Kassar

I don't know how much of this, now lengthy, thread you've read, but I already made my decision. I decided to give Dr. Behnam a chance first. At this point, knowing as much as I know about him, I owe it to myself, and I guess maybe to you guys as well, to find out if he is as good as I believe he is. If the answer is yes, then I'll go with him. But, if the answer is a no, or a big fat NO, then Eugenix it is. Hands down, no contest. And yes, I know they gonna have to use body hair. Being a blond guy with fine hair I'm not a particularly good body hair candidate, but my beard is good for at least several hundred grafts. Chest is pretty weak and fine, so maybe not usable, or not much of it is usable, but I have no problem moving down south and let them take pubic hair, which is actually better than my chest hair. Yes, I went there, LOL. BTW, Behnam does have experience with chest and beard hair. It's not an issue with him. I don't know how he will respond to the pubic hair suggestion.

It's a lot more than just Youtube videos and his website. Like I said, his technical skills seem to be high. BaldTruth Talk has him listed as one of the few recommended doctors in California. Bottom line is, I won't know anything until, or unless, I go and see him for a consult. I will let you guys know what happened, but it'll take some time. I'll be swamped for a while. Thanks for the well wishes. You guys are awesome.

Yeah, I know. I did some digging. I think one of your posts came up. So no Lorenzo for me, for sure. Will be sticking to my final choices, thank you very much.

Duuuuude.... why do you do this to me, LOL? I finally had a plan and you just had to come and throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing. I quickly went to his website jut now and scanned through his advanced case videos. I have to give it to ya, I'm impressed. Is there anything about Lorenzo that should concern me?

It wasn't any particular case. I did a deep dive research into Behnam. I started with the reviews on places like Yelp, Google reviews, RealSelf and others. Now, I don't put a lot of stock into reviews on websites because they can be, and are gamed, all the time, whether we're talking about Amazon sellers giving perks for good reviews or using all the other underhanded tactics, to Yelp's shady pay-to-play type of business model. But, I'm perfectly capable of critically evaluating reviews like that. I also combed through his website and really payed attention to what was written. I also watched pretty much all of his videos on his Youtube channel. When I was watching his videos I payed really close attention to his words, what he does and why he does it, his philosophy, his technique, his approach and anything and everything I could make out. I listened carefully to his words and did the same with his patient testimonials. I listened to what they said about their overall experience, their expectations, Behnam's attitude, personality, bedside manner, and anything else they said. All this showed me that Behnam is highly personable and caring, very meticulous and detail oriented, highly involved with the entire process and has highly satisfied patients, many of whom went back to him for second and third procedures. I literally only found a couple of unsatisfied people. Behnam gives his personal cellphone number to all his patients and repeatedly follows up with them post op. He is also highly ethical, because several reviewers said that they went to him for a transplant, but he either talked them out of it or flat out refused to do a transplant on them because they were too young and not advanced enough for a hair transplant. One of those reviewers then went back to him years later when he was ready and had the procedure done with him, BECAUSE they got turned down the first time, which showed them that Behnam is not just out to make a quick buck. Finally, Behnam does only ONE patient a day. Now, I don't know if it was on this forum or one of the other ones, but someone made a snarky comment about that, claiming that if a doctor has only one patient a day and has open slots within a week or a couple of weeks after the initial consult then that''s highly suspect. Well, I have news for that dude... Dr. Carman in San Diego, one of the most highly respected and recommended doctors, only does ONE patient a day. He proudly boasts about it on his website and he gives the same reason Behnam gives. They both do it because they can dedicate themselves entirely to just that one patient and focus on doing a super high quality job. I know that this is a long answer, but I hope that it will satisfy people's curiosity and I won't have to keep justifying my decisions. I'm not being a smart ass. I have no problem answering all the questions and being challenged on my reasoning, choices or decisions. That's all valid. I just don't want to keep repeating myself. I hope this helps.

Thanks and that's pretty much the plan. And no worries, I got this.

Melvin, now that you guys helped me narrow down my choices, I GOT THIS. I understand your concern and I appreciate it. No worries, my man. No worries.

I understand your concern and you are absolutely right. There are a lot of gullible, naive or lazy people out there, who don't do their homework. And there are also plenty of other people who have no problem with taking advantage of those aforementioned individuals. I know we don't know each other, but when I say you don't have to worry about me, then that means you don't have to worry about me. Ultimately, if I'm wrong and I make a mistake there is nothing you or I can do about it after the fact, except learn from it. So, thanks, I'm pretty sure once I finally get around getting it done I'll be back, regardless of how it turned out.

What's the alternative? Having to blindly interview every doctor I could find and look promising, having to research all of them, and having to consult with all of them. If you want to do that, be my guest. As far as I'm concerned it was much more efficient and logical to come on here and narrow down the field and choose a doctor that way. Doing it the other way would just be dumb.

I don't have to. This is about me and my choices. Not yours. Melvin's sub par result was 8 years ago. That's a long time in the medical field. Your precious, highly recommended doctors didn't just pop up out of nowhere with their skills and immediately started producing high quality results. You look at their early work and it's not like what they are capable of doing now. They learned and improved over the years. The medical field learns and improves. Old techniques give way to new ones. Otherwise they would still be doing flaps and scalp reductions. With your logic we would still believe that the Earth is flat. And yes, I know that we still have people who believe that. As far as I'm concerned they are out of their damn minds. By now I've researched Behnam extensively. He has everything going for him other than the fact that he is not prominent on this, or the other forums. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and a chance to prove to me that he is capable of handling an advanced case like mine and get good results. And I know how to evaluate him. If I don't feel good about him in any way I'm not gonna go with him. I'm gonna go with someone else. Looks like it will be Dr Sethi. What's it to you? It's my head and hair and my decision. You can believe me, not believe me, and laugh at me all you want. I really don't care. But, your assumptions and sarcasm are equally laughable to me. I'll make an educated decision based on all the available information. And as they say, you do you.

Laugh it up fuzzball. You're assuming that I'm just some gullible dude with absolutely no clue. You don't know anything about my background, my experience, what I do for a living, etc. etc. Believe me, I'm fully equipped to evaluate a medical professional. And I'll leave it at that.

Okay, I guess it's settled then. I'll have a consult with Behnam just to see what he says. If I feel strongly that he could do a good job and he agrees to take me on, then I guess I'll be a Guiena pig for you guys as well as for myself. But, I'll grill him good and he better say all the right things, 'cause if I have the slightest bit of doubt the deal will be off, and in that case I guess it's Eugenix and Dr. Sethi. Now I'll just have to line things up, wrap up all the projects I'm working on and go for it. Thanks Melvin and everyone.

Thanks, Melvin. Am I correct about you having your transplant with Behnam back in 2014 or 2015? If it's correct then I would assume that he would have improved since then. Eight years is a long time. I understand you having a bad experience, but I will probably have a consult with him, just to see. As I've said before I was sure I will go with Diep, but there seem to be some issues with him. What's your thought about him for cases like mine? Even though I'm not keen on traveling I looked up flights to Brazil and India. All the flights I found for Brazil, to see PIttella, are a nightmare. India is a direct flight, so I would probably be forced to go with Eugenix.

Thanks. To answer your question, I have explained most of what you're asking in my original post. As for pics and helping me determine what Norwood class I fall into, that's not what I need help with. I need help with finding a doctor that can handle advanced cases like mine, regardless if it's 6 or 7. We all know that even the best pictures can only tell you so much. As soon as you are in the doctors office, literally under their microscope, assumptions go out the window and reality kicks in. And what was assumed can change really quickly. There is no substitute for physical presence. Certain things are just not possible without the doctor being able to feel the hair quality and seeing the follicles under magnification. Pictures can't do that. As for me having to travel... we'll see. Maybe you're right and I will have no other option but to travel if I want the best possible chance for the best possible outcome. But maybe not.

You seem to be coming from the assumption that most doctors, or the industry as a whole had garbage survivability. I'm talking about the top tier doctors, the ones all the hair loss, slash transplant forums, trust. The ones that are worth considering and going to. Their survivability is 90 plus percent and then the most important thing is placement. BTW there is no such thing as 100 percent survivability. It can happen by accident but generally speaking you will always have some that don't survive for various reasons. Even if it's just one FU, that by itself is already not 100 percent. How would you even verify? You would have to somehow be able to visibly tag all FUs and be able to accurately count them to see if all of them made it, and do that for thousands of grafts and for every patient. Bottom line is, we can agree to disagree. Nothing wrong with that.