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ShadowMoon

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ShadowMoon last won the day on November 2 2020

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  1. @Melvin-Moderator I feel this comment is inappropriate. It is dismissive of Jim's feelings and also you seem to be implying that Jim has some sort of mental illness. You've made it very clear that you have a different opinion on what is aesthetic. You like straight, sharp, and dense hairlines. Hairlines aren't like that in nature. They always have vellus hairs in them with subtle asymmetry that make them unique to the person, like a fingerprint. This hairline is not natural, has no such irregularities or asymmetry, and therefore Jim doesn't find it aesthetic. Simple as that. His opinion on his hairline needs to be acknowledged. You don't need to question his mental health. Jim, your feelings are valid and honestly I would feel the same way. However, once you get the hairline softened up with a second pass I think you'll be good to go. Best of luck, friend.
  2. Got pre hired, people of earth lend me your energy
  3. @FahriI take 1mg finasteride. For supplements I take Costco hair nail skin multivitamin, D3 a couple times a week, and fish oil. It is a real boost! I'm so happy with it.
  4. @RandoBrando517 The ability to separate the follicular units under a microscope to hold as much of the adipose/supportive tissue as possible improves survivability. Unless you use a larger gauge punch, there is a much higher chance of transection. If you use a larger punch, the scars are worse than a strip scar. In my case, the majority of my grafts were triples, and they basically all splayed at the root. The doc said I could've had a really high transection rate had I gone FUE, so I'm really glad I chose FUT and stuck with it. Another thought I have is given my age, I'm probably going to need two more procedures over the course of my life at least. @hairlossPA I started noticing growth at around 2.5 months. At three months I could use fibers to cover up the thin spots. October 16th: October 28th: @champybaby I've used Costco brand since the beginning, I go through the six bottles in about two months if I apply twice a day. I use it over my entire scalp minus the back and sides. @TommyLucchese I don't know, probably depends case by case. I think I only had around 250 singles so not many.
  5. Ninja edit: I remembered the graft count incorrectly, it was actually 2325 grafts, not 2125. Hi everyone, I had my procedure with Dr. Gabel on July 29th, 2020. So, not quite 7 months, but close enough. 28 y/o male. You might remember my original post. I asked Melvin to archive it. Posting this one as a quick review to get the word out about Dr. Gabel. I'm not on his payroll or anything, and he didn't request a review. I'm doing it as a happy patient. Just do yourself a favor and have a consultation with him. He's low-key one of the most experienced, talented, and ethical surgeons in the country. He learned from Dr. Konior, who is the best surgeon in the world. He doesn't promote himself as much because he personally responds to every consultation request and email, and is involved in all aspects of the surgery. That's including extraction and graft placement. He's a busy guy. 2325 Grafts, FUT, ~2.5 hairs/graft on average. Graft breakdown was 212 singles, 955 doubles, 870 triples, and 288 quads. Taking 1 mg oral Finasteride daily, no side effects. Was using Minoxidil foam twice daily, but recently switched to once a day about a month and a half ago, because it's expensive. Hair loss is mostly stabilized, assuming I don't suffer greatly from cutting back on Minoxidil. When I derma-needled, I noticed way faster growth and fullness. It's not something I see myself maintaining though, so I stopped. I may start again to see if it is as effective as I remember. Here's what I consider to be my baseline. I've always had a relatively high hairline. This was taken in 2014: Here's a month pre-op, stabilized on medication for 2 years: Another angle, taken at Dr. Gabel's office on the day of surgery: Here is immediate post op: Some pictures taken in the first ten days: Here is my ugly duckling phase: Here are some photos taken today. Just had a haircut yesterday: Here's the donor in different lighting, #2 guard on the nape faded into a #3: Very happy with the result, and I think I still have some maturing to go. Hope you enjoyed! I'll do an update in a few months if any changes occur.
  6. @Melvin-Moderator Jim was saying when a patient comes in with a complaint to this forum, you personally reach out to Diep for them to get a resolution. I've seen that many times. I find it absolutely ridiculous that you never respond to the perfectly legitimate complaints we have against diep's technique. You still haven't even looked into @Specific-violinist60archived thread to determine if the transection rate was upwards of 40%. I even pm'd you about it and you never responded. You want to talk about agendas? You never respond to Diep making corn rows and saying they grow better that way. No, they do not. They look like shit and no other elite surgeon does that. You never respond to Diep always using 1mm punches. It causes unnecessary harm and no other elite surgeon does it that way. You never respond to him mutilating one side od people's heads. He says it's to preserve the other side for later surgeries. That's stupid and irresponsible, and no other elite surgeon does it that way. How about you address our complaints against this surgeon and give us some answers so we don't have to do your job and make sure patients that come here know the facts and how polarizing Diep is compared to literally every other surgeon in the same price range? Your results are not better than any other konior, cooley, lupanzula, h&w FUE patient, yet you don't see his patients looking like someone took a meat tenderizer to the back of their head. Look at every Diep FUT scar posted on here, they're absolute garbage.
  7. Hey @jimcraig152, I only just realized we had basically the same procedure. You had 13 more grafts than me, and we have almost identical placement, albeit mine is a bit more conservative. I wanted to throw in my 3-day post op as contrast: I think objectively, I like your hairline design more than mine. I think your age and pattern afforded you a bit more wiggle room. I think the temple closure I got is about as aggressive as I'm willing to go at the moment.
  8. This is more telling than you know. Dr. Gabel is fast. He is the type of person that walks 4 mph. He does iron man triathlons. Not only that, he has been performing FUE since 2003. If he does it at that speed, that is the rate that he has found to be the absolute fastest you can go while still achieving the most optimal results and avoiding transection.
  9. As long as the patient has a decent outcome, everything is good. sarcasm
  10. Well said. What irks me is that you can eloquently describe the problem with supportive evidence, yet it is not addressed by the moderator. Instead, it is only repeated that Diep has more than a dozen happy results. It is not the successful cases that define a surgeon, it is the bad ones. Where did the surgeon go wrong? Was it his fault, or the patients pathophysiology? Top surgeons have perfected their craft to the point where, when patients have a poor result, it is most often a problem with the patient, not the technique. Even so, the very elite can predict these shortcomings and minimize them by modifying certain aspects of the surgery, as is described in most of Dr. Konior's posts. I have seen no indication that Diep does anything to accommodate these shortcomings from patient to patient, and that is why he gets more negative results than other surgeons affiliated with this site. Yes, he gets good results, but he also gets a lot of bad ones. Those need to be analyzed.
  11. Konior if you have an unlimited budget and want to wait. I have never seen a result of his that isn't impeccable.
  12. Diep said himself in one of these threads his survival rates are between 5-15%. This is actually less than any other top clinic, which say no more than 5%. Keep in mind, there's no real way to tell an exact number. What responsible surgeons do is take their time while doing extractions to minimize transection rate. I've listened to several talks on this subject from top surgeons and there are many examples of FUE cases done by every other affiliated surgeon on this site. They all use 0.8mm punches for the vast majority of their patients and their survival rates are comparable to Diep's who seems to exclusively use 1mm punches. I would wager Dr. Konior has a much higher survival rate and lower transection rate than Diep and he uses as small a punch as he can get away with to save the donor area from unnecessary scarring. At some point as a responsible doctor and surgeon, you need to look around and see what all of your colleagues are doing. He stands alone in his extraction and incision techniques and his results are not any better, and oftentimes worse, than H&W, Konior, Cooley, etc. He may achieve adequate density in most cases, but his donor areas are much worse off and he doesn't achieve a natural appearance much of the time.
  13. Curly hair doesn't seem to have the same issues. Diep's afro results are fantastic. This is likely because he uses 1mm punches, which gives a huge margin of error and doesn't require as much time as if you were using 0.8mm punches. Downside is it scars your donor area up pretty good. Even top clinics sometimes resort to using larger punch sizes for afro hair so that often can't be avoided, not the case if you have straight hair.
  14. Here is an objective take: Dr. Diep has poor donor management technique. He uses 1mm punches, which is no longer considered best practice by any top clinic in the world. With advancements in technique and surgical expertise, 0.8mm punches provide adequate clearance of the follicle in the vast majority of patients, which minimizes donor harm and scarring. Diep universally uses 1mm punches on all his patients. By his own words, specifically in Baldlivesmatter's post, he says he intentionally harvests one side of the donor area before going to the other side. Look at every single FUE case of H&W, Konior, Shapiro, Lupanzula, Cooley, etc. and you their donors are nowhere near as mangled as Diep. Not only do they use smaller punches with better results, they also utilize the entire donor area to prevent overharvesting. Dr. Diep utilizes a corn-row technique, which he has defended several times as being the best method for growth, using the metaphor of farm crop. In my entire life, I have never seen hair grow in straight lines, so why the hell would you implant them in that way if you are trying for a natural appearance? Not only that, farmers do not plant in rows for growth - they do it so they can utilize farm equipment which needs room to fit between the crops. Dr. Diep's FUT incisions and scars are ridiculously bad. Look up every single FUT case on this site, it's night and day difference between any other affiliated surgeon. Dr. Diep does two cases a day, and has both extractions and incisions done before lunch so his techs can do the rest. This is not done by any other top clinic in America or any top clinic in Europe that I have heard of. If anyone has any examples, let me know. Imagine your surgeon rushing through your procedure to get to the next one. My own procedure was from 0630-1700. It was a relatively low graft case. He is not a slow surgeon. I've heard of cases where Dr. Konior was operating until 11PM. He has decades of experience. Why the hell is Diep trying to get his cases done so fast? Dr. Diep has several cases of using doubles and triples in hairlines and temple points. I have not seen any other top clinic make this mistake. It is unacceptable. Dr. Diep makes his patients sign a form after payment but prior to operation that requires arbitration instead of litigation. In one case, a user here by the name of @Specific-violinist60 posted a case where he had 900 grafts implanted but over 1300 holes in the back of his head. The post has since been archived. I spoke to the moderator of this site on another thread where he said he would look into the archived post to verify for himself that there were 1300 holes and only 900 grafts implanted, as proven by pictures, but he never responded. I pm'd him a couple weeks later, and he didn't respond again. You can take of that what you will, but to me it is very telling. Bottom line is, the end does not justify the means. That is @jimcraig152's point in this thread. You cannot simply judge the end result. Donor management is equally if not more important. Diep half-asses his extraction technique by minimizing the spread over the back of the head, which saves him time. His incisions are done in rows for the sake of expediency. The right temple of all his patients is worse looking than the left side, because he starts on the left and moves to the right. When he does full crown work, it is always done in rows. All surgeons have at least one unhappy patient. It is naïve to consider otherwise. The problem is, Diep had by my count five unhappy patients post on this site in the last year. I haven't seen a single completely satisfied patient post on this site that had their procedure in the last year. I can use objective standards to show how his results are at the very least unnatural. All of his caucasian patients with straight hair have hairlines that look like a ken doll if you zoom in. I posted all of them within the last three years on another thread, so you can see for yourself.
  15. There is no published research analyzing survival rates based on bulb still being attached to the graft after a transplant. The best you'll receive is speculation and even that you won't be able to apply to your situation because it is entirely up to your unique physiology.
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