Rasputin

Thank you @Gatsby Your story is quite inspiring to me.

This is true that patients have all to gain to go to top tier surgeon using Verteporfin instead of low quality clinics. But at the end of the day, when we finally know more about Verteporfin, and if it's a benefit, it's up to the top surgeons to decide to use it or not. If they don't, I wouldn't understand why, if it's beneficial. And if they do, then people still going to hair mills would only have themselves to blame if something turns out bad. We still need to name these clinics and do our "part", meaning make sure less and less people go to these places. Just like it's important to, if Verteporfin works, make the best surgeons use it, and if they don't, try to understand their reason for not doing so (obviously IF the drug has been proven to work)

I understand what you mean, I didn't want to sound harsh. I think I might be just really wanting for this to work, like we all do. But also I never type here to ask all the time for updates, which can obviously sound annoying. I understand the impatience / frustration of some.

Dr Zarev confirmed it would be the previous price of 5 euros / graft for my surgery. He was really professional and very nice. I have yet to book the surgery with his team, but despite all the bad news about my donor (which I knew after 3 FUE) he said he could extract 5000, even 7000. I believe him when I see all the cases on his IG profile.

And what do you know what I do or not ? If you see my previous messages on this thread I was supposed to have a surgery with Dr Pittella. I asked about the possibility of a trial of Verteporfin while he would deplete ALL of my beard graft. That would have leave absolutely no doubt on the fact that it regenerates hair or no. Unfortunately, it seems that Dr Pittella would do a trial on someone living in Brasil for better follow ups, which I totally understand. Also, more recently, I've asked if anyone know the name of the center in Greece that is already using Verteporfin for scar revision. This is not a sure thing but why not try and revise one of my scar I have due to a vaccine made when I was a kid. Lastly, I had a post-op consultation with Dr Mwamba in 2022, where I mentionned about what he thinks of Verteporfin. At this time, he didn't know. He told me he would have a look and even wrote the name on a post-it. This is just me. What others do I don't know. But we can't just affirm they write on this forum without doing anything else, even though it might be true. Or not.

Probably a class 6 max on the precise scale. Looks like you have a more than decent donor area. With the beard grafts, I have no doubt the result will be amazing.

How long did it take for the side effects to go away after stopping the product ? As previously stated, you can try Saw Palmetto and see how you react to it. Xyon fin or dut will also go systemic. Now, it doesn't necessary mean you will experience side, as some people did experience or not sides depending on the brand of oral finasteride. Hard to explain. But with GT20029 being out in a near future it seems, you will get also this option soon. Some people have had good results (some even say better than fin) with oral minoxidil. PS: I don't use any medications

Have you tried it yourself ? If yes, do you have any positive feedback ? Seems like it's working quite decently for prostate enlargement.

Family first. Going there 2 weeks before your transplant shouldn't cause any issues. Maybe just take precautions about not getting your scalp burned and that's about it. Enjoy. Which surgeon are you going to ?

But I agree on the fact that it won't change anything about the work itself. The hairline, the temple point, the angulation etc But then again, Dr Ahmad (Fuegenix) has some of the best / natural hairlines I have seen. What is the price per graft though? Many people won't pay that. Look at Floyd Mayweather hairline. I think it's quite good. He went to Hair of Istanbul. Same goes for Conor McGregor. Many criticized his result in the beginning and now it looks quite natural.

Verteporfin doesn't regenerate hair at all then since it hasn't been proven yet, that's why we are conducting the trials. The aim is to find the right dosage to regenerate as much as we can, not only 25%. If we can only do that, then so be it. If it's 5, 10, 20% then it's better than nothing. But why 25%? We have to hope for more. Hoping is not claiming it will. Being positive is not being delusional. If it regenerates hair, then why wouldn't it regenerates all hair? That would be the next step, if we can prove first that it indeed regenerates hair. And no, as you can see on many comments, many people WOULD chose Zarev / Ahmad if they were cheaper. But they don't because they don't want to pay for this price. I see people holding off their surgeries because they want to see how far Verteporfin can go. Including me. I had a surgery booked with Dr Pittella which I cancelled JUST because of Verteporfin. I like Dr Pittella's work a lot. But as you can see "people who go to" won't necessary "go to" if Verteporfin is part of the equation. I speak for myself here, OK, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

Also, as I've stated in the past, at least on my side, Verteporfin would be a breakthrough only if it regenerates hair. Sure, it's great as well if it improves scarring, but it has been shown and proven with studies that FUE / BHT into FUT or FUE scars improves the appearance of it, and even makes the skin starts becoming more like a normal tissue, as before.

Definitely not what I meant. Some "hair mills" in Turkey or elsewhere, whether we like it or not, have also good results. I took the exemple of HLC, which I don't consider a hair mill, because of the price which is quite low (although a bit more than other Turkish clinic maybe) They might have bad results but also a lot of convicing ones, with natural hairlines, temple points etc If they start using Verteporfin, many people with low budget will not think twice, obviously IF the drug shows close to 100% regeneration. My comment was hypothesis, we are not here. But IF it worked this way, with no side effects, then for sure people will chose the cheapest option. There is even a new thread in the forum with a guy doing so, while Verteporfin is still in the early trials. Imagine if it becomes what it promised to be. I NEVER said Verteporfin has a role in the actual outcome of the procedure, but has a role in the psychological aspect of "only one donor, waste it and you're done"

True, but from my understanding the off schedule is also tributary to cancellations? (might have read that on a reddit post) Meaning you could also be on a waiting list for the off schedule.

Sure, I will

I'll let you know if you want how mine went, I also paid the previous standard consultation price and mine is tomorrow.

To go back to the actual trial, I read somewhere that there is a dermatology clinic in Greece that use Verteporfin already. If anyone has heard about it and know the name, I'll be interested to give it a try.

Do you mind sharing what kind of allergic reaction you have to minoxidil? You don't have too, but I am curious if that can be called an allergy or just a side effect

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I will probably repeat myself but Verteporfin, if proven to work as a donor regenerative drug, is kind of a threat for top tier surgeons. Why wouldn't it be? Some surgeon are far ahead others in their technique, planning, use of grafts, donor harvesting, and can use 4000 grafts much better than some do with 8000 grafts. More and more people know that, thanks to Youtube, internet, forums etc But if Verteporfin is proven to regenerate hair, many people wouldn't give a f*** about surgeon reputation, which usually comes with high fees, and would go even more to, for exemple, Turkish clinics (which for some are good don't get me wrong) knowing that graft survival isn't so much of an issue as it was before. Let's say Dr Zarev and his technique leaves virtually no scar at 9 euros per graft but (and that's just an imaginary exemple) HLC in Ankara use Verteporfin and regenerate your donor for 3 euros per graft. Now, what would you chose?

Does it mean that in your case you'll get the 5 euros / graft price for your surgery ?

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.