Rasputin

That's also one point that should be studied, why does it seems that Verteporfin works better on FUE than FUT. Sure, the wound is smaller, but in the trial on pigs, the scar that regenerated skin and hair was quite large and it worked just fine.

In my opinion, Verteporfin would be a real breakthrough only if it regrows hair. Thing is, for scarring, it has been shown that transplanting body hair into scars improve the appearance of it but also (and I think there was a study on it) literally start "healing" the scar, which behave like "normal" skin again. Now, sure, this means going for a hair transplant again etc compared to Verteporfin leading to a scarless surgery, but you would have the benefit to, at least, have hair, even if it doesn't grow long (if it's body hair). This is crucial for Verteporfin to regrow hair if we want to call it a near cure for hair loss. By the way, I cancelled my surgery with Dr Pittella to wait for Verteporfin. I was ready to volunteer to be part of the trial but it seemed that he, logically, preferred someone from Brazil to have constant check ups. He didn't say that to me, I read it somewhere here. I still want to go have my surgery with him or Dr Zarev, but I will not go until we know whether this drug work on regrowing hair. But there is something we also need to realize. If this works, there is no more "it factor", if I may say, for guys like Pittella, Zarev, or Ahmad. Any decent surgeon could be able to achieve a good results. That would definitely impact some great surgeons. I'm not saying it's good, or bad. I'm just saying.

What's your experience with oral saw palmetto? May I ask which brand do you use? I'm planning to start it soon.

I knew a guy from Kyrgyztan who showed me a Whatsapp group created by an Indian guy named Sukrut Khambete, this guy was selling a method to regrow hair, including things like listening to "subliminals". There is litteraly one picture of him "listening" to one of this "subliminal" to decrease DHT and T in the scalp, and to avoid the side effects, he just put his headphones on his scalp instead of his ears. That looked quite far-fetched.

Do you know how much follicles you had in total for your beard ? (not transplanted but the total). If I'm not wrong you didn't use all of it, so you could potentially still grow some sort of beard right ?

Yes, from the vast majority of feedback, if anything, people got their body hair growth just slowed down. But how do you explain your transplanted beard hair shedding while it never happened? Reduction of DHT for sure but hopefully that doesn't hinder their potential on the scalp.

But what should someone who did BHT to scalp do? If the beard / chest hair will fall or stop growing with topical AR blockers or oral, that is not really encouraging for high norwoods who wants something to maintain

You can't just say that "any gains you get will be purely from trichoxidil". So you don't believe Saw Palmetto reduce DHT levels while studies has shown it does?

@mustang does thigh hair works for this fue scar repair in your experience ? I have plenty, and in my case I noticed that they look "stronger" than my leg hair (the ones on the calves). I also don't remember what is your experience with the recipient "dominance". Dr Wds (Sydney) and Dr Epstein seemed quite clear that body hair grow much longer that how they should at their original location.

Do you mind sharing your donor and what's left of your beard ? Although there is nowhere near the 11.000 grafts on your recipient, it seems that few touch ups could lead to big improvements, based on your 4th pic (7 months after 2nd procedure)

Does anyone know if Dr Zarev does "repair" cases. Don't know where I read somewhere that he doesn't because he believes he can't get a good result.

My logic (but my logic could obviously be wrong) is that, like you said, it would regenerate healthy skin, but male pattern baldness is not a skin issue. I think Verteporfin doesn't "care" about hair, whether vellus or terminal, it just regenerates the skin and tissues how they were before the wound. It shouldn't magically regrow a terminal hair when it was a vellus before the wound. Let's say you don't have terminal hair on the chest and you use verteporfin, it won't grow terminal hair. Now, sure, the miniaturization of the hair is a process (I mean by that, you had terminal hair before, it's not like you were always with miniaturized hair), but I don't get why Verteporfin would regenerate the skin with the "healthy" hair follicle, if, at the time of the wound, it was already weakened / miniaturized. I hope I'm wrong though. But if it just regenerate the healthy hair follicles in the safe zone for exemple or the beard, then I don't see what's the issue. We just go for hair transplant and we're good.

I don't really believe in this "microneedling the recipient area and inject verteporfin". There's no scarring there unless some failed or not hair transplant has been done (so incision have been made). It would most likely regrow what you already had meaning nothing if you're bald. The point of verteporfin is to prevent scarring and regrowing hair (as it was before). So you can transplant it but not have to go to the hassle of smp the scar or donor restocking with bht. Another big question would be, if the hair regrows, would it be possible to repeat this procedure on these hair?

Sure, feel free to contact me if you need any informations etc

I can't say it will be possible end of 2023. Most likely beginning 2024, but I have yet to talk with his team (waiting for feedback). I'm not really in a hurry to get it done, and I know that much people, for many reasons, are in a hurry, so I'm sure I will be able to switch my date with someone. To be honest, I obviously would prefer that verteporfin is already fully tested, with convincing results, so I could just use my scalp hair on recipient (already had 3 fue), as it is the best source. If someone going to Dr Pittella wants to have a try with verteporfin, they should maybe manifest here. But on my side, if Dr Pittella wants to try verteporfin, and have no volunteer yet, for sure, I would like to try on my scalp AND beard. Because, as I said, he will most likely have to take off ALL beard grafts under my chin (we already discussed this in consultation). This way (like with a fut) we will definitely know if / how much it regrows hair.

Not the end of 2024 but the beginning (january or february), mostly work related. There will be scalp hair but definitely body hair. I think that would be really interesting to see the effects of Verteporfin on a totally depleted area, which should be the case with my beard (at least under the chin area)

Why? He had 2 HT with good results. He's fine now. The concern would be him taking finasteride and oral minoxidil, I hope his health is OK.

I have a surgery with Dr Pittella in august, which I'd like to postpone for winter 2024, beginning of the year. Need to discuss with his booking team. I'd be more than interested if he want to try Verteporfin on my beard (as he'll probably need to deplete everything under my chin). I think that would give a good, let's say not conclusion, but idea of if that regrows hair.

When is your surgery? Maybe you could ask your surgeon to use it on you. Seeing the promising results, but, more importantly, the safety profile, why do you think it's not worth waiting? To me, I think it would be really good that many people are aware of it and cancel their surgery if verteporfin is not used. Price are increasing, surgeons / booking team are not replying / closed their appointments, or booked years in advance,some famous surgeons are doing sugery for free on social media "influencers" but not being accountable sometimes with "regular" people... The patients need to have more power

No, I'm in central Europe. Dr Umar is based in Los Angeles, California

I mean, even if it doesn't regrow hair in the end, but allow to have a scarless surgery, that would still be some kind of "cure" for hair loss, don't you think? We could just harvest all the beard hair even from the cheeks, moustache etc, I know it's already done, but I'm sure some people just don't want to because of the potential scarring. I see many cases of BHT where the surgeon explains that the patient didn't want to use beard from the face, only under the chin. An average beard supposedly has 3000 to 5000 grafts, let's say for a Norwood 7 you can harvest maximum 2500-3000 grafts from the donor scalp, it would be already a huge improvement to get between 6000 and 8000 grafts on the recipient.

Agree with you 100%. I'd also like to add the monitor of extraction. Only Dr W00ds from Sydney is doing it and quite frankly, it should become a standard.

The result is really nice imo. The hairline look natural but looking close you can see many thin / miniaturized hairs which were probably not transplanted, giving it a natural look. That's why I'm looking to find a surgeon willing to transplant leg hair in my hairline, as Dr Umar does.

Bad job indeed. Dr Mwamba and Bisanga are doing donor restocking on fue scars to my knowledge, I think Dr Cole as well, but I don't know others. That would be an interesting thing to add to the forum, these fue scars repair. What about your result so far in the recipient area? With 6500 grafts total maybe you will have a decent result, and just the donor to worry about in the future, that you can repair with bht.

I've been in touch with several clinic and Joshua is indeed the one for fueclinic. If what you say is true, that's some serious integrity concern. I've also noticed mustang talking on several post for Dr Mwamba, but the question is not does Joshua works for fueclinic, but are Joshua and Mustang the same person?