wadsef

14 hours ago, futureresearch said:

Did you do it in ATL? I’m based there so would make things considerably easier if I didn’t have to travel lol

I did it in Kinshasa. As far as I know, that's the only clinic where you're guaranteed that Dr. Mwamba will do the operation himself.
 

12 hours ago, MsAyeBeeCat said:

Thanks for your honest feedback with pros and cons. I don't know about anyone else, but I find with any service, no matter how great they are, if the aftercare/customer service is crap, it completely puts me off. As this is essentially when you are going to need them the most. Things can go brilliant on the day with the surgery, but if/when things go wrong or you need urgent advice and they just can't be arsed, bad communication or just bad customer service, it can make or break a successful transplant if it comes too late or not at all. 

Yeah, I see your point. If that sort of thing is important to you, then my experience prevents me from recommending Mwamba very highly.

I went into the operation thinking that the results would be determined by my genetics, the skill of the surgeon, and how well I followed general aftercare instructions in the first few days. For that reason, I didn't have particularly high expectations for communication more than a month post-op. However, even my low expectations were disappointed, which is pity because of how great my experience was at his clinic.

I went to Mwamba 2 months ago. I'm too lazy to do periodic updates, but I've been taking pictures. I'll make a big post including the pics once progress starts with my post-shedding regrowth. Once there are actual results to review, I'll be an honest take on his results with afro hair.

I would recommend chatting with him if it's free. He's very knowledgeable, personable, and will listen and respond to you sincerely (if you're able to get him on a call). My talks with him were unlike many of the other surgeons that I had consultations with, and those talks were the reason why I chose to go to his clinic.

To be explicit: I consulted with Dr. Mwamba based on the recommendations of this forum and others, but I chose him for the procedure off of the strength of the consultation call as compared to other doctors that I spoke with. As an aside, my consultations with Dr. Bisanga and Dr. Diep, stood out as exceptionally bad.

After working with Mwamba, my perspective is that he handles afro-textured hair pretty frequently, and he's extremely experienced in how to handle it -- especially the extractions. I know first-hand that he works with afro hair because there were a several other black patients coming in and out (for follow-ups etc.) while I was there. The doctor and I also talked for hours about the precise details of the operation, and he explained basically everything he was doing (to me and to one of his newer techs) while he did it. He was also in the operating room for the entire +30 hours of my three day procedure, which shows dedication.

However, Dr. Mwamba's clinics are pretty mismanaged with regard to their business communication and aftercare follow-up. It seems like anything administrative that doesn't involve Mwamba personally is completely hit or miss. I'd rather not go into detail unless prompted because I did have a good experience at his clinic. Maybe the poor communication is because I have to interact with the clinic and staff in English and they are bilingual native french speakers, but it's still hard to excuse. Also, I haven't heard from his office since the procedure besides a couple questions I asked his staff a few days later. They've also ignored a couple of my messages. The spotty communication and admin is a massive negative, but so far that's the only thing I could possibly complain about. Everything else was top quality and gives me optimism about my results.

P.S. Mwamba kept insisting that I buy these really expensive French hair shampoos from him. I caved and bought them, and --shockingly-- they cured my lifelong dandruff problem overnight. Dandruff prevention is absolutely NOT the reason Mwamba told me to buy those products, but it's a pleasant side-effect, I guess 🤷🏿‍♂️
 

Mwamba has his own clinic there, so I'd be trusting him more than the healthcare system. Unless something goes horribly wrong -- in which case I might be SOL.

Belgium costs over 2x as much. I might as well just shave my head in that case.

I'm planning to go to Doctor Mwamba's office in Kinshasa for a hair transplant in April.

Has anyone here ever been? Have any thoughts or guidance?

Had My consultation with Dr. Mwamba last week. I haven't heard back since. How long does it usually take for them to get back to patients with an offer? This seems like unusual behavior from a reputable source.

Fair enough. I guess cost and convenience aren't worth the risk. I'd just rather not have to wait an entire year for this to be done, which I would have to for Diep and Mwamba. I'd also like to not wait over a month for a consultation haha.

Dr. Mwamba's assistant wants me to send money directly to PayPal email address to secure the appointment for consultation. Is that normal?

8 minutes ago, Pbaird98 said:

what kind of post are you creating? Is it a Dr/Clinic review? @Melvin- Moderatorcould identify the issue.

Figured it out-- I had a cuss word in the post. Shame that it highlighted the whole post instead of just that word.

Hi all,

For context:

• I'm a black male in his mid-twenties who just had a consultation with the Ziering office in New York.
  • The staff and doctors seemed nice and personable, so that was pleasant. I also learned that there's an "ideal" length for hair post-transplant to help maintain the "illusion" of density-- I didn't know that before, and it's another thing to consider before going through with this procedure. They also took a 3d scan of my head, which wasn't discussed at all afterwards. It seemed like just a show of their "tech" intended to impress potential patients 😭. They also made it clear that some guy who is not Ziering would be performing the procedure, though, which was off putting. After the consultation, they quoted me ~$15k for 2k grafts to lower the hairline, which seems reasonable.
  • Ziering's quote was lower than Diep's, which was $19k for the same number of grafts. Diep also won't be available until late next year. Though I prefer Diep's work, he's also across the country, which is another strike against him since I would have to pay for the flight and lodging, which would easily total to over 20k.
  • I also reached out to Mwamba, but I won't be able to get a consultation with him until January. He also won't be available for the transplant until April at the earliest. Even without meeting with him, he's my top choice just by the strength of his reputation. Another bonus is that his costs would fall somewhere in the middle-- at least according to his website.

 
So my question is: how badly could Zeiring possibly mess me up? His practice seems to be despised by the members of this forum, but I think I'm an easy case-- a lay up, if you will.
I have a sort-of high hairline from birth with a widow's peak (between NW2 and NW3), and I'm not actively balding. My hairline hasn't moved since I was a child, and it is identical to my mom's hairline except a little higher up due to differences in head shape. I also have unusually high hair density in my donor area. Given all these factors in my favor, it's hard for me to imagine a doc screwing up such an easy case. From what I've seen on this forum, most of the extreme mess-ups seem to happen when people try to look like Paul George, but they're starting beyond a NW4 and with a less dense donor area. Even GOATS like Mwamba and Diep have trouble with those cases.
 
I've seen people in my situation have great success, even at the most notorious Turkish spots.
So... what's the worst that could happen?

Thanks for answers

Pic attached for reference

Its a general question about recommendations for doctors. In the last few days, I had a couple consultations with some of the usual suspects mentioned on this forum, and now I'm looking for some advice on how to finally choose between them.

I'm getting this message when I try to post a topic: "Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below." It shows my entire message highlighted. Does anyone know why that's happening?

Hi all, posting here so that maybe it's let me post on other topics. When I try to create a new topic, it highlights my whole message and say that I need to remove keywords that are not allowed. Maybe my entire post is somehow a banned phrase?