HappyMan2021

I don't claim to be an expert on this, so I would actually defer to you if you are indeed a professional in this industry (no clue but it sounds like you are?) Based on OPs picture, he is on the milder side of botched jobs. Looks like he only has a few hundred badly angled grafts. I can't imagine zapping a few hundred would cause issues really.

Mwamba is undoubtedly a greatly skilled doctor. But if you only focus on contemporary results, I think all the other mentioned repair docs are better. Also, even when you consider repairs are more challenging than normal HT's, Mwamba's density issues are quite frankly hard to justify. He has had some downright bad density cases lately. There are more examples on Reddit too. Also, you have to pay an additional 25% Belgium VAT tax if you see Mwamba in Brussels. This can cost you thousands and thousands of unnecessary dollars. While Bisanga is also in Belgium, for some reason his clinic avoids the VAT tax. If I were you - I would only consider Mwamba if 1) You are willing to gamble on density 2) You have deep pockets to justify the VAT tax and other overhead costs 3) You don't have the patience to get on the long waitlists of the other repair doctors. As an American repair patient - if you have the patience to wait 1 year for surgery and are also willing to do the in-person consult visit - I honestly think Cooley or Shapiro are the only logical options... That being said, I also still urge you to consider electrolysis as long as you have a generous donor. If you kill all the bad grafts and start from a fresh slate, you will be able to avoid this really sh*tty, overly complicated, long, and costly repair process. While it indeed really sucks to kill grafts and feel like you are taking a step backwards, by starting fresh you will have a plethora of good doctors to choose from. Whereas if you go the extraction/repair route, there are only a handful of doctors in the world to truly feel comfortable with, and you could very well likely be paying ten or tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs

Cooley or Shapiro in the US, Feriduni or Bisanga in Belgium. Also keep in mind that most repair docs will want to see you in-person before deciding to work on you. It's something I am extremely against and think is a bit ridiculous. Especially if you 100% have a good donor and no pre-existing scalp conditions, it seems silly to have to spend money and time to fly a long distance just for a doctor to examine you for 20 minutes and approve you for surgery...but it is what it is Doctors want to work with the virgin 1st timers....once you become a repair patient many doctors view you as a liability of sorts. Which I guess kind of makes sense because repairs are indeed a lot more challenging. But it is unfair to the repair patients themselves because it really adds to the stress and expense of finding an appropriate doctor. If you are a 1st time HT patient, literally any doctor in the world will work with you as long as you can pay. But once you become a repair patient, some doctors make you jump through hoops and you have may have to market/sell yourself

@Antbite do you still have generous donor availability remaining? If so, get electrolysis and literally just kill all the badly angled grafts off. Then go to a better doctor and start the hair transplant process from scratch. If you don't have a generous donor or for whatever reason you cannot bring yourself to kill off grafts, many good repair doctors can extract the bad angles, re-implant them elsewhere correctly, then implant brand new fresh grafts correctly into the recipient area. Absolutely keep in mind though that if you go the repair route, you are most likely looking at multiple surgeries. Even if the botched area is relatively small, removing and re-angling bad grafts is an extremely tedious process. You quite seriously may be looking at 3 or more repair surgeries. (2 extraction rounds for each of the temples followed by 1 normal implantation round) If you go the repair route I hope you have money saved up as well as its going to be much more $$$ than a normal HT Electrolysis or repair are your only options. The reason getting botched sucks so much isnt just because of how it looks aesthetically (even though that royally sucks as well), but more-so because the repair journey is exponentially longer, challenging, stressful, and expensive than non-repair HT's. Also, since repairs are much more challenging, less doctors do them and therefore you have less options available to you as well. Ex. while you may have a "good enough" non-repair HT doctor in your local city or state, you may end up having to travel halfway around the world to find your perfect repair doctor.

@John Back I reviewed your profile activity, and your hair transplant history is a bit confusing to me. So have you gone to Dr. Mallura 2x now? Is he the one who did that really bad FUT scar? And yes per your pictures it looks like nothing has changed....looks like the doctor did nothing but kill 2200 grafts from your donor sadly

yea totally lol. When I was first experiencing hair loss - even well before I embarked on hair transplants - I once put Toppik on my hairline and temples for a date. On the date, I noticed that some random person at a different table kept looking at me - which I thought was super weird. I eventually went to the bathroom and found a really conspicious and unnatural (obviously) brown smudge of Topick on my forehead. The horror lol

I'm not sure I understand the question. But if it helps, you really shouldn't be putting fibers on the hairline and/or the hair that directly borders your naked forehead. The fiber can fall off/drip/sprinkle down your forehead which will be super embarrassing for you. Fiber is best used for the crown or mid-scalp.

to clarify, you have been operated on by Dr. Nader? Dr. Nader is on my inquiry list as well. But I've heard he now has around a 1 yr waitlist due to his newfound popularity and that is a big turnoff for me honestly lol

Thanks Melvin! I will put him on my list of doctors to inquire with for this next surgery.

I am looking for a consistent, highly capable doctor who can do a no-frills, high yield 1500 graft density fill-in. This will be the final surgery in a 4 round repair journey. Gabel is quite curious to me. He was trained by Konior and reviews of him seem good. But there are only a very small amount of reviews of him. And his name rarely pops up on any of the HT forums. Are there any specific reasons Gabel is seen as a good doctor, yet paradoxically his name almost never pops up and reviews are sporadic? I've heard he handles all prospective inquiries himself and has a tendency to ghost/stop communicating with candidates he for whatever reason does not want to work with. Could this have anything to do with his lack of publicity? Are there any bad density cases with him? I unfortunately MUST cross him (and any doctor) off my list that has density issues. Essentially - Is Dr. Gabel a trusted/vetted doctor even though he flies under the radar?

No clue about Rogaine, but for Fin and Dut there is no reason EVER for any sort of break. They should be taken daily pre, on-surgery day, and post-surgery day.

curious what made you choose this doctor? Unless you live in Arizona, seems like somewhat of a random doctor to go to.

Eh, i really would want to be cautious with giving OP false hope, or worst case remaining completely idle on an issue that ultimately will not resolve itself on its own. I am a (former) botched patient who had many badly angled grafts. I was told by multiple sources, including doctors, that my bad angles would autocorrect themselves as the years go on. That was a lie. For any botched patient out there - while i do not necessarily think being a pessimistic nervous wreck is helpful, I do think that any botched patient should have a brutally realistic and objective attitude and outlook with the results at hand. It is much better to 100% accept a bad result/bad situation because that enables patients to begin the journey of repair/correction. If a patient is filled with false hope, they may sit idle for years and years desperately and obsessively praying to the hair gods for a miracle auto-correction that likely will never come...

Accutane is pretty hardcore....I guess I'm lucky I took it when I was 16 when I did not even know what Male Pattern Baldness was 🤣 As others are saying, this is a pretty black and white issue. Dont even think about a hair transplant until you are off the accutane regime and its completely out of your system

these doctors are all considered FUE repair docs? This is news to me.

I'm pretty sure Mwamba doesn't do free touch ups. If so where is the line for this I need to join too 🤣

thank you for providing these. Also stating for anyone reading that these cases are not like spread out over a 10 year period. A lot of low-yield cases have been in the last year. This is a consistent pattern. There is even a case of cobblestoning from Mwamba, which is incredibly disturbing coming from a repair doctor. For me personally, I can't risk investing my last remaining 1500 donor grafts and gambling their survivability with such a questionable track record.

Pretty sure....I've only been operated on by Mwamba 3x now 🤷‍♂️ There are also a significant number of threads - both on here and Reddit - of people who have gotten surprisingly poor density from Mwamba. I'm not even talking about complex repair cases either. These are straightforward, run-of-the-mill 1st timers who have gotten poor density Just because a doctor is considered "elite" in one or some areas of hair transplants does not mean they are elite across the board in every single aspect of surgery. For example, I have no clue what you do for work, but whatever you do, I'm sure there are some job tasks you are much better at than others. Most people are not "amazing" in every single aspect of their job. Some things you are better at, some things you are worse at.

yea totally, I get you. I havent even begun the doctor consult process for this, but remaining donor availability is certainly something I will 100% bring up with all doctors. I also personally have no clue, but perhaps the remaining 1500 grafts wouldn't all need to be used up. Because this isn't operating on bald areas - ex. going from 0 cm/2 to 50cm/2. Its instead just boosting density by 20cm/2 or so. But yea, its alot to think about. And yes, absolutely at the end of day, I know the Gods honest truth is none of these doctors will care about me long-term as long as they have my money. Its up to me alone to navigate the risks and future outlook.

I totally get what you are saying. If it helps clarify, while I do not have confidence with Mwamba in terms of his density/dense-packing abilities, I do have confidence in his surgical ethics and donor management. He himself said he saw no problem utilizing the rest of the 1500 grafts to dense pack. I am a NW3, have been on Dutasteride for years, with no further hair loss. Mwamba did say that there is always a possibility that a decade or decades from now, I may get a tolerance to Dut and/or if my native central forelock weakens (currently its super strong), then I may need another HT. But in that case there is always beard or body hair 🤷‍♂️ Idk, Mwamba did also say he thought there was a "50%" chance I would be satisfied with this mediocre density he is currently predicting. But just knowing myself, how many surgeries total I've been through so far (6!!!) all the agonizing stress and cost, I just dont see myself being happy going through all this effort for sub-par density. Essentially - While I am critical of Mwamba in a number of aspects, I don't think he would have recommended using the remaining 1500 grafts if he truly thought it would cause donor issues in the future.

Hey all, I just finished up my 3rd repair surgery with Dr. Mwamba. I had 1000+ bad angles to start with and Dr. Mwamba has essentially removed all of them over the course of these 3 repairs. The bad news is that, by extracting so many bad angles from my scalp, even though I am no longer in the "repair patient" camp, Dr. Mwamba predicted my right corner/temple will be around 35 cm/2 and left corner/temple around 45 cm/2 density. Dr. Mwamba said I have 1500 grafts left in my donor area and said he seemed super confident this would be enough to dense pack for a final surgery. However, the issue I have is that while Dr. Mwamba is skilled in many things (bad angles, donor management, repairs in general) - he has had a consistent string of poor results when it comes to density. Many non-repair patients have lately reported really poor density with him. I honestly don't think I can trust Dr. Mwamba if the #1 goal of surgery is high density, given these recent cases. So, while I enjoyed Dr. Mwamba for his repair abilities and getting rid of my bad angles, I am seeking a new doctor for my next surgery, which will essentially be a straightforward dense packing of the temples using 1500 grafts. Essentially: my question is who are the best doctors when it comes to consistent, straightforward, no-frill, dense packing? In terms of pricing, 1500 grafts will be at play (that is literally all I have left in my donor area), and I'd say the top limit of my budget is $10-15k (so sorry to Dr. Konior or any other absurdly high-priced doctor really.)

why arent you on any meds?

Dr James Harris or gynecologist Shelley Lovitt? Those are the 2 colorado hair transplant docs i know. Both butchers. I would have had a better result is a random person off the street did it. Also can you please share some pics? Also please name the clinic/doctor. Unless they are offering you a full refund + plus the full costs of all future repairs needed, you are getting sh*fted. By being quiet, you are actually helping the perpetrator out

Just stop fin immediately and start taking .5mg dutasteride In terms of expectations, idk man. Regrowth is such a rarity with both Fin and Dut. If anything the meds are used to prevent hairloss, not regrowth. My guess is that Dut will likely be a stronger weapon for you in preventing further hairloss. But in terms of regaining already lost hair, including the hair you've lost over the last 2 years, idk man I would say that hair is lost for good People who experience regrowth from fin/dut really are miracle cases. 99% of the time these are preventative meds only

Convenience is the only factor. High priced US clinics can absolutely be just as shady and disreputable as an international hairmill. Also don't think that just because you get operated on in the US, that gives you some sort of legal insurance/liability protection if you get botched or something. You will be SOL just the same as if you were botched internationally.