mister_25

I will be following this one from the start. Always been impressed by Eugenix. You went to the right clinic for the situation.

There could be improvements on how HLC should have acted in this scenario but overall the outcome was right. If HLC believes that he was not good a hair transplant candidate for HLC as a clinic then he should leave and perhaps try somewhere else. Sounds like he would fair well at Eugenix. Also its probably really crushing for the potential patient as travelling overseas in the anticipation for a hair transplant to restore confidence only to be told that its not going to happen is pretty bad. These scenarios should be avoided from the start. I think the criticisms that line up with this example and that lineup with Michaels is that HLC should of request more information / clearer photos if they are unable to determine if they are a candidate or not. In that patients case, HLC should of requested clearer photos under clearer conditions. In Michaels case, they should of requested a scalp biopsy or tests related to his scalp eczema and dermatitis to determine why he had a subpar first result. Spot on. Its actually quite shocking to be honest. After reading through this thread I discovered a patient known as EvansLawrence. When reading this thread I came across this quote: This post has gotten four pages of responses within two days. You would think that HLC would come in and explain themselves considering this is a hot topic showing them in a negative light. If they knew anything about Evans Lawrence result which didn't go crazy like this one, then they would absolutely know about what's going on here.

In my opinion different doctors specialize in different areas when it comes to hair transplants. Bisanga is becoming the Blonde hair guy as a example, Sethi is known for his work on Norwood 6-7s and his use of beard hair, Pitella is really good with Norwood 6-7s even with poor donor. I don't believe there is a best doctor all around, but I believe that there is a best doctor for your needs. Norwood 2-3 - De Freitas and Couto as others have mentioned Norwood 4-5 - Hasson, Konior, Bisanga, Mwamba, Ferreira Norwood 6 - Sethi, Hasson, Zarev Norwood 7 - Sethi, Pitella I initially sent in my consultation at H&W in the beginning of march and my surgery is in the beginning of December. Less than a year. Which ones in particular? I know a recent one was Nordster34 who has concerns about the temples and amount of grafts harvested. I've also known that people have been criticizing Hasson over amount of grafts used if this is what you are referring to? I haven't seen any poor results recently, and I combed through every page with the advanced search.

I’m in the exact same situation. In the correct angle with my hair combed straight back it looks like Im just receding a little bit, just beginning Norwood 3. However slightly tilt my head you can see some clear thinning in my frontal third. Photos from directly above you will see I’m a Norwood 4, if I’m under bright lights and my hair isn’t perfectly combed you will see a pattern of Norwood 5 forming. I’ll post some photos when I can, the paranoia does get to me as well.

Incredible update as always Zoomster, thanks for sharing.

Looks incredibly natural, I can't even tell that you had a HT

Just top of my head names that I came up in the moment, I think their good but not at the same level as Cooley or Konior Panine from what I've seen really shines in repair work. I consider Konior world class, he's in my top 5. and Dr Nadimi trained under him so I listed her by association, I've also seem some decent work from her so its not unwarranted or biased or anything. Agreed

I will have to disagree with you here. Most people end up going to hairmills. Its true, how else do they get the 10 patients a day that everyone scrutinizes? Are all those people "insane" as you claim? No, they are misguided. And I will disagree with you there as many people on forums associated with hairloss that promote these hairmills, poor surgeons, fearmonger medication and more. JT (The Hair Transplant Mentor) recently even made a video touring ASMED suites, ASMED the clinic has fallen out of favor with producing consistently poor results recently. Even some of the recommended doctors on here have been producing questionable practices that should subject them to being questioned. This isn't as black and white as you think This information isn't as widely spread as you believe. And the rule of first world country doesn't actually apply most of the time. In Australia where I'm from they are just as bad if not worse than Turkey. Doubles in the hairline are literally being promoted at a dermatologist I visited recently. The two top "leading hair transplant surgeons" in Australia always get scrutinized for still messing up and getting doubles in the hairline. And I would say that HLC even regarding this case and factoring that in as a overall assessment in my mind, is still better than the clinics where I'm from. US is also known for overcharging for terrible results, and they have some of the best (Dr Cooley, Dr Konior, Dr Panine, Dr Nadimi) Truth be told, all countries have more bad clinics than good ones. Turkey like you said, is the worst example literally with thousands of hair mills. But these hair mills steal results, they lie to your face, they mislead and spend all their assets on marketing so they can lie and mislead others. Its not insane to fall for someone's lies, especially when they have a false reputation to stand on. I do not want to add to ever going back and forth discussions that will derail this thread. My messages are open if you wish to discuss this.

Can you share your story and make a thread about FUT with H&W?

John, I agree with most of the points that you have provided in your reply but I will have to disagree here. See a below quote from the original post. He is claiming that he is facing depression, he lost his job and that people are staring at his head and laughing at him. He also does not feel comfortable visiting his family in his situation. While his life may not be over, you can argue that because of confidence spiraling downwards its certainly looking that way for him. While my situation was different than Michaels, the outcome of my situation was similar. I went bald at 20, and I was mocked and ridiculed for it and I went from someone with no real self-esteem issues to someone that developed a powerful self loathing of themselves. I lost alot of friends for various reasons all stemming from my hair loss. I cut alot of "friends" out of my life because of how shallow and hurtful they could be, I stopped getting invited to social functions and generally it gets emotionally and mentally exhausting when people ask me why I am bald at 20. On top of this, I was struggling to be productive at work, hair loss was permanently on my mind. Even when I developed a more positive lifestyle by actively doing self improvement and surrounding myself with more positive people, the damage was done and I still hated myself because I was told I should. Most people feel insecure about something, but when you actually get mocked for this insecurity it really reinforces the thought that its something wrong with you. Turkey is known as "The Place to go to get your hair back." It is a country known for its medical tourism. Keep in mind that a large amount of people go there because of how skilled they are at marketing. as I always have said, Turkey have masters of marketing hair transplantation. Not master of hair transplantation themselves. They often steal other surgeons/clinics results and when caught they delete all post and change their instagram handle. They have celebrities and YouTubers with some level on influence promote the same clinics (Vera Clinic, Hair of Istanbul, Serkan Aygin, Asli Tarcan, Dr Cinik, Smile Hair Clinic, Now Hair Time). Regardless of all these being competitive businesses they all work towards the same goal of making "Turkey the place to go to get your hair back." to the general public. Check out r/HairTransplants. A forum that is quite amateur and not as refined with a history like this one. 90% of the posts are people going to hairmills. And the top results of all time are usually from hair mills. HLC has proven in the past to be leagues above the rest of their competitors in Turkey. I regret my initial comment lumping HLC with hairmills. But this case in particular there is no excuse for, they dropped the ball on this one and improvements could of been made with the aftercare clearly. This thread has gone off the rails clearly, back and forths that have no relevance to the topic, victim blaming, ad hominem, clinic bashing and reasonable discussions gaining tension. I'm not particularly absent from these either with my initial comment insinuating the legitimacy of doctors in turkey. MachoVato provided you with his example and shows there is still some chance for your donor to heal although I think the general consensus here is that its unlikely. but I'll still stand my ground and say that Michaels case looks pretty bad. This thread is becoming more and more tense and there have even been hostilities shown. I believe its in Michael and HLC's best interest for a representative of HLC to come forward and attempt to justify/explain themselves and give their side. If this happens there can also be a dialogue where Michael can get a discussion from them. This gave a satisfactory conclusion to some concerns that were causing tension in Nordster34s thread when Doug from H&W came forward.

That is the best donor management I've ever seen. How short is your hair on the donor in these photos?

Mr Rolandes checked how many grafts/cm2 he has in a video. You can clearly see the difference between his thinner native hair and his stronger thicker transplanted hair. To accurately see the survival rate, you are going to need to buzz your hair down and to count each individual graft. And look at a high quality pre-op photo where the incisions are clear and count each individual graft there. Sounds tedious and ridiculous buts its the only accurate way I know of. Are YouTube links allowed in this forum?

There are many factors that determine what is required for a dense look. Hair characteristics come into play a large amount. Finer hair might even need double the amount of grafts needed to compare to a coarser hair result. If you have 90 Single Grafts/cm2 vs 35 Triple Grafts/cm2 you will have more hair with the 35 triples. there’s a video that Melvin posted a while ago which was a interview with Dr Bisanga and the takeaway was, don’t get hung up by the numbers. Which is really difficult because I am also under the impression that this a numbers game with how many grafts, how many hairs are those grafts, how thick is your hair in microns, what month of your Ht are you in, what number Norwood are you, etc.

From what I’ve gathered beard hair works well in the crown if you have crown loss. As you stated it’s coarse nature can get in the way of naturalness as you place finer single grafts in the front. It could be a more valuable resource later on if you thin out in the crown. Which reputable clinics? Also Panine is a excellent choice for repair work. The main purpose of Finasteride is to slow or stop hair loss, regrowth isn’t the objective although great to have. Have you noticed it stopping or slowing? If Finasteride doesn’t work there are also other options you can take instead or combine with Finasteride like Dutasteride and Saw Palmetto. From what I’ve gathered by your photos and your comments about your donor area. if you manage to stabilise your hair loss with medication and get a repair. I think you would be pretty satisfied with what would be achievable considering you still have a large amount of donor available and a smaller area to cover.

Basing your surgeon or clinic on Geography or Budget does not bode well. Also Turkey is always going to be a gamble. Turkey is known as “The country to go to get your hair back.” This couldn’t be further from the truth and please realise before considering a clinic or option in turkey that Turkish clinics and doctors are masters of marketing hair transplants, not masters of hair transplants themselves. Are you on Medication? And do you have any photos? Bicer and FUECAPILAR are the best options in Turkey but I don’t consider Them among the top elite doctors/clinics. the best doctors are usually found in US, Spain, Canada, Portugal and Belgium. There are a few top elite doctors/clinics found elsewhere as well. I personally think De Freitas and Couto (good luck getting on his waiting list) have excellent results on patients that are Norwood 3 or Norwood 3 Vertex. They are both located in Madrid, Spain.

Information on Hairloss isn't widely known. In society, its taboo for men to open up about their personal struggles and feelings. On top of this, Hair loss is a taboo topic. You should not feel bad because you were lied and manipulated into a sale, they knew exactly what buttons to press and with no qualms to being ethical pressed those buttons for the sale. Hair restoration in general has so many obstacles and pitfalls that you can describe it as a minefield. And getting one in Turkey is the Mother of all bombs. Its not your fault, they are masters at marketing. HLC has a rather strong reputation, even here at a highly critical forum they are regarded as one of the better options in Turkey. In the end, even if you did better research all signs would point to HLC being a good clinic amongst a thousand bad ones. Regardless if effort was shown or not, the comments were absolutely not needed or necessary. Michael here felt vulnerable enough about his hair loss where he decided that he would take the risk and have surgery to correct it. At the hands of doctors that he put his trust in, he received a poor outcome, you could even debate that the outcome he came out with disfigured his appearance. Michael then tells a story about how this outcome affects his life, he doesn't want his family to see. He clearly said above that people stare at his head and mock him and he wants to share his story. He could be sharing his story to find a solution on a forum "Created by and For Patients" or to help others not fall into the same mistake as he did. You would think that people here would offer support and advice on how to move forward. However, he received messages like these. How are comments like these constructive or needed in any way? You might think your making a little bit of light hearted fun but in reality your posting comments that are absolutely unnecessary and damaging. Are these comments what Michael needs to hear? Michael already believes under the false pretenses that this is somehow his fault, and you throwing shade by saying that he doesn't know how to email himself photos? How is he supposed to take this? Have some compassion and empathy man. Would you like to be treated in the same way on the other end? This comment gets straight to the point and immediately is constructive. In this comment you can see that RTC told him that his photos do not have credibility because 30x30 pixel photos do not reveal enough. While the previous two are obviously comments making light of a situation that is deadly serious for Michael. I will not entertain this further, if you want to discuss this. My messages are open.

Don’t feel responsible, you were taken advantage of and didn’t know better. Everything related to Hair Loss is openly misleading and honestly a taboo topic in society. I didn’t know Hair Loss medication were a thing until I was Norwood 5 at 20. It’s very easy to fall in the common traps of the war against hair loss, Turkish marketing, snake oil products there are so many obstacles clouding basic knowledge of hair loss that it’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that chemotherapy is a treatment for cancer, but not everyone knows that propecia is the treatment for hair loss. Never fault yourself for not being in the know, you were manipulated and taken advantage of. It’s as simple as that.

My heartaches for you man. I really hope your able to fix this in anyway. Have you consulted with a elite doctor about repairing? Have you tried to grow out your hair and maybe try some form of hair system on top of it. This is absolutely criminal, in no way was this just a “subpar” result like some people suggested. This is negligence. Many people in this thread have acted extremely disrespectful. Some presented reasonable arguments with a opposing opinion which is fine so credit where credit is due. But there is some clear disrespect and shade being thrown at this patient who has provided a emotional painful story and instead of offering support and strong advice you mock him for picking “potato” photos and not knowing how to email himself? Or use MS Paint? Are you guys absolutely sure that if you were in his position you would like to be told that? Michael I am sorry for how you’ve been treated by HLC and also by some people here. I believe as a community dedicated to help patients that we really need to figure out what went wrong here and how to move forward in the most cautious manner. It is clear that this has had such a profound and damaging impact on you and you opened up with your story and added it to the huge list of testimonials. And you deserve nothing but support and the best advice that could possibly be given.

Doing this when I get my procedure done, would of never thought of that.

I have been considering Oral Minoxidil for a while now. Is it stronger than topical? and how would one undergo a transition from Topical to Oral whilst avoiding a shed.

Great result. Your username needs a change after your two surgeries.

Usually to hit native density or close to it you need to undergo multiple transplants. Too high and you risk poor survival rate due to bloodflow. @Guy73is a good example of this.

Seriously impressive crown results. How many grafts got placed there?

I nearly fell into one of their traps when I started. In a parallel universe there is a 21 year old version of me with only 7 months of finasteride getting a hair transplant at Hair of Istanbul. r/HairTransplants is just free hair-mill promotion and I would advise people only look at it to see what type of results are possible, not any clinic recommendations or advice. There is a reason the best results are from the top elite doctors and the worst results are from Turkish hair mills. There are, but its all a gamble. Getting a HT is a gamble, there are so many factors considering its a surgery. So lets count the obstacles Stabilization of Hair loss. Even if you have presumably "Stabilized" without medication, you still are not doing anything to actively inhibit balding. Therefore you are gambling with your hair. Age, most doctors will only perform surgery on the minimum age of 25. My personal belief is that if you have super heavy hairloss where your final balding pattern is evident, then they know what to plan with. Most peoples "final pattern" hasn't been outlined by this age. So they can't reasonably make a "master plan" to get you the most hair for your entire life. Surgeon/Clinic Selection, you can pick a top elite surgeon with years of experience and skill to back it up. Who will properly do the surgery with correct and adequate density, high graft survival rate, singles in the hairline, correct hair angles, avoid cobblestoning and avoid implantations in rows. Or you can pick a less quality surgeon/clinic and they might fall into the bad side of those factors. Pick one without a doctor and you can get some horrible outcomes like Scalp Necrosis and there even worse outcomes. Proper Analyzation of your Donor. Do you have Retrograde/DUPA or not? How strong is your donor. For me I have retrograde but the areas not affected are incredibly dense. Under microscope it was determined I had alot of triples and comparing my donor hair to my family without hairloss, mine even with retrograde is denser. Healing factor, do you scar well? Are they obvious? You could scar horribly bad with FUT and get a Keloid Scar. With FUE if you scar poorly the FUE scars will become more noticeable. Rolandes on this forum is a well known example of a good result but unlucky with his FUE Scarring. Scalp Conditions, do you have any underlying scalp conditions that could inhibit a transplant? If not, probably go get tested. Shock Loss. Rarely it is permanent and more common in the patients with diffuse thinning. Do you have diffuse thinning or not? another obstacle you will have to account for X Factor, in the end you can do everything right. But your body will just not respond with adequate survival rate. Its super rare, like 1-2%? and most of the time the results are subpar, but not awful or bad. Like a 5/10. But there was one result on this forum of from what I've gathered a patient did everything right and still got poor growth. It's all a gamble. The likelihood of the X Factor giving you a poor/bad result is bad. More likely something subpar or average when everything should go right. There are probably many more obstacles in the way that I neglected. But those are the major ones. HT is a huge leap, thats why people reccomend medication. From what I've gathered. 99.9% of people that get side effects on medication, lose their side effects when they drop the medication. Therefore its something you try, and if it works you can continue it. I understand your against the idea of taking medication, but you got to understand that its a contract with nature just like hair transplants. The contract with medication is. Here is Finasteride, this is a treatment that could stop/slow baldness. If your lucky you can get regrowth, however there is a chance for you to develop sexual side effects and others. Stop taking the medication, no side effects, no benefits either. The contract with hair transplantation is. This is a hair transplant, for me to move hair from the sides/back of your head to the top of your head. I will give you scars, not every hair is guaranteed to survive this transition and only the best hands with great finesse can move it so delicately and accurately to mimic natural hair density/hair angles in nature. While I am solving the issue temporarily by covering up the balding zone, I make no promises on preventing additional balding from happening. That includes the hair that was transplanted. This is why medication goes with hair transplants. The benefit of medication directly counteracts the primary negative factor of hair transplants. With medication, your temporary hair situation that was granted with hair transplants may become permanent. If you cant bring yourself to breach the hurdle of starting medication, then your eliminating one of the major factors that make you a candidate for hair transplantation.

Long Hair Center is a hair mill. There is a high chance they will destroy you for life. Use this forums recommended list. They are screened for good results constantly, and pay a fee to maintain. They must continue to post good results and have good patient testimonials to maintain on this forum recommended list (although there are a few that in my opinion have fallen out of favor) What I mean by "destroy you for life" is they botch you hard. You will come out with poor growth on the recipient site. You will have a overharvested "moth eaten" donor looking like you are sick with a deadly illness and you will be unable to shave your hair off as you will be reminded with HT scars. The only option you have is hope to god you can be redeemed with SMP on recipient and donor or get a hair system and grow your hair out long. If you aren't aware. A good and skilled ethical doctor can manage two patients at a given time, they can have techs with large amount of experience and skill undergo some steps like FUE Harvesting. This is a skill that must be refined and practiced and maintained which can be delegated to techs. However Incisions SHOULD be done by a doctor. This determines the density and hair angles. Techs can also be delegated to implanting the hairs into the incisions. H&W as you consulted with has the Doctor do the planning, techs do the harvesting/implantations and the doctor does the incisions. Long Hair Center, as a Hair Mill. Operate on around 10-30 patients a day, have techs performing the whole procedure, draw the same overused "Drake Hairline". How can a doctor manage that many patients? Is he a X-Men? No. Also it is known for Turkish Clinics to steal other clinics work and photos, so there is no guarantee that the results that you saw were actually performed by them? If there was any indications like different backgrounds and such then that is a dead giveaway. Remember this, many turkey clinics are not masters of hair transplantations, they are masters of marketing and will sell you lies and everything to get a sale. Many of them provide the most BS "Lifetime Guarantee" paper that is more worthless than a tissue to blow your nose. Only options in Turkey worth looking at are Bicer, Gur and Turan at FUECAPILAR and even they are not as good as the best found in Portugal/Spain/Canada/US/Belgium