some results where they have appeared to reach full growth at 6 months but everyone is different. I wouldn't think anything at all at the 3 or 4 month mark.

This sounds like you are suggesting that most HT surgeries even with the top docks yield substandard or completely unacceptable results. I don't agree with that.

I straight up told my barber after the HT what I'd done and was very open with it. He was mildly interested and I answered a few questions. After that he went back to talking about football. We will be obsessed with it but your barber and other people generally don't give a s***.

That looks really good man. However, I'm sure that you are in the earliest stages. I personally could feel great about those results even if it didn't get any better, which of course it will.

I think the only thing different Rahal does is the post op where he suggests using Vitaman E to keep the grafts moisterized. I wonder if this accounts for the early growth of his patients?

Well I had a small procedure done in in the 90's with them. About 8 months later I was contacting a lawyer. How's that for a review?

Not willing to drive 2 hours? Hell, I flew across the country for my consult. Then flew back 3 months later for the procedure.

Matt can kinda talk your ear off on the first orientation call, but I guess that's part of the education process. If you feel more comfortable with Rahal, definitely go with him.

Matt was one of the deciding factors for me chosing SMG actually. I had 4 scalp reductions perfomed on me 13 years prior to my HT. At least one of the other consults I had done seemed to gloss over this like it was no problem at all. In fact, they glowingly praised me saying "I was a HT surgeon's dream patient". I felt this was a line of bull because my laxity wasn't really there. After consulting with Matt, he showed concern that my laxity wasn't good enough to get 2500 on one pass. Instead of hard selling me, he told it to me straight. Luckily I was able to do enough scalp exersizes prior to the surgery to more than accomodate the numbers I needed. In summary, Matt was the only consultant that didn't make me feel like I was at a used car dealership.

Strictly my opinion, but this is the difference between the docs you listed. I believe Shapiro is best known for his consistent results on age appropriate, natural hairlines. Great staff and follow up. The mindset seems to be more on the conservative side for planning. Rahal seems to be best known for giving really dense "movie star" hairlines. Some amazing results if that's what you are after. Hasson and Wong are more aggressive side for planning. They have more experience with mega sessions. Good consistant results. Wong is known as the "crown master". He recreates the natural whorl pattern the best. It probably really comes down to what direction you want your HT to take and what area's you are wanting to concentrate on the most.

Right. I wasn't interested in FUE. I believe it has a lower graft survival rate even under the best of surgeons. I don't remember SMG's price for FUE but 2 years ago at my first procedure, I remember the techs complaining that the fees were too low for the amount of work that was done for FUE.

I had a small amount of work done by Bosely long ago. They royally screwed it up and I even looked into sueing them. It was after that I discovered they are a very shady operation that have been sued many many times. The lead DA in Los Angeles had gone after them years ago to shut them down. They do very poor substandard work and rely on mass media infomercial blitz to get their customers. But now the internet forums and testimonials have started to sink their little scam. Last I heard a couple of years ago they were in danger of going under. The price I paid at SMG was $5/graft up to 2000 grafts then $3 for every graft after that IIRC.

I developed a system that made it relatively easy. The biggest problem I had at first was my arms getting tired and being bored. So I would lay on the couch while watching a movie and have my arms supported to my head. I would then casually conduct the exercises in 2-5 minute intervals and rest as needed. By the end of the movie, I would have gotten about 45 minutes in and barely noticed I was doing the exercises because I was involved in what I was watching. Then later on that night I would do it again sometimes and get almost 2 hours in. It wasn't bad at all doing it that way.

I probably went way overboard. I did between 1-2 hours per day. I would do them in 5 minute intervals though and the time was cumulitive. But it made a huge, huge difference. Because of the extreme laxity I attained, they only had to cut half the distance around my head. If they would have gone ear to ear it would have been 6000. But I'm probably a rare case because not many people can devote 1-2 hours a day to them. But it was a very small price to pay in the end. btw aaron, i was up there about 2 weeks ago so barely missed you. Your results make you look like a teenager bud. Great job they did for ya.