trynagetaHT

23 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

The sample size was for the independent study. They’ve been using it for their patients for years and that number is closer to 700. 

People in this very forum have complained of side effects -- I don't understand how the few patients who have used it here have had side effects while none of the 700 they used did.

8 hours ago, sukh123 said:

Had a look at the podcast I think the sample size used for comparison was way to small, to make an effective judgment. 7 people were used to compare the systemic difference between oral and xyon. Me personally I would want  a much larger sample to get a better consensus of the results before trying this . But then again I’m fine with oral so not something I need to consider, but for others I think it would give more peace of mind before considering using it.

Yeah, this is the main thing to me. There's not enough of a sample size.

Hi, I'm considering ordering Hasson's topical fin. 2.5% just makes no sense to me, as it's equivalent to taking a 25 mg pill per day. Although less of it may go systemic, I can't imagine less than 5 mg going systemic, which is significantly more than the 1 mg dose. It's difficult to microdose, given that you need to apply it across your scalp. I've never seen any other provider (be it Hims, Happy Head, Strut, etc) provide more than 0.25%.

Seems that we fundamentally disagree, but you're not understanding the crux of the issue. In an ideal world, we'd have researchers working on this. But, as I've said multiple times, since hairloss is considered to be a cosmetic condition, the government doesn't give many grants nor does it mandate insurers to cover this. Therefore, scientists don't have the funds to pursue research.

Therefore, in this imperfect world, the next best choice are hair transplant doctors. And hair loss doctors understand the mechanism of hair loss a lot better than you think -- without a good understanding, they wouldn't be able to prescribe meds. 

3 hours ago, NARMAK said:

No, they shouldn't and they have no obligation to do so. 

The hair transplant doctors are not scientists and they do not research the mechanism of hair loss. Their specialty is in taking hair from one part of the body and putting it somewhere else and making sure they try and make it all survive as much as possible. 

What you're saying is the equivalent of asking cosmetic surgeons who make a ton from boob jobs to research breast cancer cures. It's ludicrous.

Ideally, we'd have a plethora of researchers working in this space. However, unlike most other medical conditions, androgenic alopecia has very little funding, so researchers don't have the money they need to conduct research. This is why I ask if HT surgeons, who actually have money for this, should step up.

9 hours ago, HappyMan2021 said:

There is no ethical or moral obligation for HT doctors to pursue research. But any doctor worth going to will naturally be doing research and furthering the industry. 

Be careful though, its really not as black and white as you think. Some doctors go to a ton of conferences and industry events but are still bad surgeons. 

 

A lot of surgeons claim to be doing research, but I haven't actually seen the tangible results of their research.

I'm curious if doctors should have the ethical obligation to pursue hairloss research. Unlike most other conditions, androgenic alopecia is the one rare condition that affects so many people but isn't classified as a "disease" because of its cosmetic impact (even though conditions like acne or malocclusion are). Therefore, it receives almost no funding via government grants or via companies because it's not covered by insurance.

Dr. Barghouthi is graciously undergoing research currently and being extremely public about it, despite the research not making him any money. I feel like if all doctors were to put in a couple hours a week, be it doing research or trialing FDA approved drugs off-label, like the new one Follicle Thought just wrote about, we'd find much better treatments in just a couple of years.

I was wondering if OM created permanent hypertrichosis. The research papers I've read suggest that it doesn't; however, anecdotally (such as through r/minoxbeards where people apply minoxidil to their beards), the majority of people say their body hair gains stay once the hair reaches terminal. These anecdotal reports make more sense as there is no DHT miniaturizing the body hair follicl.es.

On 7/14/2022 at 9:28 PM, Follicle_Thought said:

Good news about this research is that Maksim Plikus has created an entity called Amplifica which is intended to develop drugs from his research. They don't have a website yet.

They have a molecule in their pipeline called AMP303 which may, in fact, be related to this Scube3 research. The good news is it would not require the full long FDA route, and would only need 2 trials to become approved. Plikus is an above average hair researcher who is basically in skin and hair research full time, so this type of development is considered above-average.

 

They have a website now: https://amplificabio.com/. If you're an accredited investor and interested in investing in AMP303, please reach out to Follicle Thought or me.

Am curious if this can replace the need for medication if it ends up regrowing hair, as it'd basically be hair cloning at that point, right?

I've seen great results from Hattingen for FUT. Sethi, Pittella, and Zarev are additionally good for FUT.

Perhaps we can further dilute the solution ourselves -- $95 a month is too much for me anyways, so if I can dilute it to maybe 0.5% finasteride, I could make it last 5 months.

I wasn't a huge fan of oral fin, so I wanted to try H&W's topical formulation. However, I noticed that it's a 2.5% formula. That means that there's 25 mg worth of fin per 1 ml. Even though there's liposomes and other ingredients, I'm very scared putting 25 mg of fin on my body when 5 mg has been the highest tested orally through clinical trials. Hasson's trials showed that their topical is safe, but it's such a large amount of fin and only one trial that I'm not sure if I can be comfortable with it. Would they be willing to release a 0.025% version as well?

I think we need to have a separate list for FUT and FUE.

Would appreciate learning if they plan making it cheaper any time soon. $100 a month is a lot.

I'm a NW5 I'd say, so I definitely can't hide it. I tried fin, minoxidil, LLLT, microneedling, and nizoral. Still lost significant ground over the years I took them (went from NW4 -> NW5 over 2 years). 

+1 for Zarev and Bloxham

Do you think this applies for young balders/people going to NW7 as well?

12 hours ago, kirkland said:

There are some great and affordable HT docs across the world but you have to spend time researching and not just relying on a single source like this site. This site is a good starting point, imo, as it provides guys with a standard of what is achievable in a HT and how it can be done safely and ethically. Thus, the big names you often see on here should be considered benchmarks for what you should look for in your research. 

 

If your original concern is that HT surgeons charge too much, then I don't think using Dr. Zarev as an example of a hidden gem will help with your argument. Zarev charges around $30-40k US per surgery, I believe. 

The point being that I would only pay Zarev level prices for someone who invests that much time into me. I've heard of the doctors from the big name clinics just spending under 15 minutes designing your hairline, doing incisions, and dipping to meet their next patient.

5 minutes ago, asterix0 said:

Who is this top quality doctor for $1.50 per graft?

Ultimately this is a complicated topic, the industry is a global one where anyone can travel from any country with much greater purchasing power and income, where the costs might be inexpensive to that person compared to someone local.

It is hard to find a comparable industry. If you could buy a Toyota for $10k that was just as good as a BMW that cost $50k, well probably the BMW dealers would have to lower the price to stay competitive. But fortunately there is enough demand for both BMWs and Toyotas so that they can leave the prices as is.

Ultimately though, there is a very small number of elite doctors compared to the number of balding guys who want transplants...so be glad that prices are not much higher actually. 

Soni, Bicer (maybe), Pittella, Barghouthi, Yaman, etc. They're doctors who are rightfully brought up on this forum, but just not talked about as much b/c of lack of marketing and size (i.e. Eugenix, Hasson and Wong, etc)

I suppose, but personally, when I can have access to a top quality doctor for $1.50 a graft, I personally wouldn't choose to pay $8 a graft for a marginal improvement, unless I had a Dr. like Zarev who does all the work himself, 3 hour long consultations, and two-three patients a week. I have other things I need to use that money for. To each his own, I suppose.

Yeah, I guess my broader point was that this forum should aid in that.

I feel like the same couple of expensive names with good marketing are recommended in this forum, rather than a lot of affordable hair transplant doctors with worse advertising but similar/better results.

If I wanted to fall prey to marketing, I'd just go to instagram. But I go to this forum to find hidden gems who focus on their work first, and money and marketing afterwards (Zarev, for example).

I’ve recently been looking at hair transplant prices and they seem exorbitant in the US (and even worldly across top HT clinics). Assuming a doctor works 3 weeks less than all weekdays (261), they’re working 240 days. Let’s assume they, on average, do around 10k FUE grafts a day across several patients and charge $8 a graft. 

This means they make close to $20 million a year. Isn’t that unreasonably high? And it doesn’t have to be this way -- countries with top tier doctors, say India or Turkey, still only charge $1-$2 a graft (bicer, Yaman, soni), leading them to make around $4 million, which is still a hefty wage. 

Other plastic surgery specialities in the US (i.e. top rhinoplasty doctors) make similar to $5 million before fees as well.

There’s obviously a lot of fees in HT especially Ie staffing, marketing, OR fees, but not enough to justify a $16 million dollar difference. I’d still imagine the HT surgeon takes home 50% of the money. Even if my ballparks are off, they shouldn't be so off to distract from my point.

Do you think top doctors are taking it too far? This especially applies in countries like India where cost of living is significantly cheaper, yet some doctors are charging US prices.