ShadowMoon

3 hours ago, forge3012 said:

What was the cost per graft for Dr. Gabel?

The most reasonable you will find of any surgeon with his background and experience by a significant amount if you decide to go FUT. He charges half for FUT what he does for FUE because it is much less labor intensive.

6 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

This looks ridiculous on a man his age,  this is why a conservative hairline is important.

I'd put money on this being a hairpiece. Zuckerburg just has that weird hair, he's always had it.

On 9/27/2020 at 3:32 AM, Gatsby said:

Personally I would let it go to plan for the next 12 months and then make a decision on how you feel about your results. Also you raised a very good point in your thread in that you were told that you would require 'x' amount of grafts and upon arrival after flying you were then told that you only had 2,200 grafts available. How do people feel about this? I don;t mean to hijack your thread but there is an ethical issue here in that what does one do as a patient? Cancel because the required number of grafts are not available to achieve the goals of both doctor and patient? Personally If I were to arrive at my chosen destination and after consulting via email, phone, skype, videos, etc I think I would cancel as the whole equation of results and expectations are now subject to a different agreement and a potentially different result.

To frame this subjectively, the amount of bullshit this particular surgeon performs that is avoided, dodged, or flat out ignored has made me consider deleting my post and my account on more than one occasion. It makes me sick to my stomach seeing the patients post here after they leave his office. There is no amount of proof that I can provide in any number of threads that will make this site reconsider having him as an affiliated surgeon and it detracts from the moral fiber of this site tremendously. OP is one more case where yet another example comes out that Dr. Diep is unethical and greedy. I have worked in healthcare for seven years and will be a registered nurse in 8 months. I know unethical practice when I see it. I have no ability to protect or caution prospective patients, and this site actively encourages people to go to him. 

Would like to know how things fare as well

17 minutes ago, jimcraig152 said:

If you are trying to say that I sound like a stressed worry-wort, you'd be mistaken. As I write these things, I am as calm and optimistic as can be. Actually talking about my HT has been very therapeutic. Having the ability to articulate my experience, critically analyze the work, and think may come off as being a stressed individual, but then again you'd be mistaken.

Thanks for sharing. It disappoints me when the biggest showcase of Dr. Diep's flawed technique decided he needed to delete his post. I don't know who talked him into that. 

I am completely blown away at how terrible your experience was. My own was pleasant in every way. 

Got there at 0630 for a 0645 appointment. Surgical tech was waiting at the door for me. She immediately checked me in and took me to their evaluation room. She went over some paperwork with me, had me sign everything but the consent, and gave me prophylactic antibiotics. In addition, she gave me new OR shoes and a t-shirt. Afterward, she washed my hair. Dr. Gabel got there at 0715 bright eyed and bushy tailed and we spent almost an hour going over consent, talking about hairline, taking pre op pictures. They gave me valium and some oxy for pain before surgery. After 20 minutes, I was lead to the OR. 

He used a vibration device to distract from the lidocaine. He laid down the rules for telling me about pain, emphasizing that if I don't say anything, I will likely have bleeding issues due to the epi in the lidocaine. He had the strip out and staples done in 30 minutes. No pain. Afterward, I had some lunch. I went back in in 15 minutes. I got numbing shots on my recipient site. He didn't leave the room until he was done with incisions. 

There was a small gap of time for the techs to finish, and he left to answer emails. He called in two techs to expedite the process of refining the grafts. At one point there were five techs on microscopes. He let me choose the music to listen to on the speakers. He out in all the grafts on my right side while a tech did my left side. At certain points when you can only do one side due to angles, he left the room. There was never any wasted time. I never felt like he wasn't part of the process. He talked with me the entire time, and it was actually enjoyable conversation. 

The techs were extremely friendly and showed me the grafts in trays and let me look in their microscope. 

He gave me two follow up appointments, no charge, and saw me personally in each one to make sure everything was okay. He did slight readjustments the first morning after on two grafts that had inched upward.

For the first week, he personally responded to my emails within minutes. He cut back to only operating 4 days a week so that he can spend Fridays doing consultations. 

On top of all that, he produces more natural results than Dr. Diep. He comes close to Dr. Konior, who taught him a great deal about hair restoration surgery. He has almost 20 years of experience. In addition, he is a board certified face/neck surgeon, which is incredibly difficult to perform.

He charges half the amount for FUT vs. FUE. I was out of that office at 5 PM.

It's just night and day. I got my procedure done four days after you so I have been following your experience with great interest. Thanks for sharing and letting people know the truth.

1 hour ago, AB2000 said:

I'm getting the impression that you are not a candidate for a hair transplant.

Why's that? 

2 hours ago, 1978matt said:

I actually spent 4 months at an Elementary school just up the road in Sunnyvale in the late 1980s.  Nice area for sure.  My Dad worked in IT and used to go there all the time.

I feel like Dr D's standards have fallen over the last 5 years.  He should do 1 HT a day and work on refining his technique.

I don't know of any reputable surgeons that do two cases at once. Incredibly irresponsible in my opinion. Imagine if any other type of surgeon ran two surgeries at the same time. The profit margin is high enough for american surgeons, to run two surgeries at once is pure greed.

Awesome that he was able to get you in on such short notice, work looks superb. 

Thanks for the write up, looks like clean work. I like the macro and micro irregularities. 

4 minutes ago, transplantedphil said:

This thread by Gatsu had the same issue with his temple points as hairliciously (I believe its related to how hard it is to match the hairs in that area), but admittedly once grown out look amazing. https://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/topic/49230-2987grafts-with-dr-lupanzula/?tab=comments#comment-455084

Temple points are very much a luxury item, and in this instance Gatsu didnt get them until he had restored his hairline and was already around 4k grafts into his restoration at the time. In the end its a personal choice, and really comes down to whether you have the available donor and if they bother you. Might be worth experimenting with some pics of yourself first with both options and see what you want.

Wise words.

Gatsu is the best hair transplant result I've ever seen and looks like a male model, be careful about using him to set your expectations!

1 minute ago, FuriousGeorge said:

38yo.

Finasteride and foam Minoxidil for 3 years.

No growth, but haven’t seen much recession/thinning since. I wanted objective data, so have measured from my hairline to my right eyebrow over the past year and seen the same numbers.

Only subjective indicator I have is I notice 10-15 hairs in my hand after styling, which makes me nervous, but apparently that’s normal. 

It's a difficult case, man. I get that it's a hard thing to give up temporal points, as they really do frame your face better. In my opinion, however, density in the frontal third and grafts in the bank for crown work is more important. You are slick bald in the frontal third and most of your vertex, and could very well be slick bald in the crown within the next 15 years. I don't think having the temporal points of Brad Pitt is a realistic outcome.

Dr. Gabel is conservative, but he is rightfully so. There are no guarantees when it comes to hair restoration surgery. The only thing worse than lack of temporal points are unnatural temporal points. Several points throughout my procedure with him, he said, "If it's not natural, it's not good." And I completely agree. Those temporal points drawn by Dr. Hasson look really aggressive. There is a high likelihood that they end up looking bad. Granted, Dr. Hasson is a fantastic surgeon, but there's something that looks off about having thick, healthy hair contrasted with the native miniaturized hair. 

Here's an example from Hairliciously's channel on YouTube where he recently shaved his head.

That's why I think everyone should take a conservative approach to hair restoration. The hair that you put in today is going to be with you until you die. You don't want to be late 40s, still in your prime, with a weird hair transplant. Get something that you can age with. 

If you get a transplant for the hairline, and it grows in well, it could be you don't even want those aggressive temporal points. Or, you could be unsatisfied without them, and elect to have a second procedure to get them placed. The fact is you'll have options. 

Best of luck with whatever you decide to do, you can't go wrong with any of the surgeons you listed. I recently had a procedure with Dr. Gabel and I think he is the most ethical surgeon in this industry by a long shot. He truly cares about his patients. He refuses to use consultants, which adds hours of work to his day at no cost to his patients. He even offered to fly to me for a check up, as he has a private flight license. He instantly responded to emails for the first week post-op when I was dealing with folliculitis, which I have a history of. I can't even begin to express how much that helped with my anxiety levels. On top of that, he has very reasonable pricing, especially if you go FUT, considering his training, background, and experience. 

How old are you?

Edit: Also, are you on Finasteride? If so, how long, and have you experienced further loss despite taking it?

Just now, andrew r said:

Okay. It was an expensive surgery as it was and I don't want to start saving for another surgery after the first, I feel like that was the point of the first surgery haha. I feel so stupid now but I can't change the past. Is there any chance you have an instagram or whatsapp so I can talk to you over the phone? I would really appreciate it as its a very stressful time for me. 

I don't have either of those, sorry brother. Give it some time to heal.

8 minutes ago, andrew r said:

This is the area before when it was grown out. The doctor told me he does 500 grafts a day. He does it all manually by hand. I don't know if thats why it took longer but thats what happened. I just feel I have been left in the dark and I am quite concerned as you can imagine. Do you have any suggestions on what I can do? Thanks 

I would start saving some money for a second surgery if you want any semblance of density, as your surgeon didn't move enough hair to cover your degree of loss. Not saying it'll look bad or unnatural, it'll just look thin. 

Can you post a before pic?  Taking 3 days to put in 1500 is a red flag to me, and that's a lot of area to cover as well.

4 minutes ago, NicoAustralia said:

He will dance around this comment with "guys this is getting out of hand" and then close the thread 

I understand the frustration, but I don't feel this is warranted. Very rarely does Melvin close a thread. I can't think of any that didn't deserve closing. 

2 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

I will review the photo, I did not count anywhere near 1,400 holes. I will send it to Diep as well for his response. 

Thank you, this is all I ask. It was too much of a confusing case to just be deleted with no resolution or response from the surgeon. 

3 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

I’m not gaslighting anyone, I’m repeating what Dr. Diep has said to me, and I believe him, you don’t have too, you can believe what you want, but to speak in facts, is wrong. It’s clear Diep doesn’t have a lot of fans here. That’s okay, we can agree to disagree.

The fact is you have access to a picture that is irrefutable proof that there are 1400 holes on the back of his head and only 800 grafts were extracted. You're taking the word of the surgeon over the word of the patient and physical photographic evidence. 

9 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

This number came out of thin air, someone said “looks like 1500 holes” there’s no proof, 1mm holes will look larger, and can look like more holes than reality. I got off the phone with Diep today about this case, he told me he would never  throw away grafts, and that he did 800 grafts more or less. There’s always some level of transection with FUE from 5-15% which he puts in his YouTube videos. He’s not lying or being deceitful it’s there in plain English.

This is blatant gas lighting and frankly I'm extremely disappointed. There was proof, but it got deleted and archived*. You know that. Dr. Diep's punches are extremely easy to count, and      @Rolandas manually put in a colored dot for each hole with the high definition pic OP posted. Each color was 100 holes. I counted that picture myself. It was 1500 holes. Go look at the archive yourself if you don't believe me. He did the same thing for his procedure of 3000+ grafts and made a video about it. 

9 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

C’mon it’s post like these that are down right wrong. How can you say botch job when you haven’t even seen the results. My donor area looked 10x worse, and I’m not a botch job. How can you objectively call a hair transplant a “botch” job immediately after surgery? I mean this is getting ludicrous. Not even allowing any time for the donor to heal, or the results to grow before calling it a failure. I can’t wrap my head around this thinking 

I would argue the literal definition of a botch job is to bungle or do a shoddy job of fixing or patching something up. So in the case of requiring to poke* 1400 holes (conservative number) for 800 grafts, yes that qualifies as a botch job. Especially considering it still hasn't been answered or addressed as to why that happened in the first place. Even by you, @Melvin-Moderator.

11 minutes ago, Buffaloboy said:

@Melvin-moderator what is the story on this??? 1500 holes for an 800 graft procedure?

Your guess is as good as ours, the post was removed at the OP's request a week or two ago. Guy had a recent case and well over half of the back of his head was used to get 836 grafts. A couple people did a manual count based on post op pictures and it was between 1400-1600 holes. If you look at post op donors of Dr. Diep's patients you'll see that they are particularly... tenderized. So you can understand the patients concern for what should have been a tiny case. No answers were given to the patient despite reaching out to the clinic, and Dr. Diep didn't show up to give any sort of explanation. So here we are.

If it were me, based on the recent case of 1500 holes getting put in someone's head for an 800 graft procedure with no word from the clinic, I would go somewhere else. It's not all about 1-5 year results. You need to plan for 20-30 years into the future with hair transplantation. Donor management is more than half of the equation when considering surgeons.

5 hours ago, kiokbs said:

hey guys it’s day 7 and most of the scabs are gone, i dont know if i made it too early cuss since first washing with shampoo(yesterday) i couldnt keep myself to rub the recipient area(gently for sure). i hope i didnt damage the grafts, now it looks like this any comments advices are appreciated.

They're glued in there by 7 days, as long as you didn't use your finger nails you're good to go.

1 hour ago, jimcraig152 said:

I'd be impressed if you can do the same by just from showing you the donor area.

It is always about results, so we'll see in 8-12 months. But still, the techniques used contribute to that result in the end. I can't help but to admire a fellow brother's HT and be happy for him.

His ht does look amazing so far.

6 hours ago, jimcraig152 said:

Good god. That work looks spectacular!

Comparing the work done on you against mine from 4 weeks ago is like a Da Vinci painting to grafitti. Congrats man. You did really well with your decision!

Why is it that I can immediately identify Dr. Dieps work based on that "questionable" placement of grafts?