ukjoe

With Reese. Witnessed about half the hair near the hairline start to grow in, then started shedding and finally died out.As evidenced by photos. Actual before and after photos. He denied any responsibility and actually yelled at me for not coming in for more pictures. I sh1t you not. He sat there and yelled at me, making it my fault because he wasn't going to be able to take pictures... It must have been some secret magical camera to regrow hair. His lackey Dan said they always take care of their clients and would give me a refund but after increasing delays in replying, Dan cut me off completely and ignored me. what a bunch of scumbags.

I am apprehensive to say anything based on concerns about spammers... For the record I am not... I saw Dr Kelsey starting in 93 and went back over the years and never had any problems. Except now when my original hair is thinning. The procedures with him were at the start of my inevitable thinning. There were no bald areas and I think he did a great job. I want to say I've read concerns about his harvesting method at the time, the dove tailing. I'm not sure if he still does that or not. It worked for me with minimal scaring. I wish I would have made the trip and gone back to him. I had my most recent hair transplant almost two years ago. The donor area was from the back of my head and a very good donor zone. Of the areas I could witness easily, many of the old follicles didn't fall out for well over a year. In the front\hairline was "peppered" follicles about an 1\8 inch or so below to blend in and clean up some previous work I had done over the years with Kelsey. Of those in from there are only a few left now. Some grew in and then have thinned and fallen out. As I mentioned before I started transplant procedures in 1993 and never had this problem before. Those follicles are still with me and growing strong. This recent transplant was with a different Dr and he used the method of removing a long strip from the back and cutting up the follicles to be transplanted from the strip. My concern is that maybe during the procedure the follicles were not cared for properly. Maybe out too long before transplanted or maybe cutting\removing them from the strip was not done properly damaging the follicles. I have a follow up appt but I'm worried he's going to blow smoke my way. He is a top Dr in my area although no listed in HTNetwork. I just notice you posted this in 2004. Did you ever get a procedure?

CuriousGeorge: The "cover is ass" comment was regarding him lying to me about his assistant missing the removal of sutures followed by his explanation of ethics, and nothing to do with his actual stance on prescribing medication. You apparently missed that part... As for "To prescribe medication "off-label," for a physician, indeed is an "ethical issue". Physicians have been prescribing and pharmacies have been filling off-label\generic medications ever since I can recall... I'm not sure if there are any laws that look differently upon whether a medication is for cosmetic purposes or not so I have no idea where you are going with this... As for your next accusation..., I accused him of nothing. I merely speculated about how his motives could appear to others. Especially as it sharply contradicts the FDA. Does he have stock in Merck? I don't know nor do I care. Nor am I annoyed about his stance. I have great respect for Dr Reese and his practice. But no more than the other Doctors who disagree with him. My audacity to question a Doctor really seems to stir the pot for some... What I was annoyed with, as I will repeat for the last time in this post, was his failure to be up from with me about the sutures not with his stance on Propecia. It is amazing how quickly these forums can digress.

No Bill, it's not always unethical to do something illegal. Would you break the speed limit to get someone in an emergency to the hospital? Ethics are not black and white. And defrauding insurance has nothing to do with my original post. That has all been assumed by others posting... Who decides if there is a generic for Propecia if not the FDA? Are you saying the FDA is wrong? Check out their website.

I'm not sure what you think Dr Reese is right about in my original post. There has been a lot of confusion in many of the responses in respect to my original post but I know these boards go off in many tangents. A few of you are citing insurance fraud which is not an ethical dilemma but a legal issue. My Dr prescribes finastride for me. It isn't billed as something else other than for the DX of alopecia. It's not covered by my insurance and we are not trying to fool the insurance company. I pay out of pocket 100% so there are no legal concerns. I explained this to Dr Reese but it is what it is I guess. Also there is a lot of mention that there is no generic drug for Propecia in this post and from Dr Reese. The FDA clearly labels finastride as a generic drug for Propecia. I'm not sure what other definition of "generic" one would reference for a drug other than that of the FDA. As for Dr Reese, I have no argument with him at all. Ethics are a grey area. Some border on legalities and some do not and these are choices each and everyone of us must make and I respect his decision. I completely disagree with it and by his reasoning; the FDA does as well so it just doesn't make sense to me. This kind of reasoning could make one wonder who does and does not have stock options in Merck...

No. They were the black heavy threaded sutures. The worst was like a never ending bloody scab that would not go away. Dr Reese looked at it as did his staff. His staff said she saw nothing. Reese with his magnifying glasses said he could see some of the "absorbable" suture poking through. My Dr pulled out a knotted loop he guess the assistant just pulled deeper into the wound when she was removing the rest. I feel like there are a couple of more. I've had a few surgeries and I am all too familiar with disolvable sutures. These were not. It was just frustrating having Reese tell me otherwise to cover his own ass or whatever the reason. He's far from incompetant. This is my first surgery having graphs this small. It's been about a month now and a bunch are already growing in. It's like some of the previous hair never shocked out, it just continued growing. I've had about 6-7 smaller surgeries over the past 15 years with David Kelsey and this is pretty different. 1600+ is a hell of a lot more itchy!

I was in about a week ago to see Dr Reese about some areas of my donor scar which were not healing and that I had removed 3-4 sutures myself that were missed. After looking at the problem areas he assured me they were absorbing sutures and would go away. It has been about a month now and I was in to see my Dr yesterday who was kind enough to lance yet two more bloody blisters from my donor scar to remove two more suture loops confirming with me they were in fact non-absorbing sutures. He said he witnesses this a lot when patients attempt to remove their own sutures. It was very awkward listening to Dr. Reese's explanation in ethics of why he will not prescribe finasteride for alopecia in other marketed\generic forms rather than the costly Propecia telling me they are not the same thing... Other than the candy coating, they without doubt both contain the same active ingredient which is in fact finasteride. Any other Dr or even a sales rep from Merck will tell you the same thing. I would expect a surgeon who tells me he has ethical issues prescribing a generic form of finasteride over Propecia would have the integrity to tell me sorry; it looks as though my assistant missed a few sutures during the removal. Let me get those out??¦