mav23100gunther

I can't imagine taking both would end well.

It's actually not as long as you think. A few months ago Rahal's waitlist was close to 6 months but Hasson's was less than that with various openings in between due to last minute cancellations. H&W has two surgeons each performing 2 procedures a day - so 4 surgeries a day at the clinic. Rahal works alone and does 2 a day, whilst Konior only performs 1 a day. Therefore I would expect Rahal and Konior to have longer waitlists than H&W. I would also imagine Rahal and Konior have greater demand due to FUE along with FUT, whilst H&W predominantly for FUT as they only recently started offering FUE, so I would bet lower demand for prospective FUE patients. I highly doubt you will have to wait 6-8 months mate.

There shouldn't be much of a difference, but apparently it's the chemical make-up that adds the variability. Also, your pharmacy will often switch the generics from one manufacturer to another and your body may not respond well to any slight diffirence in the product. I heard that the top pharmacies have switched to cheaper generics being produced in India where the quality of the product isn't as good as the brand name. Think about it. My 1st surgeon advised me that he is seeing instances where the generics just aren't as effective as the brand name, and notices this a lot when patients switch from the brand name to generics. I've been on Propecia 1MG for close to a year, but when I consulted with Dr Hasson, he recommended I switch to 5MG Proscar and cut-it into quarters to save money as it's the exact same as Propecia. He did advise against any generics as he believes they aren't as effective either. When I asked Rahal during my surgery, he recommended I not make the switch until 4-6 months after my surgery as even though Propicia and Proscar are the same, he was worried about the impact the change may still have in terms of my body reacting to the change so soon after the surgery. He seemed to prefer keeping the status quo if it's working.

That's why I scheduled mine a few days before X-mas where my firm shuts down for a few days supplemented by a few vacation days, and I pretty much get close to 3 weeks for recovery. I even lets Rahal shave the whole head, but I think the biggest issue will be how to hide the scar until enough hair grows back to cover it. I need to ask the clinic if I can use a a layer of couvre or dermmatch to conceal it. Otherwise I may even just wrap a bandage around it and tell them I had a minor accident. I'm not too concerned about the recipient area, but will see how it looks next week.

Yup, he hasn't won the ticket yet, but if you follow the polls - he is going to get it unless sanity prevails. I definitely wouldn't call the guy an idiot, he is a billionaire and is on track to win the Presidency, once again if you call someone that has achieved that an idiot, then I am very curious as to what you do for a living? Now if you called him scary, then I would tend to agree

He is pretty close to becoming the President of the United States of America - what exactly do you do for a living?

Did you switch to a generic 5mg or brand name Proscar? If the former, then I would switch back to brand name Propicia or Proscar ASAP. If the later, then yes Proscar and Propecia are the exact same as they are manufactured by Merick.

yes, but make sure you get multiple opinions as I heard completely different numbers from different surgeons.

Yup, for FUE I think you should be much more open to travelling then. I definitely recommend Dr Rahal due to my bias, but you should also consider Feriduni in Belgium, Dr Ron Shapiro in Minnesota, Dr Erdogan in Turkey, and Dr Lorenzo in Spain. I believe Lorenzo is the gold standard for FUE. Seeing you are going with FUE, even more important that you choose the most skilled surgeon due to increased risk of graft transection and complexity of the procedure compared with FUT.

This is exactly what Dr Rahal provided me with to wear for the first few days post-op. His clinic recommended waiting a few days for the swelling to subside before moving onto a loose fitting baseball cap. I actually prefer using the surgical cap though - way more comfortable.

Sorry Dutchie, I've been using this trick for years to pick up women :-)

Thanks David, I appreciate the comments! I can't say enough about how impressed I was with Dr Hasson and the whole H&W clinic, especially the attention to detail when he was examining my hair in Vancouver. No doubt he would have done an outstanding job as well. I also had a brilliant experience when I met with Mike Ferko and thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. He was also very understanding and supportive when I decided to go with Rahal. Like I said above, will definitely still consider switching to Hasson in the future if it makes the most sense for my long-term plan even if this result from Rahal is stellar which I suspect (and hope) it will be.

It depends. I would say that Dr Hasson can probably harvest more grafts in a single session than Dr Rahal via strip. They also have different techniques. H&W used custom cut blades whilst Rahal uses needles. I believe the needles can be as effective in achieving high density packing as the blades, but could be wrong on this. If they both got the same number of grafts, and we're covering the same area, I think it would be fairly comparable. I have seen high quality dense packed results from both. I do get the impression that Rahal's hairlines appear more densly packed than the H&W ones, but at the same time he is probably more aggressive on the number of grafts in the hairline and H&W more conservative. just my opinion of course.

2 months is more than fine.

Hey Vanseb. I came really close to going with Dr Hasson. It was one of the toughest decisions I have made. Two different styles but two brilliant plans. If I went with Hasson, he was always going to get the 2,500 grafts I was aiming for, whilst Rahal fell slightly short. In hindsight, I am very comfortable with this more conservative approach as the last thing you ever want to do is push the limit on the size of the strip and risk stretching the scar which I suspect would have been elevated going for the higher graft count. The downsize is that there was an area on the midsection of my scalp that Rahal wanted to cover as seen in the pictures that needs some work that he never had enough grafts to cover. Depending on how noticible it is once the new hair has grown and matured, I may want to go back in a year or further in the future to get this done. If that's the case, I may actually still consider switching to Hasson as he estimated he can move lifetime grafts than Rahal by an amount as high as 2,000 more. It's definitely something I will consider in the future if the frontal third looks good. At the same time, I may decide to stick with Rahal. What I like about him is that once I get stripped out, he can then switch me to FUE. I know H&W now offer FUE, but I wouldn't get FUE done by them at this time. I'll also be completely honest and state that if I could go back in time and this was my very 1st procedure, I would elect to go with Hasson. It was so close, kinda like choosing between Michael Jordan or LeBron James. In terms of what I was looking for from this 2nd procedure, I felt Rahal was the right man for the job.

Hey buddy, what is your pattern of loss and who else are you considering? For me it was really tough choosing between my final three of Hasson, Shapiro and Rahal. Although all three have different styles, each would have performed an outstanding job. It was Rahal's hairlines that pushed me over the line in the end as although the main objective of this procedure was to add density to the frontal 3rd, I also wanted the reinforce the hairline. It was interesting in that when meeting with Dr Hasson in person, he may have unintentionally actually helped plant the seed to go with Rahal. Although I loved his overall plan for me, when he asked me who else I was consulting with, and I mentioned Rahal, the 1st thing he said was - "aaahhh the hairline King".

Congrats mate, you made it through the ugly duckling phase and the fun stuff is about to begin. I was just putting some of my Rahal paperwork in my "HT file" and came across a handwritten list of all the HT surgeons in NY I was going to consult with back almost 2 years ago when my journey was just starting and I had Bosley and Ziering on that list - LMAO.

Couple of pre-op and post-op pictures/ The last picture is 1 week post-op, you can see the red patch I was referencing to earlier.

and then get an online prescription from Medical Wellness Center

aaahhh - found it - google Murray Avenue Apothecary pharmacy

Yes, H&W can't ship it to the U.S. as they are Canadian doctors, and it is a prescription, so I believe they are precluded from prescribing medication in the U.S. You have to fly to Vancouver to meet with them in person and get it dispensed at a pharmacy there. I know there was a thread on this topic on a competing forum, and there is an online compounding pharmacy out in Pittsburg that can make it for you. Just play around with google and you should find it. Maybe "topical fin pittsburgh"

I believe he does accept credit cards but charges an extra fee for that - therefore the patients fly-in to Turkey with stacks of cash hidden on them.

1 week update. Will be posting some more pre-op and post-op pictures from the clinic later this evening. The week just flew by. I spent a few days in Toronto after leaving Ottawa, and when I was leaving Toronto to return to the States, a US Customs official randomly asked me if I was coming from the hair doctor in Ottawa. My head was covered in the black surgical hat provided by Rahal, and he had no way of knowing that I was just in Ottawa - so that was a very interesting encounter. I guess he sees a lot of Rahal patients connecting through Toronto. I have a red patch which I will point out in the picture just behind the transplanted hairs that had me slightly concerned. I e-mailed it to the clinic, and Larissa re-assured me that it was nothing to be concerned about. Also have some numbness at the back of my head in the area above where the strip was removed. This never happened after my 1st procedure, but I had read it is common. Hopefully it doesn't linger too long. Other than that nothing else to report. Just been going through the post-op routine and anticipating what my head will look like in a year from now. Pictures to follow.

1,000 isn't a lot when it comes to the vertex, however Dr Wong is renowned for his crown work.

He wears concealer mate.