HappyMan2021

gotcha thanks, I re-read a bit of your post history and see you mentioned these previous doctors. Hopefully Nadimi can fix you in 1 surgery but I am not sure. Repairs are notorious for needing multiple surgeries, but at the same time it depends on what needs to be repaired. ex. if its a straightforward density fill in, chances of only needing 1 surgery are much better than fixing badly angled grafts, scarring, etc. Sorry the wait time is so long for Nadimi, I can totally relate to how horrible the waittime is. The number of good HT doctors is appalingly low, and its the reason for these ridiculous wait times. It's sad to me how in my local city I can easily have an appointment in a few weeks with my choice of one of 50+ great dentists, but in order to have a good hair transplant I may have to wait up to 1 yr, travel halfway across the world, etc. The world really needs more good HT doctors. All I can say in the meantime is experiment with different hair styles. You may not be able to do your top choice hairstyle, but I feel confident there is at least 1 hairstyle that works for you. It also may be a pain at first to use gel, other product, etc. to conceal your look, but once you get in the habit of using hair product it gets much easier. I know it still sucks, but one way to look at it is you have 9 months to experiment and playfully mess around with different hairstyles you may have not done otherwise.

for peace of mind and to reduce anxiety, you can stay up until the 72 hour mark when the follicles are secure. Realistically and pragmatically, you can fly the next day. I would say 95% of incidents were people accidentally lose grafts is due to carelessness, naivete, stupidity, or a combination of all three. As long as you exercise a bit of common sense and caution, you are unlikely to have any grafts dislodged

can you confirm Nadimi's wait time is 9 months? I thought it would be shorter. So you had the 1st bad HT, and you have had 2 subsequent procedures with Nadimi? What specifically has she done so far? Has she been extracting the bad grafts from your 1st procedure or what exactly has she been doing to repair you? If I were you don't even care about what your parents or friends think. You know your hair better than anyone. They are not looking at you up-close-and personal and seeing the unnaturalness. There are plenty of totally botched HT patients who look totally fine in a casual observation, and unnoticeable until you look up close. But yea, its you hair, your life, you know your body and natural 'look' better than anyone else. The only person who needs to have a say in this matter is you and your doctor.

Placebo

the 25% Belgian VAT tax and additional European travel costs levels out the cost between the good American docs and the Belgian docs Also, since OP is looking for a repair, this unfortunately makes multiple surgeries likely, and so OP would have to factor in paying the VAT tax and burdensome travel costs 2x

1000 grafts may require 2 surgeries. Good US repair doctors are Shapiro in Minnesota and Cooley in NC. The bad thing though is, for repair patients, you are required to first visit their office in-person for a consult. No excuses. From there, you are then looking at around a 1 yr wait time for surgery. And then keep in mind if you are looking at 2 or more surgeries then this timeline will be extended.

how many grafts do you want to remove? if you don't think outright killing the grafts will cause any issues down the road, then electrolysis may be your best bet.

why were the grafts placed in such a cornrow manner?

bro people have been saying this since the dawn of time. balding cavemen were telling each other the cure for baldness was just a few years away are you at least on Finasteride or Dut? It's one thing to wishfully hope for a miracle cure, but still being pragmattic and using Fin/Dut. But you would have to be incredibly foolish to not be on any treatment plan at the moment, exposing yourself to further likely irreversible hairloss, and go for broke on a future miracle cure.

how far along post-op are you? pictures? Many people who have 'styling issues' or 'unruly hair' post hair transplant actually were botched, the grafts were badly angled, etc. and people mistakenly think this is "normal" Or if its still early in the post-op period, perhaps this is kinky hair that needs a few more months to straighten, soften, and thicken

sounds too good to be true

I wonder why 1300 grafts for a straightforward run-of-the-mill HT needs to be multiple days. There really is no reason for that. @knivesout09 did Dr. Mwamba give a reason this needed to be multiple days? I personally had surgery with Dr. Mwamba last yr and it was 3 days for roughly 3k grafts. I am having surgery with him next month for 1 day and roughly 2k grafts. Mwamba seemed super confident that he could do all this in one very long day.

maybe the Belgian clinics will include the VAT tax in the quote if you want them too 🤷‍♂️ I get what you are saying how it is misleading to not have it included. But specifically for you, you do have the knowledge of the VAT tax, so it shouldn't make any material difference At the end of the day you the prospective patient really have zero power or control over how a clinic runs their business. I really wish consumers in this industry had more advocacy and power to affect change, but it is what it is.

I am not 100% certain, but I do think that a hair transplant any country in the world would have some sort of additional government tax. The difference is : -at least in the US, this would be considered a 'sales tax' which is a much much much smaller percentage than the VAT tax -other countries that have VAT taxes, they are no where near 25%. 25% is a really severe percentage. Ex. I believe Hattingen in Switzerland has a VAT tax, but it is 7%. And even 7% could be considered a hefty surcharge.

it's bc the 25% VAT tax is pretty shocking and hard to swallow, especially considering the base cost of the HT itself is already costly, and if you are a foreigner you are not used to this VAT tax. And also, if you are not a Belgian citizen, there is literally no ROI on the VAT tax. You may as well be lighting this money on fire. At least when you pay US taxes (or taxes of whatever country you are a citizen of) you are at least benefiting from government services, tax refunds, etc. Unless you are getting some type of social service from the Belgian government, there is no ROI. If these doctors were to promote the VAT tax and/or include it in the original cost, it would dissuade many people from going. That all being said, I'm fairly certain Bisanga patients do not have to pay the VAT tax.

ughh I've been hearing this alot from Mwamba patients lately 😪 Is there a specific reason you think yield may have been poor?

can you clarify, do you mean they don't want to deal with extracting badly angled recipient grafts? that is really dumb as extracting badly angled grafts is basically the same process as extracting fresh/new grafts from the donor area. If you only have a handful of badly angled grafts, I would maybe consider electrolysis before your next surgery. It's helpful too that it seems these bad angled grafts aren't around dense hair.

As long as the cocaine doesn't have fentanyl and/or otherwise not too impure, I sincerely 100% believe getting wasted on good old-fashioned and legal alcohol would be worse for OP. So, I would say follow the clinic's guidelines for alcohol, when doing cocaine or any other drug.

@pkgr33n update? how did the surgery turn out for you?

interesting. hmm if you have already had your scalp examined by a local hair/scalp specialist, maybe another scalp exam by a prominent HT is un-needed. I totally share your sentiment that it feels ridiculous to have to travel - perhaps even travel internationally - solely so a good HT doctor can examine you for 20 minutes and let you know if you have any scalp condition or not. And you are right there probably will be nothing found. Not only that, but getting this type of exam will require a few months of waiting from one of the prominent docs. Idk what to say, this is a mystery to me. Maybe you should also go to a endocrinologist or something for a full body checkup. There are many diseases/disorders that you wouldn't think of that can cause hairloss. One example is diabetes.

it will help definitively conclude what is causing the shedding. if its determined you have a condition that makes HT ineffective or negligible, even if you were to go to an elite doctor, then sorry hair transplants are probably not for you if you dont have a scalp disease then its likely Dr. Saifi screwed up. Maybe he took 95% of your transplant hair from outside your safe zone. If he did that, I can see how short-term your HT was fine but long-term not good at all. In this case you can absolutely get more HT's just go to a better doctor Regardless of what you should do, I think you should upgrade to Dut. If anything, it will give you peace of mind that you are on the strongest preventative med out there. If you have not experienced sides on Fin, you will not experience any on Dut.

1) Have you actually had your scalp examined in-person by a qualified doctor yet? That should be your first step In my opinion you really should definitively find out what this issue is. I really doubt you want to go through all the trouble of a 2nd HT if this is likely to occur again. 2) Do you have updated pictures you can share? I know you sent pics in your thread from a few months ago, but current ones would be good. It sounds like this issue is progressing/worsening for you? 3) Lol cmon man, I know you are smarter than this. There is never a good reason to purposefully worsen your MPB 4) In general I think most ppl should upgrade to Dut, if only for the reason that Dut is the stronger of the 2 meds. But for you specifically I dont think Dut will help with this specific issue. My own completely unsubstantiated and shot-in-the-dark but educated guess is that your god-given genetic MPB has naturally just decided to get more aggressive and Fin is no longer providing the protection that it used to. or Maybe you unknowingly are dealing with a non-MPB medical issue - perhaps something that is messing with your hormones - that is causing your hair to shed at an unusual pace. All the more reason to decisively find out what the root cause of this issue is before proceeding with another HT. There are a hundreds of medical conditions out there that can cause hairloss/shedding, etc.

I actually had this same anxiety myself a few months ago. I was 4 months post-op and my barber used a straight razor to shave off some transplanted grafts for some reason. I was really nervous about it and was wondering if that would damage the grafts. As nerve-wracking as it may be, you just have to understand that grafts/follicles are underneath the skin. Nothing that happens above the skin would affect the grafts, including shaving the grafts to the skin.

@crown issues the crown is known for taking so much longer than the hairline to grow. Curious at what month post-op you started seeing growth in the crown?

I am thinking about using Care Credit for an upcoming surgery and have some questions. Is Care Credit only a soft pull on my credit report? Or is it a hard pull? Can I specifically and explicitly get a confirmed amount from CareCredit, before pulling the trigger on it? Ex. say my HT will be $15,000. Can I confirm with CareCredit they will lend me $15k before pulling the trigger on it? I do realize CareCredit has some pretty ridiculous interest rates if you don't pay in full before the grace period ends. But my reasons of doing CareCredit as opposed to opening a new 0% APR promo credit card are: -if CareCredit is potentially only a soft pull, whereas credit cards are almost universally hard pulls. Much better for my credit score. -there is no way to know beforehand what a credit card limit will be. Would be really dumb to open a new credit card, take the hard pull hit on my credit report, just to find out it doesn't even cover all the surgery costs -I don't mind the high CareCredit interest rates as I am certain I will pay all costs in full before the grace period ends Thanks