GeneralNorwood

The dude decided to remove all content from all his posts on this thread🙃

4 hours ago, Ajamilo said:

@GeneralNorwood

Which doctors have you contacted to date and what have they said?

I had live consultation with Bisanga 

Then i had another consultation online with well-known FUT surgeon.  He said that he heard earlier good things about Eugenix and was surprised by the planning, didn't have sense for him since im Norwood 6. We agreed that we have to meet live for the assessment.

And finally i had recently live consultation with respected FUE doctor, which i mentioned 2 days ago. 

6 hours ago, consequence said:

@GeneralNorwood You've missed the point of my posts, which further makes me think there was a communication issue. English is presumably neither of your first languages so things can get lost in translation. Communication and "vibe" are two completely different things.

I know the difference between communication and vibe, but good communication helps to get good vibe and that's what i meant. 

They did cobblestoning. Bad communication? 

They botched left temple. Bad communication? 

They lowered harline by 2 cm in Norwood6 patient. Bad communication? 

Dr said that she won't implant grafts in the midscalp and crown because a lot of miniaturised hair are there and she doesn't want to harm this hair. Bad communication? 

Your "communicaction" hypothesis doesnt add up. 

6 hours ago, consequence said:

 

To reiterate, I'm not defending this as good planning if it was to be a one-and-done procedure, unless someone was intending a combover. When she drew the hairline and you saw how aggressive it was, it's also your responsibility to advocate for yourself 

 

Yes, you can blame me that i was uneducated regarding my state of baldness and i believed that i am Norwood 3V (which Eugenix said). Now i understand my state of baldness perfectly.

But look, you saw my photos in this topic and you made mistake by saying "It seems like may have lost some significant density with your native hairs despite medication". So you see, it is not so easy to evaluate a case by non-doctor.

I don't like this notion that shifts responsibility to a patient. Patient is an amateur who only read some things on the internet. And doctor is a person after medical studies and his responsibility for the procedure is 100%. 

Look at this : Maximum Density Hairline Transplant - YouTube

Bad communication? 🙃

6 hours ago, consequence said:

- take a look at @MazAB's experience to see an example of how a back and forth should work.ious.

Mazab case was so much easier.

6 hours ago, consequence said:

 

Actually you should have the plan down before you even contact the clinic for the first consult, even the graft count density. The more you plan the better your result will be. Especially after spending time on here it shouldn't be hard to visualize what is and isn't possible.

For you, the graft count you used would either be localized high density (which would be either a combover like this or a very high hairline) or a diffuse low density procedure. There's no way your native density could ever match a transplant this dense because you have pretty bad diffuse thinning. You're heading to a NW7 almost for sure and any future surgery you consider should be with this in mind.

 

Yes, i agree that you have to do a lot of research, educate yourself and make a good plan for the HT. But it shouldn't be like this. It is only like this, because doctors have low ethics and can't be trusted. It is only like this, because clinics are greedy and don't care about patients. But if somebody goes to a hairmill and is botched, at the end it is responsibility of a clinic. 

6 hours ago, consequence said:

 

And look at my case: I went to someone who is considered one of the best and my result looks like it will be disappointing as well because one side of my head was transplanted less densely than the other. Your frontal hairline density is much, much better than mine. No matter how much you plan, there are no guarantees in hair restoration. You're still leagues ahead of where you started.

 

You had small procedure, only 1700. And most of your pictures are shot in the dark lighting, they are not good, so i can't really give my opinion about the result.

Besides, you have plenty of donor and small area to cover, you will be fine. 

6 hours ago, consequence said:

Would also like to hear their side of the story -- something is not adding up here.

Well, they wrote a statement, which has some thruths and some lies : 

"We recommended a conservative approach that would focus on transplanting upon the thinned-out areas, such as the front and temples and a small number of grafts in the crown" 

It is untrue that upon live examination Dr Das proposed small number of grafts in the crown. She proposed to implant only in the frontal third and restore temple points. 

When i reached out to Eugenix for the first time via whatsapp and send them pictures - they proposed 1700 grafts in the crown and 2500 in the front and i was diagnosed with Norwood 3V. I was back then surprised with the high amount of grafts proposed for the crown and i did send them more pictures and asked if crown really needs this number of grafts. Then i had talk with Arika via whatsapp, and she said that there is no need to implant in the crown at all and first evaluation was bad. 

I met few days before procedure with Dr Das and she said that they won't implant in the crown at all, because of existing hair and first rule is "do not harm". Then i had few days to think about this and i wrote my concerns, that crown is too bald and needs some attention. At the day of surgery, she agreed that she can do some careful transplantation in the crown, around 300 grafts. It ended up 351 grafts. 

You see, they even contradict their own words in this statement " To meet your expectations, some grafts were put in the crown (in a small transplantable area only)". To meet my expactations... So it wasn't their idea. 

"The thinning areas were not transplanted consciously, and you were satisfied with the results at 9 months. "

I was never satisfied with the result, i don't know why they wrote such bs. 

"However, you wanted a more aggressive approach and wanted your temples to be restored like some of our other patients."

It is true that i showed them temple points restoration of the other patients that i liked. 

6 hours ago, consequence said:

Good luck OP. I don't think I will be commenting on your thread again as it's become quite contentious.

You are welcome here to write what you want. I didn't create this topic so people can please me with flattering. 

Disputing is good. 

2 minutes ago, consequence said:

That temple yield would probably make me drop it down another point. The planning seems to have been the major issue though. Perhaps there was a communication/language issue? They speak English in India, but the nuances of communication are often lost.

 

There wasn't any communication issues. Actually i had pretty good vibe with Dr Das. 

It's not about any nuances. She is a doctor and upon examination, she should establish my recpient area and make plan for surgeries that are based on my donor availability, this is called donor managment.

Besides, I could be deaf and without a tounge, but it doesn't excuse poor planning. 

2 minutes ago, consequence said:

You have a very limited supply and you don't want to get screwed a second time.

That's why now my next steps will be more cautious

15 minutes ago, BaldV said:

Design is 0/10, they literally recreated a NW0 hairline and temples to a NW7 patient , yield doesnt really matter in this case.

 

 

Yes, dr Das must have seen the border of horseshoe pattern. I was regulary trimming hair on the donor back then, so contrast was little smaller then now when i let donor grow.

However you can see, strong donor and above red line a lot of miniaturised light leftover hairs. 

On 11/24/2023 at 5:38 AM, consequence said:

Yield 9 or 9.5/10 - Very hard to tell with how fine your caliber is but it looks strong to me.
Design 8/10 

 

Listen, you are very generous with your rating, i can't agree with it. I think you missed some pictures in this topic. 

Let me show you some more pictures :  

They made unnatural dissconection between frontal third and donor. In terms of design i would give it 2/10. 

Left temple point is far worse then right. Doctor i visited asked : "They have 2 guys that are doing temple points? Propably this one who does the left ones is doing worse job and that's the reason" 

Here you can see some more pictures from the day of surgery. I think that Norwood 6 pattern is easily visible on them. 

On 11/24/2023 at 5:38 AM, consequence said:

 I echo Melvin's sentiment that this had to be intended as a 2 stage surgery or because you asked for a low hairline.

 

I don't echo Melvin's sentiment at all. If it was intended as a 2 or 3 or 4 stage surgery, i should be included in this plan. After 4 months Dr Das acted surprised that there is huge dissconection between frontal third and the donor and she asked if im using finasteride. That is called playing dumb. 

And i can repeat once again, that i didn't ask for the lower harline. Dr Das drew it and i agreed. I didn't show her at what level she should draw it. 

On 11/24/2023 at 5:38 AM, consequence said:

And I didn't catch whether you were on meds or not, but of course maximize medical therapy as much as possible with the big three.

I use dutasteride and minoxidil regulary. Recently i came back to using dermapen too. 

11 hours ago, Ajamilo said:

I have been amazed with eugenix results lately when it comes to high norwood. they have been perfect to be honest. could there perhaps be something to the fact that Dr. Sethi was the been the main doctor in those surgeries compared to the situation here?

have you tried talking to Dr. Pitella?

I just saw your topic when you mentioned your surgery with dr Turan. It saddens me that he told cobblestoning is permanent. 

I remember there was a video, where Dr Sethi said that no matter which package you chose at Eugenix, you get same highest quality of HT. Well, clearly it is not true and i can't find this video anymore.

I didn't talk to Dr. Pitella, but that's good idea. 

17 hours ago, BaldV said:

 

4. Additionally to them treating your permanent aesthetic procedure with the same seriousness as throwing a used piece of paper to the trash can , they also caused you coblestoning which you can clearly see in this picture.

 

 

When you mentioned cobblestoning i started to search info about this. 

In this post :

" It’s something that would only occur if the doctor doesn’t have the skill and experience to do the procedure properly.  Cobblestoning specifically refers to A condition where the incisions are made too small for the grafts and as a result, they grafts begin to pop out but only a little.  Because of this, the scalp and the tissue surrounding the grafts become uneven and doesn’t look as natural.  If you run your hand over it, you will feel tiny bumps raised above the scalp similar to actual cobblestoning which is why it’s called this.   The opposite to this condition is referred to as pitting, where the incisions are actually too big for the grafts and as a result, there are small pits where the grafts are placed because the tissue is pushed further into the scalp than it should be."

So my condition according to this desciription looks like cobblestoning as  you said. 

To be honest, previously i thought it's normal look after HT, because they implanted around 40 grafts/cm2 in the frontal third and i assumed that density is medium, that's why from the close look some imperfections are visible on the skin. 

But after 18 months since the surgery, i just learned another thing that Eugenix did bad and it's called cobblestoning. Good to know. 

43 minutes ago, jjalay said:

 In your case i think the planning for your type of hairloss was also completely wrong.

I think there was not planning at all. Just putting hair in the front and forgetting about ~200cm2 behind.

Ok,  there were 350 grafts implanted in the crown and doctor i consulted was surprised of this choice, because this small amount of grafts on the crown doesn't make difference. I explained to him, that they didn't want to adress the crown at all, but agreed to implant some hair on the crown when i mentioned that it really looks bad. 

Now when i go to consultations, doctors examine my donor with devices and say "listen, i can take X grafts from your donor, you will need 2-3 surgeries to cover this area". With Eugenix they didn't mention next surgeries at all. I think that they just expect that after 1 surgery you will come back to them for next ones, when you see that there are more bald spots 🙃

Planning takes time. And time is money. 

45 minutes ago, BaldV said:

General Norwood somehow I only just now came across this post and after reading through all of it I would like to share my thoughts with you as well as with all the people that may read this comment.

 

1. You were unlucky not doing enough research and trusted a Dr who only cared about putting you in the surgery chair and not about your physical appearance and long term happiness

 

I fell for this marketing with educational videos from Dr. Sethi. Looking at this forum, i saw like nearly all positive reviews and i saw that even administrator from this forum went there so that's how i took the bait. 

45 minutes ago, BaldV said:

 

3. Bisanga was 100% right in everything that he said , Bissanga is a really ethical Doctor that realy cares about the long term happiness of his patients, Eugenix is not.

 

I agree. Clearly they are not ethical, i was only problem for them to eliminate. When there was little drama in this topic after consultation with Bisanga, they did some damage control and they did video conference with me to assure me that "i'm not alone", even dr Arika who wasn't my surgeon, joined this group video chat and proposed that maybe next HT should be around 1500 grafts. They said that consultant will contact me every 2 weeks, but of course this never happened. They didn't even write at 12 month mark to me

45 minutes ago, BaldV said:

 

4. Additionally to them treating your permanent aesthetic procedure with the same seriousness as throwing a used piece of paper to the trash can , they also caused you coblestoning which you can clearly see in this picture.

 

 

 

Speaking about coblestoning you mean this white dots in the hairline? Yeah, as i mentioned doctor that i just consulted said that this is because of implantation technique that technicians used, which causes part of skin to break and that he doesn't use this technique. Do you know more about this? Should i treat it with laser? 

45 minutes ago, BaldV said:

 

5. My piece of advice to you would be to put all the grafts you have available to the areas behind the hairline and keep using this combed back hairstyle, I believe this way you will have good looking hair and hairstyle.

 

 

Yeah, the thing is that i never liked and wore this hairstyle and was kind of forced to do it. 

1 hour ago, jjalay said:

I really think you should consider fut and have a consultation with hattingen hair or dr Wong. Another two surgeries with fue is a lot of time,stress and trouble. If you have good laxity and be able to get enough grafts to cover the whole area with one fut that woud be much better, plus you get to maintain your donor in a better shape.

Yes, for sure i will have consultation with FUT specialist. 

2 hours ago, consequence said:

 

It seems like may have lost some significant density with your native hairs despite medication, though hard to be certain.

Nah, i didn't lose density at all, trust me i observe my hair since 3 years in different lighting. So keep mind angle and lighting and contrast settings of a picture when you compare them. 

This picture that you show from the day of HT, you can see that hair on the sides and back are cutted much shorter then i wear now, this is because that was the hairstyle that i was wearing back then (short sides and grow top to the maximum). So the top is maximal lenght of a hair after over 1 year of growing and using medication. YOu can see that it is thin,short, light colored, miniaturised hair all over Norwood 6 area. 

And this is like current picture in bathroom lighting : 

2 hours ago, consequence said:

and give them each a rating between 1-10.

what is my rating ?

"Your hairline looks decent as far as I can tell. Another option is to just put up with the hairstyle you have now. With your hair pulled back you look way better than where you started."

This kind of works only with headband on. Without headband, just little wind or daily activity ruins this style and reveals bald spots. 

This is picture of the hairline, keep in mind it was made from close distance, so the actual shape of the hairline is distorted. 

Opinion of a doctor i just visited about the harline is that is little to straight and that they tried to do some microirregularities, but they are not so irregular in the end result. Another thing (this is not super visible on the picture) is that there are tiny white dots at each hair in the hairline. It is because of implantation technique that technicians used. it causes small portion of skin to pop out. Most people don't notice it, but for example my family noticed so called "dots" 

New update : 

It's 18 months since the surgery at Eugenix. In terms of growth, no big changes. My hair loss is stable, I am on medication. 

I had another live consultation for my next hair transplants. I won't mention name of doctor, because last time when i did that, some people started to diss the doctor. What can i say is that i took a plane from Berlin and saw another respected FUE hair transplant surgeon and to do that i had to wait some long time on waiting list for the live consult. 

The key notes from the live consultation : 

-I am Norwood 6

- First HT caused that now The recipient area for the next hair transplant is over 200 cm2. This is why i need at least 2 more surgeries. 

- Upon an examination, doctor established that  I have donor that can provide between 4000-6000 grafts FUE.

- Plan for next surgery is to implant between 3000-3500 grafts on this ~ 200 cm2 area. Then after 1 year, next procedure for further enhancment.  

- Hairline is little to straight. 

- left temple point is worse then right and can be improved. 

-After seeing my photos from last 3 years, doctor said that my hairloss is stable and medication is working. 

- in ideal world i would need 45grafts x 200cm2 ~ 9000 grafts. 

few photos from the consultation : 

Guys, feel free to suggest which HT doctors i should consult for my case, thanks. 

57 minutes ago, consequence said:

Constant pressure over time can change the angle at which a graft grows. Think of people who always comb their hair in a certain style and develop a permanent "part". It's not a stasis chamber under your skin.

My left temple points is weaker too and needs revision. And yes i sleep mostly on the left side. If this is a thing, why Eugenix isn't informing patients about this issue? 

On 11/10/2023 at 8:46 PM, Dr. Ahmed Altan said:

 

We have worked with them in same hospital in the past so thats true we have used the same operation theaters. But it is just limited with operation theaters. I can not be operating for another clinic nor they can not be making my operations as I have my own stable team. Aestepool Clinic is my own company with my personal staff.

About the subject came up from Polish forum is that because we were in same hospital I guess a patient saw us talking or saw them and me in same hospital and thought that we are the same and/or using same teams.

 

Actually my information was based on this post from 2019, where user claimed that there was deeper cooperation with Aisha : Aisha Hair Turcja Stambuł. - Leczenie chirurgiczne - Pokonaj Lysienie

Translation of this post is : " After all, Aisha and Aestepool are the same, I know what I'm saying because I did through Aestepool but the team from Aisha was also present for the procedure. When I asked Dr. Altan about Aisha he said that it was one team and the prices were the same. In fact I recognize the faces from the photos on the website."

However as i understand, Aestepool team now moved to Goodlook Clinic. Can you clarify what is your cooperation with Goodlook Clinic? Do you use their staff, nurses etc, or you just rent the room and equipment? Do you plan to move Aestepool to your own place in the future? 

Could you tell more details of your surgeries, because i didn't find such informations( i only found info that you plan surgery and do the slits). For example do you use microscopic dissection, do you use single hair for the hairline, what is your role as a lead doctor in operation, how many surgeries you are performing maximum per day, do you as a surgeon work for other clinics etc. Here is example of such presentation : Dr. Christian Bisanga | Hair Transplant Network

And there is one thing on you website that is not logical for me. You state, that your FUE tranplantiation provides more grafts then FUT. However i didn't see in your work megasessions like this : FUT Gigasession - Hair Transplant With 8143 Grafts - YouTube. I don't see mathematically how can FUE harvest more then FUT. 

That's a lot of questions, but i think that community would appreciate your answer, thank you. 

1 hour ago, Melvin- Admin said:

That’s the most egregious hairline I’ve ever seen. Shocking, no wonder they changed their name. 

They didn't change their name. They are operating under 2 names. 

On 11/9/2023 at 8:37 AM, Daniel Dabros said:

Thank you for the comment! I would like to address a few of the things you had mentioned.

From what I have learned, the Polish community is currently their number 1 customer. I happen to be a Polish American living in the USA. I first heard about this clinic through my cousin who happened to have his hair transplant done with them in October of 2022. 13 months later, he is very happy with his results.

Second point I would like to address is I wouldn’t consider this a hospital. It’s one of the nicer clinics I’ve ever been in actually. Modern look, very sanitary, and has a welcoming presence to it. Please see the attached picture below  

Dr. Altan has been great. He is communicating with me everyday so far after my surgery and giving me the best advice for best possible results. He puts his patients first. 
Once again thank you for you comment and please follow along for my journey  

So it seems that Dr Altan is cooperating with some other clinic and renting room with equipment, maybe even using their team from time to time. 

When i researched Aestepool clinic half year ago, i found information that they are using room in avrasya hastanesi hospital. You can see this name on the door in this video : https://youtu.be/kUnCPSCuhF8?t=84

It is not obvious, if they use one or two locations. 

I remember pointing out on polish forum that the room where they do procedures is rather small and staff has to be carefull to not bump into patient legs : https://youtu.be/kUnCPSCuhF8?t=114

On 11/9/2023 at 9:47 AM, Melvin- Admin said:

How many surgeries per day? That will ultimately define whether they’re a hair mill or not.

Patients report that Aestepool has 2 teams and they perform maximum 2 operations per day (1 per each team). 

However, here is the tricky part. There is second clinic called Aisha. When i was researching Aestepool half year ago, I found posts on polish forum from 2019 that stated Aisha and Aestepool is same thing, they have same teams. 

Here is assistant from Aestepool wandering through hospital and  you can see room number 1909 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6njkLDsCr8

And this is website of Aisha, you can see picture of the same  room 1909 

So basically Aestepool is project targeted at polish customer, they have website only in polish : 

And Aisha is targeted at international customers : 

The question is if Aisha and Aestepool has still this 2 shared teams.

Actually i know this clinic from polish forum. Currently it's like top1 clinic among polish forum users. 

1) Price is similar to other cheap clinics in Turkey. 

2) Results are consistent.There wasn't any f*ckups yet and one of the polish patients had succesfull repair procedure with Dr Altan after botchery with polish doctor Turkowski from Ot.co clinic. 

Of course, the clinic has hairmill features. They rent a room in hospital for procedure, they have "sapphire" marketing.Usually, in hairmills, the doctor's role is limited to drawing a hairline. However so far, dr Altan is making incisions and patients are happy with the final result. 

So either the business will grow and Altan will increase prices in some time, or bad results will start to appear and The clinic will become a classic hairmill.

16 hours ago, Gatsby said:

How many months post HT2 are you? It’s really a waiting game and until you get to around the eight month mark I wouldn’t put too much attention on the donor, etc. It takes up to a year for the donor to heal and for hair to really fully bounce back. When I look at my donor (both surgeries) it looks patchy and terrible for at least the first 4-6 months. All the best! 👌 

Gatsby, problems he is is talking about like retrogarde alopecia (above the ear) were already there before second HT, so let's be real it won't improve. He can expect improvement on the lower crown and other treated areas though. 

18 hours ago, general-etwan said:

 

 

 

The hair that remains there in that region (that they didn't implant into because they still "saw" hair there) is actually significantly miniaturized and will never be recovered. So now this area is not homogenous and it is visible at short length. I wonder if this area could be transplanted into in the future. I don't think I've ever seen a case like that.

 

Nah, they didn't implant hair there because of miniaturisation, but because of donor managment. They implanted 600 hair for the temple points, for black circles they would need ~500 more.

It is common topic on this forum, that transplanted hair on temples doesn't look natural when buzzed. I tried different options with my barber and you can see on my topic too that the longer it grows the better it looks. (however it cant be too long) 

How long did you grow temple points hair on this photo without cutting : ? 

About red circles aka retrograde alopecia above the ears. The fastest and simple solution is this advice by other members that you learn to fade this hair by yourself to achieve this best result that you presented after visit in the Barber. Because you can't visit a barber 2 times a week, it is unconvinient. 

In the long run, your beard resembles your hair, so maybe beard transplant in this area above the ear is something to consider instead of SMP. 

I would try out 2 options

A) You keep same haircut like now, but without buzzing lower crown, let it grow. 

B) You let temple hair grow longer and sides grow longer for next 2-3 months. Then you try this fade, which keeps temple hair longer, but area above the ear is cutted very short  :

Idea of option B is to let temple hair to grow so ilussion of density will start to work and to mask weaker area above the ear by cutting it short. 

I would elaborate on that. Every FUT procedure has some risk of some scar expansion. The bigger the strip is, the risk is more. 

But there is difference between botched FUT + horrible scar problem that you can find on google images and between smaller, local scar expansion that can occur sometimes even in reputable clinic. 

And yes, i have seen issues with scarring even in Hattingen. There are a lot of reviews on german forum. You can check out review here where problem with the scar occured : Haartransplantation Forum : Hattingen » Hattingen Hair - 5.400 FUT (alopezie.de)

Hattingen splits procedure for bigger hair transplants in two days. So there is no 1 big strip and i think because of that risk of scar expansion is smaller. In above example on german forum, scar expansion occured only on the left side. And what is important, Dr Muresanu very early offered FUE repair of this area. For me, it is very good and ethical approach, especially when we can find on this forum that clinics often like to BS patients with tactic "wait, wait,  3 more months, 6 more months, maybe it will improve". 

To sum up, i am pro FUT procedure myself, you can see it in my recent posts on this forum. However the possible  scar expansion issue should be talked about with doctor before procedure. You can for example, ask about scalp laxity exercises before procedure. Your procedure is rather small for FUT, however it is not first FUT, so i believe scalp laxity is not so good like during 1st procedure.  

I would go Wong too in your position. You better start doing scalp laxity exercises : 

14 hours ago, Turkhair said:

Pekiner must be a magician, he gave me full coverage for 6-7k grafts with same head size as the guy in video

@Turkhair

13k grafts and 1k more wouldn't hurt him  

I was like 7 days before operation in India and stayed 4 more days after operation, so 11 days total. 

All i needed was carry on luggage like this : 

I must say that instead of washing tshirts, i bought 3 or 4 new, but it was super cheap. About saline water, i asked Rajat from Eugenix to give me few smaller bottles, so i can bring them to the plane. They give you one bigger bottle too, but i just used it to fill up smaller bottles before the flight back home