lanthanos

what does this mean?

dpanet, this whole situations concerns me. You are saying you are setting June in your mind as the month when you will see results, but Pats205 is telling you, you have to wait 18 months. That won't be until next January. What are you going to do in June if you are not happy and Pats205 is telling you to wait another 6 months? Have you thought this far ahead? I am worried your anxiety is going to get even worse. you NEED a time-line series of pictures, not just one before and one after. month by month. Pats205 has this time series of photos for his strip surgery, I'm sure he has this for his FUE surgery. If he doesn't, that's a red flag.... try to talk to other patients who had similar crown FUE work and see if you can find any that have a time series of photos from 8 to 18 months. see as many as you can since everyone is different, that way you'll have a range of what to expect.

Ah, I did get that wrong about the March 07 surgery being strip. My mistake. However, your FUE procedure is still 2 years fully grown out, a perfect example for dpanet. Also, that means Pats205 crown FUE procedure of 2,400 grafts is extremely similar in number of grafts to dpanet's 2,500, so they should be even more comparable. It would be interesting to see the pictures here, but really it's more important that dpanet sees them. It sounds like he needs to see 8 month post op pics, and then pics showing more growth after that up to 18 months. I hope he gets to see them to ease his anxieties, he's obviously disappointed. wish you the best dpanet

dpanet, everybody is different in their physiology. however, if you want to try to compare, why not ask Pats205 for his crown FUE pics? He had a 4,060 graft FUE transplant to his crown in March of 2007 so he is fully grown out and should be able to provide pictures showing the growth timeline. I realize 4,060 grafts is a lot more grafts than you had, but it can still give you an idea of how the crown fills in over time. as far as post op instructions...you are way past that point. the only thing you could be doing is taking Propecia and Rogaine at this point post op, but you said you aren't using those.

Armani is now franchising, or at least has a website about it. I'd post the link but am afraid it would get deleted.

Somethin definitely ain't right with this. This guy is Eurohair1621 on HairSite too. His pics on HairSite are being advertised as 2,505 grafts at 8 months post op. There is no mention on Hairsite of the 4,000 graft procedure two years ago at all. Also, eurohair1621 is none too bright... Pats205 started a thread with Eurohair1621's pics, and Eurohair1621 commented on the thread, saying "Absolutely amazing results!!! The density with only 2500 grafts is remarkable. "

can you scan the lawsuit as a picture and post it as an attachment so we can see what's happening?

Is anyone in Miami participating in the DS Laboratories study of an "investigational topical" treatment? DS Laboratories makes Spectral DNC and Revita. The link is here: http://www.divineskin.com/popbox.asp?box=3 I don't know how old this study is. Sorry if this is considered a promotional link. (I don't work for DS Labs obviously). I am just curious if anyone knows what they're testing?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10417589 Dermatol Surg. 1999 Apr;25(4):311-5. The effects of topical vitamin E on the cosmetic appearance of scars. Baumann LS, Spencer J. University of Miami Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery, Miami, Florida, USA. Comment in: * Dermatol Surg. 1999 Aug;25(8):670-1. * Dermatol Surg. 1999 Oct;25(10):827. BACKGROUND: Vitamin E is a generic term for a group of tocol and tocotrienol derivatives. Since the discovery that vitamin E is the major lipid soluble antioxidant in skin, this substance has been tried for the treatment of almost every type of skin lesion imaginable. Anecdotal reports claim that vitamin E speeds wound healing and improves the cosmetic outcome of burns and other wounds. Many lay people use vitamin E on a regular basis to improve the outcome of scars and several physicians recommend topical vitamin E after skin surgery or resurfacing. OBJECTIVE: We attempted to determine whether topically applied vitamin E has any effect on the cosmetic appearance of scars as suggested by multiple anectodal reports. METHODS: Fifteen patients who had undergone skin cancer removal surgery were enrolled in the study. All wounds were primarily closed in 2 layers. After the surgery, the patients were given two ointments each labeled A or B. A was Aquaphor, a regular emollient, and the B was Aquaphor mixed with vitamin E. The scars were randomly divided into parts A and B. Patients were asked to put the A ointment on part A and the B ointment on part B twice daily for 4 weeks. The study was double blinded. The physicians and the patients independently evaluated the scars for cosmetic appearance on Weeks 1, 4, and 12. The criteria was simply to recognize which side of the scar looked better if there was any difference. The patients' and the physicians' opinions were recorded. A third blinded investigator was shown photographs of the outcomes and their opinion was also noted. RESULTS: The results of this study show that topically applied vitamin E does not help in improving the cosmetic appearance of scars and leads to a high incidence of contact dermatitis. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that there is no benefit to the cosmetic outcome of scars by applying vitamin E after skin surgery and that the application of topical vitamin E may actually be detrimental to the cosmetic appearance of a scar. In 90% of the cases in this study, topical vitamin E either had no effect on, or actually worsened, the cosmetic appearance of scars. Of the patients studied, 33% developed a contact dermatitis to the vitamin E. Therefore we conclude that use of topical vitamin E on surgical wounds should be discouraged.

The only thing that is proven to decrease scar tissue formation is physical pressure, silicone sheeting/gels, or steroid injections.

I wonder about this. I don't know the answer. I know vitamin E thins the blood so can cause excessive bleeding if you take it in pill form. I don't know this for a fact, but I wonder what happens if you apply it topically, does it also absorb into the skin and affect the local blood vessels and cause excessive bleeding? On the other hand, just the fact that it's an oil will moisturize the scabs and loosen them and make the softer.

you'd have a bias against Armani too if he sued you

On your blog on HairSite you say your first procedure was done by Sara Armani, not Antonio Armani. Why the discrepancy?

What happened to ChanYouZhe's pics???

Hi Kelkoo, As it is right now, I can't give an honest answer if there is a problem with your donor. Can you post a current photo of your donor, now that it's 2 months post op. Can you post it in the exact same lighting conditions as your pre-op donor picture so there is no confusion? I can't figure out why your donor looks so different at 10 days post op in the picture you posted. You shouldn't have any shock loss at 10 days. It looks like it healed well. Shock loss at 10 days is way too early. I want to be sure the difference in your donor pictures is not due to lighting conditions. Also, it could be due to shorter hair. I think the only fair comparison is to have your hair at the same length it was in the before pic, and in the same lighting. Then you can really tell if there is an issue. Then if it still looks thin, post the pictures here and send them to the Armani clinic. If your donor is your main concern, I would want to talk to the exact person who did the donor extractions. Ask them what they saw on surgery day, and what they think of your 2 month photos, and if there is a problem. That is their job. Did they take a measurement of your donor density before the procedure? They should tell you this to see if you had low density even before the procedure. If you had 2000 grafts put into zones 1 and 2, that is 67cm2, so that is 30 grafts/cm2, which is a very reasonable number of grafts that shouldn't cause too much trauma or shock. I am worried for you that you are not on a hair loss medication. This can affect your donor too. Why are you not on a hair loss med? Is it for personal or medical reasons? I wanted to comment on your response to Balboa. This isn't a perfect world, but even so, in our imperfect world, it is the doctor's responsibility to get your "informed consent" before performing surgery. There is a law for this in Canada called the Health Care Consent Act (HCCA). A summary of it can be found on a web page of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). http://www.cpso.on.ca/policies...default.aspx?id=1544 It states "2. Consent must be informed Consent is not valid unless it is informed. A physician must provide a patient with information about the nature of the treatment, its expected benefits, its material risks and side effects, alternative courses of action and the likely consequences of not having the treatment. A physician should not assume that a patient has sufficient background or may not be interested in the information. Without full information, the patient does not have sufficient background to make informed health care decisions and consent may not be valid. If the patient requests additional information, he or she must receive a response. "