HairRun

Maybe not from the guy who posted the timestamps, but great podcast none the less. I'm on Oral Min now but kinda worried about sides. Concerns are much lower now.

Was it on this podcast?

I wish I did that during my consulting rounds. Who did you ask?

I found this interesting in one of the podcast episodes, Someone asked Dr Mwamba at 48 minutes who is favorite hair transplant surgeon is and he answered Dr Shapiro. Have other surgeons answered this question?

I can't tell which hairs are beard hairs along your scar. They all seem so thin

He didn't say anything about this, but I have seen another post there a top level doctor said it may have been impacted by damaging the grafts next to the scar. The doctor was from Europe. I tried getting a consult with him but they said they were only accepting in person consults.

update, month 0.5 . I don't think it's possible to detect if punchouts were done in that area. Only 0.5 month in, and I think there's already no point in updating it further. I'm not even sure if there's any artifacts from the punchouts. If there's any, it's really hard to get it on camera. I just love looking at my temples these days. No more weird grafts, and there's no scarring, just smooth skin there.

When I was doing research for the best doctor for my particular case, I also noticed that Dr Mwamba and Dr Bisanga have a ton of experience with black hair. Dr Mwamba has an Atlanta clinic but I believe his Brussels clinic is much cheaper than it, so you may end up saving money even after spending the extra money to fly to Europe. Dr Mwamba only has FUE prices but ask him if he could do FUT for you for cheaper. I believe flying to either of them, even with price of plane tickets and hotel, might be cheaper than Dr Diep because he is one of the most expensive. I had my first procedure with Dr Diep and I would not recommend him. A lot of parts about my procedure were universally criticized by not only people on this forum, but nearly every single hair transplant surgeon or their representative that I consulted with. I had my procedure a long time ago, but I have been searching his recent reviews too and he seems to be doing the same things recently what he did to me. One that sticks out in my head is that I saw he was using inexperienced staff to handle the grafts and implant them, which may have caused some of the issues myself and others experienced. I posted the parts he worked on a while back Also Dr Mwamba also criticized Dr Diep's work when he was doing live consultations for the live question and answering session . I'm not sure if the time stamps will work for the embed but go to 55 minutes into it I very recently had the work repaired and wrote an early review of it Like Dr Mwamba said, the work was so bad they actually had to remove the grafts they implanted, and replant them elsewhere. I often see this type of procedure causes permanent and noticeable scarring to the skin, but luckily I went to the best in the world and 12 days out and it's already really hard to notice the difference.

I got a really good impression of Dr Wong. I am not as familiar with the other one.

Oh man, entertaining read for sure considering what we know today, especially when the anti-LLLT people turned out to be climate change deniers. I found this thread while trying to search if LLLT is safe to use pro-op, well worth the detour.

I just had mine done and posted an early review. The best possible surgeon for my case. You are lucky you live probably in driving distance. I had to fly in and spend on a hotel.

I thought you can only place them in the depleted donor areas? You use all your donor first, and then you use beard to refill replenished areas?

After my research I created a shortlist of Shapiro, Konior, and Bisanga. I think Cooley is good too, as is Gabel. Feriduni was on my longlist but wasn't able to get a consult with him. I went with Shapiro and very happy with my choice, I recently put out a review of the results of my punchouts 10 days out and they're looking super good.

My main procedure was done by Dr Ron Shapiro and I'll post a full review about it as soon as some more growth gets in, but the punchouts are already looking good so I'm posting this part right now. Close up the original temple implants by Dr John Diep can be found here The main procedure was performed by Dr Ron Shapiro, and the punchouts were performed by Dr. David Josephitis. Originally they didn't think they'll have time to do the punchouts and may do them at a later date, but Dr. David Josephitis was able to come in and do the punch outs which was awesome. He said he got about 100 on each side, and that he used the smallest punch to extract them. Another thing was that I had a wide scar from my previous surgery as you can see from the thread, and the original thinking was that it would also be excised at a later date but they were able to do it this procedure too, which was super appreciated. For the first procedure they asked me if I went back to get my sutures removed. I told him that they dissolved on their own. Dr Shapiro said that the dissolvable ones tend to cause inflammation. It seems that I was a complicated case due to the way my first surgery was handled. Dr Shapiro also said that my first strip was extracted too high. It seems that he was taking a lot into consideration, so I am super glad I went with someone who had a ton of experience. Scarring was my major concern about the punchouts. I scar pretty easily, something I always noticed. One time I got a scratch on my face and went to a dermatologist to prevent any scarring, but she said it shouldn't scar even though I told her I scar easily. The scratch resulted in a scar and she was surprised that it did. Though I've learned that I don't have certain particularly bad scarring characteristics, from my consult with Dr Timothy Carmen he said he didn't see any hypertrophic scarring from my first procedure, and Dr Shapiro said from the wide scar at the back of my head that I didn't have Keloid scaring (I think, not sure if I'm remembering the correct term for each). Having dark or white dots, or pits was by biggest concern regarding the punchouts. I think I can rest easy now as you can see from the pics. I was lazy about taking pictures post-op. I wish I had taken more now because I'm curious about how the healing evolved day-by-day but oh well. Post-op or very close to post op I have to say, when I first saw myself post OP, it was super haunting lol. It was like looking into a dystopian future. Bloody, and I'm a little squeamish at seeing my own blood. I was super old looking cuz the middle part was a replenishment (I still have hair there that was shaved off) so at that moment it just looked like a super thinned scalp, a version of myself that I've been trying to avoid for over a decade .And there was a bunch of the holes from the punchouts at my temples, which at the time I was afraid of would turn into a bunch of polkadot scars. I also have never seen myself bald before, I've never even had my hair short before. My first procedure was with my hair still long, uncut procedure, so going from never seeing myself with even my hair short to that was super shocking lol. The day after the procedure, I went back the next morning for a wash, and they said that I'm a fast healer, which was cool to hear. A bit post OP 10 days post OP I'm pretty happy, from even a close distance it seems that the skin at the punchout area is nearly exactly the same as the rest of my skin. It's when you get in really close that you can kinda see some differences, but it's still only 10 days post OP. Visible scarring was a big concern regarding relocating the grafts, so now I can rest pretty easy. I've seen other graft removals where the changes to the skin is still visible a while post OP, and I have a tendency to scar, so I think the results speak to the quality of the surgeon. Finally, I opted for using exomes at my surgery. I am wondering if it helped prevent scars, and maybe regenerated some hairs. I'm not sure, but that seems to be the consensus to similar healing characteristics observed in the verteporfin trials thread. As you can see from the thread, the new finer hairs and lack of scars post OP have people concluding that it works, and that it induced some regeneration. I seem to have similar characteristics as you can see from the 10 days post op pics. You can see finer hairs emerging. Before, as far as I can tell, the there were only blunter, thicker hairs implanted into my temples. And there seems to be quite a few post op. Did exomes regenerate my hair ? I think the likelier explanation is that the blunter hairs made it really hard to see the finer hairs in the mirror and closeup photos, and those hairs were in the telogen phrase pre-op, but I've been taking a ton of supplements including biotin, and collagen post OP, so may have induced a bunch of hair growth spurts all at once. Thoughts? update, month 0.5 . I don't think it's possible to detect if punchouts were done in that area. Only 0.5 month in, and I think there's already no point in updating it further. I'm not even sure if there's any artifacts from the punchouts. If there's any, it's really hard to get it on camera. I just love looking at my temples these days. No more weird grafts, and there's no scarring, just smooth skin there.

Pulsing is actually more effective, especially for brown skin, even though it takes more time. The lasercap pages have research cited https://lasercaplab.com/pulsed-vs-continuous-laser-care/ https://lasercap.com/prescription-strength-technology/ >Results: An increase in the per-session energy fluence by 1 J/cm2 is significantly associated with an increase in hair density by 0.23 hairs/cm2 (95% CI: 0.21 hairs/cm2, 0.25 hairs/cm2). The number of laser or light-emitting diodes is not significantly associated with change in hair density. Increasing the total duration of exposure to treatment is associated with a significant increase in hair density (β=0.53, p<0.05). Switching from continuous to pulse irradiation was associated with a significant increase in hair density (β=10.11, p<0.01) https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1111/dth.14191 So could be that even the 200$ generic version of 81 diodes would work just as well, but I'll go with 272 because the did find that power does have an effect. HairMax also makes a 700 dollar version of the 272 diode hat the main difference is that there's no continuous option, but looking at their amazon page, they don't actually make it. It sounds like they just outsource it to the same shop that makes the generic version that anyone can buy and brand as their own like what hairaliccious had on his page. That person only has a 1 year warranty vs 5 years from illlumniflow. So illlumniflow is my top contender again.

Top 3 for me. Shapiro, Konior, Bisanga.

I got a similar impression. I was looking for a repair and researched specifically this. I concluded he was one of the best in the world. I think his proximity to the Turkish hair clinics and his time as a surgeon gives him a ton of experience with repairs. One of the most ethical and long-term planning. If I was in Europe I probably would have gone with him.

I found another difference between the cheaper and more expensive models, cheaper ones are pulsating, more expensive ones are continuous. Not sure if that makes a difference.

A lot of people leave the next day but I stayed 7 nights. I personally wouldn't be able to do less than 3-4 days, I needed a lot of sleep and rest, and would have been super worried about bumping my head and affecting the results.

Are you going to be trying it with oral minox only, no topical? My hunch is that it's the stuff in the topical that messed it up.

Were you guys also taking topical min along with it? I am wondering if the carriers messed up keeping it in the scalp

Yup, one botched-ish transplant from a doctor who had no concerns for my long term and actually gave me a lower and unnatural looking hairline than we agreed upon, then just got it repaired and replenished by one of the best and most ethical Doctors out there who absolutely took into account the scenario that I will lose it all. They relocated the lower grafts and came up with a conservative hairline that'll be maintainable once my hairloss pattern reaches its final form. If I respond to exomes + oral min + laser + sulforaphane, maybe we can work out a bit more. May also consider beard hair stuff.

So far from my deep dive, all the companies might be the same. As long as they have the equivalent number of lasers and FDA cleared, they're pretty much the same. When I was discussing with Dr Shapiro, he said pretty much this and my research so far is along these lines. Sci-Hub | Energy-based Devices for Hair Loss | 10.1016/j.det.2021.04.002 (hkvisa.net) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8675345/pdf/jcad_14_11_E64.pdf As far as I can tell, none of these companies actually manufacturers the lasers, they all outsource them, I suspect all to the same manufacturer. I had a chat with Cappillus and they said it's against their company policy to disclose where the lasers comes from. On the lasercap website they compare a bunch of brands with j/cm^2 https://lasercap.com/lasercap-vs-the-competition/ But they don't specify what model of Capillus they are comparing. I asked on the Cappillus chat what are the equivalent measures for this and they said "It does not make sense to express this value in joules since a joule has a time component and our lasers are continuous wave and not pulsed". Which makes sense, so I wonder how LaserCap got those numbers. The only way as far as I can tell is to include the recommended time, which would be misleading since LaserCap can just recommend a longer time and I think that's what happened because if you look at the scihub link, Cappillus' instruction is 6 minutes a day and the lasercap is 15-30. I think if Hairmax, lasercap, or capillus had any compelling advantage over the cheaper ones, they would have mentioned it on their website. I think as long as the cap has the same number of diodes and the company selling the device is FDA cleared, it won't make a difference. I bet even the 400$ on Amazon is the same, and if you go off Amazon, you can probably get even cheaper. There seems to be some generic manufacturer that anyone can get custom made for them, like the HAIRLICIOUSLY youtube channel, https://www.hairliciously.com/products/hairliciously-272-laser-diodes-cap-fda-cleared . But I'll go with illumiflow, just in case I need to return it or something. I want to go with a company that's mentioned in one of the research papers. It has a confirmed FDA clearance https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf17/K173843.pdf though I don't know if that means anything, maybe it just means it they looked at his marketing materials. Still, they been around since 2017, and probably will continue to be around, so if I need to use the warranty most likely they'll be around. A cheaper company might disappear on me.

Yeah, it was the side effects. At this point I used 3 different brands and various microdoses and frequencies. At this point I have pretty much given up on using fin. Maybe I'll try xyon again now that I am using oral minox, but maybe not

When I was using it, it would be first thing after the shower. Also, during the time I was using it, whenever I would wash my hair, I would do an extreme bend back to wash my hair so it wouldn't drip down my body.