Jonathan

On 5/9/2024 at 5:36 PM, Melvin- Admin said:

I am positive. I have gone through many lengths to get Verteporfin studied. Reaching out to doctors going to conferences, etc. But I do believe we have to be objective and not get too caught up in hype. Dr. Bisanga made some valid points, and we really can’t make any definitive claims with just photos. We need actual quantitative data that cannot be refuted.  Even Dr. Barghouthi agrees.

 

Why does everyone ignore the biopsy that Dr B had with double the hairs when injected with verteporfin (don’t remember which dose) than the area without? I understand being skeptic but some of this is ignoring previous facts.

On 4/12/2024 at 7:15 AM, Dragonsphere said:

Without Dr Barghouthi's initial experiment the surrounding hype would not exist. There would be no upcoming trials, no existing trials and we would all likely be awaiting news on whatever the next Topical AA is. 

There is a very possible chance that we are on the verge of a cure and it's down to the the efforts of several people on this forum, primarily the aforementioned Doctor. 

Unless you were one of the original backers who donated a substantial amount to fund this trial, then you can hardly complain if feedback isn't as expeditious as you would like it to be. 

If Dr Barghouthi wants to be assiduous to ensure this test is done in the best possible way and mitigate any chance of failure, that is entirely his prerogative. It also makes complete sense and we should prefer it so. 

I didn’t donate much but $10-$15 I don’t expect perfection but I do expect someone to be a man of their word, maybe that’s a crazy standard to have now a days. I’ve always and will continue to give Dr Barghouthi his praise, but if someone doesn’t update you for months after they said they were going to update you, typically you lose a little bit of trust. Do this 3-4x in a row and see how people’s admiration turns into mistrust and annoyance. But if your argument is that the amount of money you donated to this cause makes your opinion matter I guess mine matters more than yours.

On 4/10/2024 at 9:32 AM, Fox243 said:

lol people are never happy. A few months ago, people were complaining that a second trial wasn't being done. Now people are complaining that a full FUE wasn't done. People should be extremely grateful for what is being done, and if they want to see more, they need to either volunteer their own scalps or their own money.

This is one guy complaining and stating that, where multiple people were complaining about Dr B taking long. That’s typical when you give certain dates and don’t follow them. I get Dr B is amazing and everyone is grateful for him but don’t act like he’s perfect and deserves to be treated as such.

2 hours ago, Der3k7 said:

Im talking to Dr Wong now about potentially running a trial on me for my touch up procedure using verteporfin. He asked me if Dr Barghouthi has seen positive results so I mentioned the trial just began with the surgery a couple weeks ago or something and we will be waiting to see preliminary regeneration around 3-6 months post op.

i believe there were other trials that were mentioned in this thread where doctors showed positive regeneration? 
is anyone able to refer me to those links so I can share with Dr Wong? 
 

It would be great if we could get him interested in performing a trial on me as well 

Go back a couple of pages, it’s revealed that the areas with verteporfin regrew a percentage of hair back. It’s hard to know the exact amount since that was the first study and the follicles weren’t counted beforehand.

On 4/1/2024 at 6:46 AM, Dragonsphere said:

Hamilton's example is just the most popular one that people refer to. In every instance, the introduction of androgens will cause people to reach there genetic pattern within a matter of months. I am not going to list every example but you can Google it.  This is a fact and is indisputable. To give a final example, look at the below graph, the group who were on Propecia for the first year and switched to placebo lost hair at a far faster rate than those who were on placebo to begin with. 

This is why those of us on DHT inhibitors are in such a precarious situation. 

Verteporfin would cause the follicles outside the donor zone to regenerate to how they were, i.e., susceptible to male pattern baldness. 

I am not saying that it wouldn't work, what I am saying is by the very definition it would not be a cure! It would require one to take prevention medication for the rest of their life. 

Most men who have hair transplants don't take Propecia, most men on Propecia would obviously prefer not to be on it. I, myself, take Dutasteride and am concerned regarding the long term effects of the drug. 

If we can regenerate donor hair, all it would take is 1-3 dense pack procedures and one would never have to worry about hair loss again. No Propecia, Dutasteride, Minoxidil, lllt, etc. This is what we could consider a cure to be. 

In regards to MPB being a 'terrible, cruel disease,' that just suggests mental instability. 

 

Couldn’t agree more with pretty much everything you’ve stated. Verteporfin could be the cure not with regenerating follicles outside the donor zone but within, have enough supply and you don’t need medication. Only ultra rare cases wouldn’t be curable. 

On 3/20/2024 at 5:06 PM, DrTBarghouthi said:

I think we will follow up closely to see how the process is evolving in the donor. It could be 3 or 4 months for preliminary effects to show. 

Thanks Dr B, see you in June/july! 

Wait until begining of May, if by then there’s no updates by Dr B I say we can reasonably demand for a refund and get it allocated to a different hair transplant surgeon that’s more interested in Verteporfin.

We need to leave Dr Barghouthi alone, ask for a refund and move on. 

5 hours ago, Killian said:

Just an update:

It's healing exceptionally fast. One thing of note, which I've never encountered before in previous donor healing: no post operative redness in the incision line since closure. The fue extractions also did not ooze any inflammatory exudate post-operative, which is interesting.

I confirm the healing outcome has been different after injection of 50mg Visudyne. 

Is this privately funded?

His last excuse was because he was having equipment being delivered and that was at least 3 months ago. My guess is there’s something big behind the scenes he can’t talk about. Hopefully he’s getting ready to partner up with a big company and be able to use verteporfin way more often. He’ll be the first in the industry and every clinic he opens up will be PACKED. Or…. He’s just busy, I guess we’ll see which one it is lol

1 hour ago, Nikoni said:

It seems Dr. Barghouthi is the only one keeping verteporfin hope alive.

I respect Dr. Barghouthi for being the first to try, but after 2 years when I see no other doctor trying this (Except Dr. Bloxham of course, but there is no clear indication he will continue) I respect Dr. Barghouthi even more.

At some point with what Dr Barghouthi has done, other drs will pick up on it. If we time travel 20 years from now I can almost guarantee verteporfin (unless something even greater came a long) will be used in lots of HTs and maybe even the treatment of certain surgeries that produce scars. 

Jesus Christ, call out Dr Bargouthi on not keeping up well with times and rescheduling constantly, that’s fine, and he’s guilty of some of it. But photoshopping results? Don’t say some something so absurd here unless you have an ounce of proof, that is ridiculous.

Yes I’ve been saying this for the past year and half and will say it again, this is the cure, dosages and certain things need to be optimized but this is the cure as long as you have 100-200k for a hair transplant 😂😂. Maybe you can get away without taking fin and min as well.

On 1/29/2024 at 12:10 PM, Square1 said:

All this time, I get the feeling that I / we miss something very obvious. The guys over at hairlosstalk are very involved in the hairloss industry, but are not talking about vert at all. They were however all over all kinds of either obvious scams or possibly legit projects that would however take at least 10/15 to commercialize such as Brotzu, Sheseido, Tsuji, Stemson etc.etc. Now HMI-115 is the big deal there. I havent followed it very closely, but in terms of potential, it doesn't seem to come close to vp. 

Given the results that dr. Barghouthi has shown, I would expect everybody in this space to focus on vp. Despite some interest of docs and of course the trials of dr. Bloxham, there doesn't seem to be that much happening. I would expect much more young and ambitious docs to try this stuff, but dr. Bloxham is so far the only one who did. And for him and dr. Barghouthi , it doesn't seem to be a topic that is that important.

Could it be that we are overblowing the results? Maybe we miss something that makes dr. Barghouthi's pics less impressive? Maybe the higher density in the test area has other reasons than vp? It is an optical illusion that others see through but we don't?

 

You’re missing one big thing, a lot of those guys are delusional, and want some type of chemical that will turn them from Norwood to 7 just applying daily, which I don’t think (mostly due to regulations like fda). Were at least somewhat less delusional and know that the cure might be something expensive like 5-10 hair transplants over and over. Sounds terrible and only the top 2-5% of earners can afford it, but to me it’s better than having no alternative.

Just now, Jonathan said:

While I agree, I just don’t understand the constant agreeing to certain dates then back tracking. a couple of times is certainly understandable, but every single date he’s set the past 5-6 months has been not only wrong, way off only to be replaced with another date that’s also off. At that point just refund the money you took and don’t bother, I promise especially with the current results we’ll find another doctor. If I went to a homeless shelter and promised to feed everyone on a certain date, then delayed they’d be ok, do that over and over, eventually you’re just an asshole.

9 hours ago, Nikoni said:

This is two sided actually.
Of course we feel disappointed with so many delays (it's been more than a year of constant delays). 
On the other side we have no alternative, Dr. Barghouthi is the only one doing trial/follow ups and keeping feedback. He's actually doing us favor but doing it very slowly. I believe the waiting game was stressful for all of us, including Dr. Barghouthi.

@DrTBarghouthi I really wish this would work out, and you will enjoy all the benefits of being pioneer in this method, but please don't wait for ideal circumstances, they never happen. Again want to thank you for trying this and really hope you will do the trial soon.

While I agree, I just don’t understand the constant agreeing to certain dates then back tracking. a couple of times is certainly understandable, but every single date he’s set the past 5-6 months has been not only wrong, way off only to be replaced with another date that’s also off. At that point just refund the money you took and don’t bother, I promise especially with the current results we’ll find another doctor. If I went to a homeless shelter and promised to feed everyone on a certain date, then delayed they’d be ok, do that over and over, they’re gonna turn on you.

On 1/26/2024 at 11:03 PM, Hairlossingfast said:

Don't rush the man!  He updates on his timeline, not yours!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then maybe he shouldn’t set a timeline on here and not follow it! Should be common sense, he’s done it a dozen times by now.

2 hours ago, Square1 said:

I understand the moral angle, but let's not fool ourselves. Even if you announced public trials, when you get to see at least reasonable results it becomes clear that being very open about it hurts your own interest. Keeping them to yourself, maybe investigate the matter further and then offering it commercially gives you a competitive edge against the competition for some time with all the reputational and monetary gains associated.

It would not surprise me if docs currently involved with trials eventually come to the same conclusion or that docs who never mentioned vp turn out to have ran "secret" trials. Not only would it not surprise me, I also wouldn't blame them. 

 

 

I completely agree, and get it, BUT again these drs are currently getting praised like they’re helping us, and we’re constantly being told to stop annoying them with updates because everything is coming out of their own time and pockets and they have little to no gains but helping the HT community. At least drop that angle and I’d have 0 problems with it.

On 1/14/2024 at 3:08 PM, Square1 said:

Possible.

 

What do you (and others) think about the possibility that private trials are conducted by docs? I mean, for all individual actors, it would be the most logical choice. Why invest in an experiment that benefits everybody instead of an experiment that only you can reap the rewards of?

I think that it’s very fair to do private trials, but start them privately. Like I told one other user here who him and his dr decided to back out the trial last minute, if you’re getting all your info from us, advertising it for a certain date and as public, then backing out for self gain isn’t illegal but definitely exploitive. I think eventually though we’ll see one of these docs start to offer it to customers and then we’ll see what was really happening behind the scenes.

This is ridiculous stop begging these doctors for updates, and then giving them hero status once they do something small that can potentially make them millions and millions. Once they see that potential go away so will their updates. We need to try and fund everything ourselves, maybe get a refund from Barghouthi, raise an extra 20-30k and start our own with a surgeon that wouldn’t mind consistently contributing, not only for extra cash from us but seeing the potential of being the first hair transplant dr to use something like verteporfin to try and regrow hair extracted from FUE.

If only someone would’ve predicted these trials to constantly be pushed back, and for there to be a difference with Verteporfin on FUE and FUT….. 😂😂

I’ve been gone from this forum for a couple of months now, did we ever get Dr Barghouthi to start his second fue trial?

6 minutes ago, Fox243 said:

Hey, I wouldn't say that. Melvin has been so helpful to our efforts and I'm gracious for all the work he's done so far.

Lol I was trying to have some playful banter but realized that’ll probably look bad online over text.

3 hours ago, Melvin- Admin said:

I think that’s extreme at this point. There’s not enough data yet. Hair transplants are tried and tested.

Melvin you say this because you used like 99% of your donor hair lol

5 minutes ago, takuma said:

that's a good question... that's why it's important that we test it for that, not just hair transplants. Because this could be a revolutionary hair loss cure even without a transplant, but we won't know if it's not tested

This idea seems far fetched though that it just “restarts” your skin/hair wherever it’s injected. We should reserve the testing for the more reasonable ideas for now.