Rasputin

I forgot to add that I feel sorry for these bad results you had.

I hope you're able to live normally without too much inconveniences due to that.

When you mean "no beard" it's like nothing is growing at all ? Like just a mustache and a bit of goatee or even less ?

In that case, considering your donor is fully depleted, then yes, your only hopes to have natural hair would be that Verteporfin works and you could somehow revise your scars.

Pittella has done a case (I saw on his instagram profile, post of 3rd of March) with the same level of depletion than you, (results to come, he just showed the grafts placement) but he for sure used a lot of body hair (and most likely only body hair).

Did you have any side effects when using medications?

Still curious about your beard. If you don't mind sharing pictures of your "no beard" we would give you our final thoughts...

However, I can also, if you tolerate minoxidil, recommend you to give a shot about using it on your beard for few months and see if you are a responder. Keep in mind though, minoxidil is not recommended for this use, but only on scalp.

Yes, would be great if you could post pictures of your scalp hair donor, beard hair on the cheeks and neck, and chest hair.

Also, just out of curiosity, how many surgeries exactly did you have (not including the scalp reduction).

Was it FUE or FUT, or both?

14 hours ago, LandWhale said:

To everybody who is trying to rationalize why it definitely should work, just remember that the experiments won't care if Melvin said that the previous regeneration was 100% or if he said that it won't work at all. I know it sounds obvious, but it's important to remember that science is the ultimate dictator here, not expectations or opinions.

What about the experiment on mice and pig?

I don't remember if it did regenerate a certain percentage of hair specifically or different results randomly?

On 5/11/2024 at 1:24 PM, Gatsby said:

All the best @Rasputin. 👌

Thank you @Gatsby

Your story is quite inspiring to me.

On 5/13/2024 at 12:11 PM, Al - Moderator said:

I'm reading some of these comments about how verteporfin will end the need for top Drs and that makes no sense to me at all. You're going to go to a clinic that can't design a hair line correctly, can't transplant at correct angles, takes 3000 punches just to get 1000 grafts, etc yet you think it's fine as long as they can use verteporfin to regrow the donor? Why? 

But another thing I'm thinking that I don't think has been mentioned (it may have been. There's a LOT of comments here!) is that if they have been doing hair transplants for a number of years and still don't care enough about the patient to do it right, then how can you trust them to administer verteporfin correctly? Do you really think they will just suddenly be the best in the world at using verteporfin? I read the comment about a Dr (can't remember who) who said he has been using verteporfin on lots of patients. Do we really believe that? How do you know? They can tell you anything. How do you know they aren't going to just stick your donor with a few needles at the end and say they used verteporfin on you? We see plenty of hair mills that say they transplanted 3000 or 4000 grafts yet when the patient posts here it looks more like maybe 500 or 1000 grafts. I don't see anything getting better from those types of clinics if verteporfin is proven to work and ends up being a standard in hair transplants. You're still going to have the cheap low quality clinics lying to you just as they do now. 

 

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)

On 5/11/2024 at 3:37 PM, Fox243 said:

Sorry, not trying to refer to any individual. Just was commenting more generally that it would be amazing if we could keep spreading the word and persisting. Most docs don't read the forum, so all the time we spend back and forth here isn't as productive.

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.

On 5/9/2024 at 12:47 PM, Berba11 said:

I'd be very keen to hear about it, and I'm sure others would as well.

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.

16 hours ago, Fox243 said:

I'm probably the biggest bull there is and I've been researching this for two years. But why are we all wasting time and energy speculating on verteporfin? Instead, people should be like Melvin and actually be productive with verteporfin. Reach out to your surgeons. Keep sharing new evidence with them. Persuade them to at least try out verteporfin. Modify this doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s3JkF9woMIebkXbpE_UxrjBfNy9i7AuBclDqn9HGrAo/edit to help onboard surgeons. So many better things to do that will actually lead us to getting this on our heads rather than endlessly debating on the forum.

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.

12 hours ago, CaptainNorwood said:

Hi all, 

 

Ive tried oral fin both 1mg and micro dosing as well as topical finasteride from minoxidil max and unfortunately got the same ED side effects from everything I've tried. 
 

what should I do now? I'm thinking about Xyon fin but not sure if it will also go systemic and give me the same side effects. Thank you.

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

9 hours ago, Miller1980 said:

you could try saw palmetto softgels 320mg

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 ?

18 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

The patients that choose HLC will choose them, and the patients that choose Zarev will choose him. That doesn’t change. Verteporfin will not somehow make their results on par with Zarev. Verteporfin will not change the outcome of the results.

Verteporfin does not regenerate all hair, at best it regenerates maybe 25%. This 25% will make the most difference at the top tier level with surgeons like Pittella and Zarev who already achieve high numbers with success. It won’t somehow get mid clinics on par with top clinics. 

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.

1 minute ago, Melvin- Admin said:

The patients that choose HLC will choose them, and the patients that choose Zarev will choose him. That doesn’t change. Verteporfin will not somehow make their results on par with Zarev. Verteporfin will not change the outcome of the results.

Verteporfin does not regenerate all hair, at best it regenerates maybe 25%. This 25% will make the most difference at the top tier level with surgeons like Pittella and Zarev who already achieve high numbers with success. It won’t somehow get mid clinics on par with top clinics. 

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.

2 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

Verteporfin doesn’t guarantee the success of a hair transplant. Hair regeneration has absolutely ZERO bearing on the actual outcome of the procedure. 

You could go to a hair mill for cheap, get 8,000 grafts and only have 2,000 grow, and the grafts that grow could be misangled and multiples. The donor regeneration would mean nothing. 

I think we’re getting way too carried away making claims that Verteporfin will be some sort of fail-proof drug. It is not and will not be fail-proof. If, and I mean IF it works it will be a great tool for the top surgeons to use, as they’re already achieving excellent results, so regenerating donor hair will make it even better.

But Verteporfin will not change the industry in terms of top tier surgeons. The top tier become even more desirable, and the people who go to hair mills now, will continue to go to hair mills, none of that will change. There will still be botched patients and plenty of repairs. The only thing that could possibly change is at least their donors won’t be completely exhausted. 

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"

8 minutes ago, Fox243 said:

It wouldn’t make sense to be 9 euros else I’d just cancel my consultation in 2026 and book an off schedule one instead. 

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.

1 minute ago, Berba11 said:

I'd be very keen to hear about it, and I'm sure others would as well.

Sure, I will

10 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

My consultation isn’t until next year so I don’t know, but I’d expect that price to be honoured. 

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.

On 11/3/2023 at 8:24 PM, mustang said:

Trichoxidil with Saw Palmetto and dermarolling once a week 

PD: I’m allergic to minoxidil

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

Comment removed.

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?

On 4/25/2024 at 12:42 PM, Berba11 said:

It's normally 150EUR for Zarev, but these are the 'off-schedule' prices. I have a consultation with him next year at the normal price but I'd booked it over a year ago so got lucky in that respect.

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