BoldnotBald

as a matter of transparency:

do any of those docs or /and clinics being endorsed here on this forum have to pay any money - eg. directly or by any other means?

4. conclusion

all in all and given the current cost per graft between 0.7 and 0.94 euros per graft (rates from 2021?) i would currently recommend this clinic in particular for low to medium nw candidates and who are happy even if the results can be detected by trained eyes as ht surgeries.

in order to give a more nuanced rating on a scale between 0 and 10 and for which nw candidates / cases this might apply i would suggest to provide 

a. more information

b. high quality imagery 

c. imagery with no concealer throughout

d. also imagery of high nw candidates

e. repair cases with high quality imagery

3. evaluation of their website:

- photos being shown (in particular in the blog section) seem to be mostly stock imagery

- very little / no in house imagery of their clinic

- content: quality and quantity seems to be average compared to others

- misleading info: promoting a potential superior advantage of dhi technique vs fue whilst pointing to a potential higher density of 70-90 grafts/cm2 with dhi is unrealistic and doubtful

- unnecessary marketing gimmick: showing a booking rate of 95% is a typical marketing tactic and reminiscent of online shops trying to make customers quick decisions and buy their last remaining products (whether the mentioned stock holds true or not)

2. elements which could be improved:

- hairlines: for a trained eye they can be detected as typical ”ht hairlines”: the feathering zone is too short and the transplanted thick grafts have been placed too early to the front (this might not be too obvious with low nw candidates)

- recreation of temples: unfortunately for a proper evaluation of the naturalness the quality of the shown photos is not sufficient. at first sight it looks as if the same applies to what has been written about the hairlines

- some of the photos of the results seem to have concealer being applied and which contribute to a distorted evaluation

- according to the youtube videos the magnification factor of their loupes being used seems to be quite low as opposed to what is being said (definitely no high magnification!)

- it is unclear which instruments they use: eg. which stereo microscopes to check single grafts as well as those hidden telogen grafts

- it would be good to know how they come to the conclusion about the overall donor capacity of a patient and which tools they use to do this

- contradicting information about the incisions: on their website they mention that incisions are being made prior to the insertion but which is different to dhi (see also: https://www.fuecapilar.com/en/all-about-hair/your-hair-implant-before-during-and-after/).

- the post op imagery of the recipient area at the day of surgery seems to show a lot of blood and which is very unusual for a dhi technique. for a comparison see also imagery from dr. lorenzo, one of the pioneers in dhi: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLvqymqbWlw&ab_channel=InjertocapilarEspaña

-  the implantation pattern of the female hairline looks quite artificial and doesn´t mimic the natural, non geometrical follicular pattern 

1. positive aspects:

- below average cost per grafts: between 0.7 euros /graft (steve85: £2350 for 4075 grafts) and 0.94 euros /graft (thomas b: 3500 euros for 3720 grafts)

- overall a quite natural result according to the presented photographs 

- at first sight no noticeable overharvesting of the donor area

- advantageous extraction technique with a mix of manual and motorised approach

- a fatigue preventing break down of the entire extraction process into smaller, more manageable sessions 

- a quite short max. of the out-of-body time for the extracted grafts (1.5 hours)

- applying important pre op evaluation factors such as caliper, density and average size of grafts 

- providing a relatively transparent pre op and surgical report

having had a read through the various patient´s and clinic´s posts on this forum and the clinic´s website a couple of thoughts from my side:

in your video i couldn´t find the answer to my questions, unfortunately. hence the reason for this enquiry.

On 1/9/2022 at 2:56 AM, Melvin- Moderator said:

Shaved and Mapped Out

 

 

 

 

would you mind elaborating on the mapping out of your head also including its incorporation into your surgery?

apart from that i understand that your incisions were made a day or so prior to the extraction process. does it mean that you got anaesthetised twice in the recipient area?

10 hours ago, Zoomster said:

2 month update ...

Just thought I’d give a literally clear as day depiction of how things stand...I took a few pics while outdoors for a walk ...I know some guys are eager to see how the donor will look after having 8 k scalp grafts harvested ..I feel things are coming along really well to be honest ..my partner keeps saying the donor area looks even better real world than what the camera shows..

i do feel some of my hair gained from HT1 might have been temporarily shocked lossed out during HT2 or maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks on me in not quite sure but either way I know all will pan out just fine over the next few months ..

can’t wait for the new grafts to pop through normally around month 4 I believe ..

I’ll update again for sure on month 3 and will stay in touch in the meantime ..

 

thanks for sharing those pics.

my honest conclusion in your case would be:

in my view your donor areas looks quite thinned out. however, due to your grafts having been extracted from your entire head (of course apart from your recipient area) plus due to your salt and pepper hair characteristic this thinning isn´t really noticeable to the untrained, average guy.

and that´s what ht is all about in my humble view.

so, congrats again on your transformation.

11 hours ago, NAVI said:

After some research, I have come to understand that fut is better than fue in grade 6 patients. Because fue depends a lot on unsafe donor area while fut is done mostly from saf donor area. This means fue results are far more dependant on finastride than fut. And longevity and long term planning is also good with fut. Also, I have heard fue can't provide as many grafts as fut.How much of eugenix results are from finastride because every patient is made to start that before transplant. My view is that in the long term ,our results should not be as dependant on finastride since it can stop working. So fut , where grafts are taken from permanent zone might be better for longevity.or perhaps a combination of fut and fue. That said, zoomster results are remarkable, even if they have to be sistained with finastride.

your conclusion is logical and seems to be correct at first sight. however, in real life things are a bit more complicated when it comes to the so called "safe donor area" and "not so safe donor area":

nobody will be able to predict for sure how your safe donor area will have developed in, say, 30 years - with or without medication. the same applies with your not so safe donor area. as far as i know there has been no scientifically validated long term studies on that subject.

you / the doc can only make certain assumptions about the long term development of your hair eg. based on the current characteristics of your hair and additional general statistics such as the average age by when somebody will usually have developed a nw7 pattern and what those signs are.

so, to put it simple: apart from the age of a ht candidate it mainly depends on the quality of the donor area of the left and right side (eg. density? amount of miniaturisation?).

3 hours ago, Curious25 said:

You can’t flat out say that, because it’s just simply not the case.
 

It all depends on the individual and what characteristics they present.

fego would only be correct if an fue surgeon limited his extraction donor site to the back.

8 hours ago, BeHappy said:

 

Some of us NW7s have literally no useable scalp donor, so if you are a NW 6 or 7 you still have to have great donor hair to be able to get a result like Zoomster. He said his area was 280 to 300 cm2. I measured my bald area and mine is 19cm x 23 cm which is 437 cm2. Even if you cut that back to 425 cm2 it still comes to 17000 grafts at an average of only 40 grafts per cm2.

fully agreed: you simply need to have the donor resources for that to cover such a huge size of baldness. and as a nw7 even the most excellent remaining donor area (i.e. ultra high density, extremely thick hair, very high number of hairs per follicle) won´t allow for that. that´s why you would need to go for an extremely high number of body hair grafts if that´s possible.

@Gatsby i would be VERY surprised if dr zarev ever received a patent. because there simply is nothing that can be patented about his "technique":

like dr pradeep / sethi he simply extracts from almost the entire donor area. period!

On 11/1/2021 at 10:50 AM, Gatsby said:

Dr Pradeep told me he was refused any information about the techniques used and even Dr Cole was refused any information about Dr Zarev's 'technique' also which Dr Zarev claimed was waiting a patent (which still to this day Dr Zarev claims he is waiting on??).

i would be VERY surprised if dr zarev ever received a patent. because there simply is nothing that can be patented about his "technique":

like dr pradeep / sethi he simply extracts from almost the entire donor area. period!

yep:

using sharp implanters instead of blunt ones won´t create a bloody recipient site.

also, extracting grafts from the entire donor area - as opposed to just the back - crucially contributes to this homogeneous look.

On 11/1/2021 at 8:48 PM, HugoX said:

And his "technique" that also was mentioned I am guessing is about his vacuum assisted extraction method, I have asked about this, obviously he would not tell me exactly all the details about this which is understandable, from my understanding the machine is his own developed and there is no other kind like the one he has, I belive it was based on another similar vaccum assisted machine but he has changed and developed so much that there is no other like it and he is the only one today that is capable of handling this machine, in other surgeons hand without proper training would not work well from what I understood.

i am not sure whether dr zarev is being honest about his magical, modified vacuum assited extraction method:

as far as i know dr zarev uses the neograft / medicamat / punch hair system and which uses suction to get the punched grafts out of the skin. this system simply helps to avoid the need for those assisting nurses during the extraction process. so, it´s also quite money saving method.

all in all my understanding is that dr zarev´s magical "modification" is simply using his implanters for the insertion process instead of neografts´own implantation system.

On 11/1/2021 at 4:14 PM, Curious25 said:

I get the eagerness to remain politically correct, and I’m not insinuating these surgeons are better than the others, perhaps it would be nicer to say the other surgeons are more conservative?

 

you are 100% correct.

@Zoomster

i am sure nobody will doubt the impressive result including the significant visual transformation which you have achieved through your surgeries. and i fully agree that this will give hope to many guys out there - in particular high nw candidates like you used to be - what can be truly achieved in the hands of outstanding and ethical clinics such as eugenix.

the only major, outstanding concern potential candidates might have is the "real price" that needs to be paid for a mega ht like yours such as the post-op donor area.

as such i am quite excited to see those announced and soon to be uploaded hi res pics - hopefully in the same quality of those close ups that you presented earlier (was it beginning of september?).

great, 007 :-)

On 10/22/2021 at 1:39 PM, kirkland said:

You are right - dosimetry parameters matter. It's not that LLLT is bad - just too much can be damaging to the tissue. My purpose for using LLLT so early in the post-HT treatment cycle is to reduce erythema. Since I had a moderate case of semi-permanent erythema (due to my SMP treatment in 2015) going into the surgery, I wanted to use LLLT for improved angiogenesis in the hopes that in the process of creating new blood vessels for the transplant, the existing abnormally dilated blood vessels would be repaired through improved fibroblast proliferation and growth factors. This study, though a small sample size (n=22 for both red light (633 nm) and infrared light 830 nm group which is generally the same wavelengths of the LED in the unit I am using), shows a statistically significant improvement in collagen and elastin formation with a daily dose of 20 minutes of both red and infrared light wavelength. It doesn't mention specifically any net benefits to neovascularization per se but suggests that LED light therapy may enhance intercellular communication. I am going to go back to my original schedule of 20 mins/day at a distance of 10 cm from light source.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17566756/

 

 

 

 

thanks a lot for clarifying previously asked questions targeted at eugenix and for sharing this info here. given the fact that you have done more than 30 (!) years of research i am sure you will be able to further share umpteen of precious insights into all aspects of an ht that you gained over this period...

@Zoomster

would you be able to provide hi-res versions of your previously uploaded images to better evaluate the  situation of your donor area (i think your hair showed a length of 5mm).

that would be great.

On 10/25/2021 at 3:16 PM, NAVI said:

I was also thinking my area is around 160 but probably it's much more like 300 in such cases . Our heads are curved and that makes it so much more than it appears. And I think u can't plant more than 45 ,forget about 80

yep - curvature of our head´s shape definitely contributes to that.

in theory you could plant 80 grafts per cm2. but it wouldn´t make any sense at all for anybody going for a hair transplant - let alone a nw6 or higher candidate - given the fact that there are not enough donor resources.

On 10/24/2021 at 6:54 PM, NAVI said:

How can someone who is supposed to be norwood 7 can have 8k grafts just from scalp. I believe , he is norwood 6 and not 7. And I dont think everyone who is norwood 6 7 can get full coverage.please advise on this.

you are correct:

1. zoomster was a nw6 with a bald area probably in the region between 240 - 260cm2.

2. 8k scalp grafts can only be transplanted if the donor allows for that - unless overharvesting of grafts is being done or/and accepted by the patient. with zoomster i am still not sure whether overharvesting was done when having a closer look at his images.

3. nw7 candidates can never achieve full coverage - unless body hair grafts would additionally be transplanted in extensive numbers.

8 hours ago, kirkland said:

 

thanks for shedding some more light, kirkland.

there is another question in terms of the surgery itself:

when it comes to the statistics of your extracted grafts (i.e. how many 1, 2 and so on) and being written down on a wallboard (see also the pic on page 2 from the ht journey of our hero mazab) it would be interesting to know what "f", "p1" and "p2" stand for.

56 minutes ago, kirkland said:

I touched down in New Delhi earlier today. Everything from the Eugenix side of things has been great. Anil, Maudit and their staff have been really helpful. I was met at the airport by a driver arranged through Eugenix and taken to a Doubletree Hilton in nearby Gurgaon. The clinic is a short ride from this hotel. All transportation was arranged by Eugenix. I went to the clinic this evening to have the remaining bloodwork done for the surgery that I couldn't get done in Canada. It seems that Eugenix outsources its blood tests - it's not covered by Eugenix. A clinician shows up to take the sample and has to be paid on the spot so if you are planning on completing the required bloodwork through the clinic, make sure that you have cash (rupees) on hand. 2000 rupees ($32 Canadian) is the price. You can exchange money at the Indira Ghandi airport after landing and clearing customs and its a good idea to have some on hand. You don't need to change much - just enough to tip drivers if you want and to cover the costs of blood tests. Otherwise, Eugenix is on top of everything else. Communication and logistics has been very good with Eugenix. However, the overall experience of flying into India was challenging. I flew in from a connecting flight in London and there might be some retributive political actions going on between the UK and India which is impacting the travel experience. So if you have a connecting flight through the UK, be forewarned. Customs delays are generally longer than normal. Two British expats who came on the same flight said that it was unusual for the delays and suggested it could be politics between the two countries. Maudit at Eugenix also suggested that some tensions between the two countries over reciprocating travel restrictions is likely the cause.

Also, flights to India have to skirt Afghani airspace so the flights from Europe are extended by about another hour. That may also apply for direct flights from America and Canada depending on which coast you are flying from. In addition, passengers inbound to India have to wear clear face shields AND face masks (and middle seat passengers have to wear a medical apron - don't ask me why) throughout the entire flight and in the airport. This is what we were told when we boarded. Many passengers removed the face shields mid-flight because it is impossible to get comfortable and eat in the cramped seating space on the airplane. But do be prepared if you are recently flying into India that this may be required on your flight.

A couple of other things of note: all passengers on my flight to India had to take mandatory PCR tests at the Indira Gandhi airport -which cost about $8. You can pay by credit card for this test. It is a swab test. They stamped my paperwork stating that I had to quarantine until October 20 even though my outbound flight back to UK/Toronto leaves early Friday morning, October 15. We're trying to figure out what is going on because the new rules don't require a PCR test inbound if you are vaccinated and show a negative PCR test. I will post about my findings. Also, remember to bring an open shirt for the surgery. I will let the forum know how easy it was to arrange my 72-hour PCR test to be allowed back into Canada. My surgery is scheduled for early tomorrow morning. If anyone has any questions, please let me know.

Edit: One other detail. If you are not traveling with a SIM card for your phone and just plan on using wifi at the airport in Delhi to contact the clinic, etc, it becomes difficult because you can only access the free wifi service if they can send you a verification code via SMS. You have to wait to you have cleared customs and then go to the information kiosk near the exit of the airport to get a free passcode for the wifi. I will see if I still have the piece of paper with this code so you can use it much earlier in the journey through airport customs to make contact with your Eugenix rep upon landing.

 

 

 

great to see your courage to have taken the plunge.

and it looks as if you´ve already mastered the first challenges - i suppose as a sort of warm up before the upcoming ones. 😉

in terms of asking questions it would be good to know how / on which ground / based on which calculation eugenix will be able to predict

1. how many grafts would be needed to cover your bald area

2. how many grafts can be extracted in total

a. from your scalp

b. from your beard

3. which tools / formulae they use and which and how many trichoscopic measurements they would take pre-op from which areas

On 9/25/2021 at 3:55 PM, Zoomster said:

Just in answer in to Melvins question can I still grow a beard under chin after 3,600 beard grafts ...yes absolutely..this is 5 days post shaving ..I forgot i was to leave It a few weeks before shaving and shaved under chin last week..I’ll be shaving today also so please the attached for reference 

hope this helps 

Z

please correct me if i am wrong:

in the previous live chat between eugenix and melvin (and which was broadcast on youtube) melvin raised the question whether beard grafts could be extracted from this area and which is being shown here on your pic, zoomster.

dr. pradeep denied because of the regularly poor quality. however, to me it seems as many grafts have been extracted from here.