Fox243

There’s a brand new paper recently released about vert and scarless healing btw: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39129-6

27 minutes ago, sunsurfhair said:

https://www.maximustribe.com/warrior

wow this is expensive

On 2/6/2023 at 6:53 PM, sunsurfhair said:

Anyone use or using Latanoprost with success? I came across this formulation and thought it looked quite interesting. I would prefer to not have the topical minox in it since I’m already on oral minox, but was curious what others thought.

 

Where did you find this? It looks interesting. 

Anybody buy this yet? It's available on cosmerna.com and you can buy it from almost anywhere in the world.

13 hours ago, hairman22 said:

I dont agree you cant wait

Actually patience was what got @HugoX and @mtb go a great surgeon.

4 years as a diffuse thinner i was turned down by the top surgeons because i cant take fin. Im glad i was.

you can wear a system possibly.

its best to actually wait for example no one knew about Pittella and Zarev 3 years ago. Eugenix too really have some great cases. The longer you wait better chance of a great result and increase your funds and clearly hair transplantation is improving others will hopefully catch up and improve their extraction of the donor area

I'm missing valuable years of my life as I wait though. I don't want to build my life around my hair transplant.

5 minutes ago, HairEnthusiast101 said:

Interesting. So there was still scarring. It isn’t full proof. Which would make fut even more interesting because scarring on fut is usually more pronounced/common. I wonder if verteporfin treatments injected into scar every week or month after the procedure would benefit it at all? Would be interesting. I assume it would be expensive for a patient to get verteporfin use after their procedure 

based on the studies, a one time application is best. Yes, it isn't foolproof the way it is now at least, but we hope to first fully establish that it helps, and upon establishing that, get it to as close as foolproof as possible.

28 minutes ago, HairEnthusiast101 said:

Did veterporfin make the control have no scarring in fue?

the control had normal scarring, the test had reduced scarring and more hair

1 hour ago, Joseph James said:

He doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do, but if he does train them, it doesn't mean they're going to be as good as him.

The main difference for zarev imho is his attention to detail -- I don't think there's much more to that, so if he hires someone who pays attention to detail, then using his technology, they should be close to as good

51 minutes ago, asterix0 said:

He has said he wants to but has found it hard to find medical students who are good enough I think. 

ugh we need this so bad -- i can't wait almost 5 years to get a surgery done.

On 5/29/2023 at 7:43 PM, Gatsby said:

Melvin I think even in monozygotic twins the graft will be rejected.

This has already been done safely and successfully from a husband (Jahoda) to his wife: https://www.nature.com/articles/news991104-12. From my understanding, the reason it wasn't pursued was mostly because someone else's hair may not look natural on yours, but for a lot of us who have overharvested our grafts, it may be better than nothing. But I think this, like verteporfin, is something new for us to explore. Would hope for some more discussion on this paper.

Here's some more discussion -- seems that people just gave up on it for some reason: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/04/053r-110499-idx.html

57 minutes ago, web3marketstgy said:

Hey everyone.

I’m a 33 y/o male who has recently decided to do something about my hair loss rather than dealing with the daily  depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia. I’m a NW3 vertex, I was told during my consult that my balding will very likely never go passed a NW5. 

To be 100% transparent, it makes little sense to me that so many men risk their sex life by taking fin, a drug that one likely would need to take for the rest of their life once they start it. It’s way beyond my personal risk tolerance to take a drug that could leave permanent sexual side-effects, regardless of how small of a % it may or may not be. DHT does more in the body than cause balding and I don’t want to altering my body’s natural endocrine system by suppressing a hormone that does so many other things. 
 

It concerns me that the majority of men blindly listen to the advice of doctors who, in my experience, tend to minimize the potential for lasting sexual side-effects. To the men who understand the potential side-effects of fin but take it anyway, I completely respect your choice to do that. It’s your body and your hair may be more important to you than your sex life. For me, I’m not willing to play Russian roulette with my sexuality. For that reason, fin is 100% off the table for me. 
 

As the donor grafts are likely resistant to DHT induced loss, my line of thinking is that worst case scenario not doing any med therapy post HT would be continued balding in the non-grafted areas which would likely require future transplants. I’m okay with that. I feel like my expectations are realistic as well. I would rather pay $30k long-term for multiple FUE procedures than deal with the potential sides of fin.

It seems that men who choose not to take fin before or after a hair transplant are the minority here and I’m not sure why that is. I’m not sure if it’s lack of education about the potential side-effects or if they choose to take fin understanding there is a possibility they may in fact experience permanent sexual side effects.

The hair restoration doctor I’ve done a consult with has been in this field for a long-time, he’s been doing HT‘S for 30 years. He told me that out of the 3,000 transplants he’s done, no one has ever had post-finasteride syndrome. That may be true, however it’s not going to change my mind about taking fin. He wants to start me on oral minox but I don’t want to do that either because again, starting these drugs is basically a long-term commitment and I don’t want to be taking a blood pressure medication for the rest of my life when I don’t need that for actual health reasons. The doc also wants to put me on a topical fin + minox serum that’s made at a local compounding pharmacy. He was emphatic that I HAVE to, at the very least, take the oral minox. 
 

My intent is posting is I want a hair transplant without having to take meds. Yes I may need future transplants. Beyond that, am I missing anything? 
 

Thanks in advance for your posts!

I think the main thing is just to be conservative with your transplants. Transplants happened in days without meds too with worse techniques as well. But you probably shouldn't plan for better than a NW2.5 or so though.

2 minutes ago, Rawkerboi said:

May be those hairs weren't DHT resistant 

That's bad -- the clinic should not be removing DHT susceptible grafts. The point of a hair transplant is for it to be long lasting.

There's some discrepancy though. Why are all the hairs that Medispa implanted gone? Most of the hairs were transplanted, so there should still be much more density on the top if Dr. Soni took from the safe zone.

On 5/12/2023 at 1:08 AM, GoogleChrome said:

Hi everyone, I have decided to stop this protocol as I've experienced really bad side effects.

Some side effects I've experienced:
Shortness of breath
Sleep Apnea
Anxiety
Extreme Depression for no apparent reason
Zero energy 
Irregular heartbeat
Loss of stamina
ED, low libido
Muscle pain

All of this happened overnight almost a month ago and I've been recovering ever since. I'd say I'm 60% better compared to where i was on day 1 but this is no fun. I went to the ER in the first few days because I had no idea what was happening to me as I'm very high energy, athletic, great physical shape etc. Very grateful that I'm doing much better than before but just wanted to share an update on why I haven't posted progress pics lately. I'm very saddened that I will probably lose all my amazing hair recovery process but I guess that's just life. Not sure If I'll be active on this forum but it was a fun journey.

Definitely prioritize your health over your hair. Have you reached out to the doctors? Most of these are side effects of fin, but haven't heard about heartbeat or muscle pain issues from fin.

@general-etwan I think hairline is fine but probably some temple work would be nice as the frontal view is the most important. @Gatsby I think that given he's at NW7, there's not much room for the thick part of the donor to thin out which is DHT resistant. Even in the off chance that some of it might thin out, it looks better to have hair on top than on the back and sides.

I was wondering why transplanting someone else's hair to mine isn't discussed more. It's unlikely there'd be an organ rejection, and even if people were concerned, there's been studies to remove all immune sources in the donor follicles: https://www.bernsteinmedical.com/news/transplanting-hair-from-one-person-to-another/.  It sounds crazy, but this could essentially be a cure for those who don't have enough donor on their own.

On 3/21/2023 at 4:35 PM, Dr. Felipe Pittella said:

Yes it is and I did it in this last procedure 1 month ago. I'll post updates soon 

Would love to see if there's an update on this.

4 hours ago, LostAndFound said:

Hi all,

 

I’ve been taking finasteride 1mg for years but decided just over a week ago to add oral minoxidil 2.5mg once daily to my regime. 
 

I am experiencing a number of side effects - burning feeling in the heart and left arm. Occasionally Elevated heart rates which then drop quickly down to normal. Tingling, sore feeling in the hands, calves and feet.

Has anyone else experienced the same? What i I’m wondering is if I should carry on, in the hope that these are just initiated side effects that will go away. The other option is to stop altogether but I do feel it’s very early. 
 

What confuses me is that almost all of the top surgeons recommend oral minoxidil. Am I just a rare case or is this quite normal?

This doesn't sound good -- not worth messing with your heart if you feel this way but def talk to ur doctor.

41 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

This particular patient paid for his procedure and volunteered to be a part of the study. 

Sorry which patient/doctor are you referring to?

Not sure if I'm allowed to plug this here (happy to take down the link if it's not allowed, but we're all fighting the same battle here), but HairDAO is collecting data for CosmeRNA as a lot of us feel that this drug hasn't had a lot of published research. People will also get paid the more data they share and this data will be shared with everyone to make an informed decision: https://patient.hairdao.xyz/ 

Many people in the US have received it over the past few days. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

2 hours ago, Digs49 said:

HRN Community,

I recently had a hair transplant (FUE) with Dr. Felipe Pittella in Brazil and wanted to share my experience. Apologies for the length but I want to ensure I cover most major aspects, especially for anyone considering a HT. The bottom line is that I could not have asked for a better experience with Dr. Pittella and his team and strongly recommend him to anyone considering a hair transplant.
 

I am 38 years old and traveled to Brazil from the United States. I was ~NW6 and had been balding since my mid-20s. My surgery consisted of two consecutive days (May 1st and 2nd) and ended up with about 10,500 grafts (3,500 from my beard).
 

Pre-Surgery: I had done pretty extensive research on many different surgeons and clinics for about 3-4 years before deciding to go through with surgery (career timing played a major role as well). In total, I contacted 4 highly reputable surgeons/clinics and ultimately decided to go with Dr. Pittella.
 

Why Dr. Pittella - I slimmed the list from 4 down to 2 and once I did my Zoom consultation with Dr. Pittella, I knew he was the surgeon I wanted working on my hair. The Zoom call coupled with his results posted on this forum and his Instagram sold me. 

 

I had a lot of nerves and even some hesitation with having to travel to Brazil for surgery. What helped with that was talking to other Pittella patients from the US and abroad. Also, I was a little hesitant with doing a larger surgical plan with back-to-back days. Dr. Pittella and his team were responsive and helped with addressing those nerves.
 

I flew to Brazil two days before my surgery, which gave me a buffer day in case of any delays. We did the final plan the day before surgery. 

 

A couple of other pre-surgery notes: I started taking Vitamin C gummies and doing 15-min/day head massages about 2 weeks prior to surgery. I also stopped minoxidil foam and finasteride 2 weeks prior, both of which I have been using for about 10 years.

 

Surgery Days:

-Day 1: I arrived to the clinic in Vitoria on Day 1 at about 6:30am and was complete around 7pm. It was a long day but I slept a significant portion of the surgery. I was comfortable the entire time and they provided bathroom breaks when needed and a very nice lunch. I’m near certain that Dr. Pittella and his entire clinic only work on 1 patient per day so I was there only focus for both days. He worked on me the entire time and had about 8 people assisting him. It’s truly all hands on deck for the patient. I stayed at a hotel very close to the clinic and had my head wrapped that night. I slept in a lounge chair in my hotel room, which kept me at a 45 degree angle without touching the recipient area at all. 
-Day 2: I showed up at the same time and was done a little earlier that day, around 6pm. It was the same treatment as Day 1 (comfortable, slept most of it, and same people working). My head was wrapped again that night so I slept the same way. In total, Dr. Pittella was able to implant about 10.5k grafts with roughly 3.5k coming from my beard; each day was split so about 5k grafts per day. 

 

Recovery Day 1: I went to the clinic the next morning to have the bandages removed and receive a very gentle wash. Dr. Pittella had another surgery that day but made time to come see me, my head, and talk about anything on my mind and post-operative care. The clinic provides everything needed for post-op care so I felt good leaving. 

 

Recovery Days 2-4: I stayed in Vitoria for these days since I had time off from work and used this to just rest. The clinic kept consistent contact with me these days, always checking in and ensuring things were going well. If you can afford these rest/recuperation days, I would do it. I focused on resting, not allowing my head to ugh anything, taking the prescribed meds, and drinking tons of water these days. I had a little bit of swelling around my forehead these days but it wasn’t terrible and went down each day.

 

Recovery Day 4 and on: after leaving Vitoria, I went to Rio de Janeiro for a few days just to take advantage of being in Brazil for the first time. If you can tour Rio before surgery, definitely do it. Brazil was awesome and made the experience even better. When I got back to the US, I was strict about sticking to the post-operative routine provided by the clinic. On days 11 and 12 post-op, the scabs started to fall off, which was honestly great because it not only feels better when they’re off but it looks great. I fully recognize that these hairs will shed and it will be a rough next 6 months but it is definitely nice to see all the hair and coverage from the surgery. It’s more than I’ve had in many years.

 

The clinic schedules a two-week follow up Zoom call with Dr. Pittella, which I did yesterday. It went well and he was happy with the progress. At this point, I resumed minoxidil and finasteride and also began sleeping and showering normal. 

 

Key Highlights:

-my biggest concerns were twofold: (1) traveling to Brazil and (2) one large procedure. I already mentioned what helped with the travel and I went with a larger session given the results of his patients and really my ability to get multiple surgeries was greatly limited. I basically had one chance.

 

-I am extremely pleased with the results so far and my experience overall. My head has a decent amount of redness right now so that’s the only thing that bothers me. 
 

-I was strict on the pre and post-op guidelines. Not sure how this impacts the results, which is ultimately the only thing that matters but I figured to go all out on these since I’m not sure I’ll have the opportunity to do other surgeries.
 

-Definitely recommend taking time adequate off from work and highly suggest tourism (some advised against but I suggest doing it).

 

-Dr. Pittella doesn’t push finasteride but he isn’t opposed if the patient wants it (it’s his/her body). 
 

-Everything positive that has been said/written about Dr. Pittella is true; he is tremendous and worth every penny. As I mentioned, results are what matter and the verdict is still out on those…that said, at this point I am extremely pleased & confident with my decision to go with Dr. Pittella.
 

-I will also sing the praise of his clinic and team. Not only do they go all in and focus on the one patient they do that day, they maintain contact and care about the follow up. That helps, especially if you have questions or concerns.

 

Finally, I will use this post to track my progress & journey. Feel free to comment or DM me with any questions. Again, sorry for the lengthy post.
 

I don’t have a ton of experience (first HT) but I’d put my money on Dr. Pittella any day and support many people’s opinion that he is the top 2-3, if not the best, HT surgeon in the world right now. 

Looks great. Curious why you're still on meds, as I'm in a similar situation where it seems like meds didn't work and I was already a very advanced norwood, so I got off them.

What's your plan for a follow up procedure? Would you just get more coverage or would you also get more density in the frontal scalp?

1 minute ago, Hairgain said:

I know of her actually. She is situated in UK I believe? I am in New York. Might be worth chatting with her about it to gain some insight. 

Yes she’s in the UK – never any harm in chatting 

@Hairgain if ur interested in following up, there's a derm I was talking to almost a year ago who was interested. Her name is Dr Anastasia Therianou. She liked the idea of verteporfin but wanted to see more proof, so maybe you can show her Dr. B's latest photos and express your interest to her.