Hairfree

It is all very interesting. I didn't know that we could possiblily etimate the density by looking at the area covered and using math to determine the likely result. We should promote Gorpy on this site to the title of HEAD DENSITY ESTIMATOR! Everyone can go to him to make sure they got the results promised from their doctors. Pull that calculator out GORPY Thats me just being silly. I hope that I didn't give you more work

This is an excellent track of postings on this forum. It lets everyone know that people here will not tolerate those who are promoting a particular's doctors work. I hope that all the new members on this forum come across this one to help them understand that this forum is not for advertising purposes but rather to offer support and help people. I am glad that I did! I look forward to RADGAV's response to Jotronic.

Oops..my mistake. I didn't realize that the coalition doctors were listed somewhere else other than the surgeon list from the main page. Thank you Bill for pointing that out for me as well!

Thank you for joining us on this forum. That is a great result on the crown area from 1200 FUs. Did the man in the photo achieve this with one session of 1200 FUs or 3 sessions of 1200 FUs? The link for the photo says 3 session. Im not sure if that is implying the 3rd pic from the site you got it from or the number of sessions he recieved. If it was accomplished with one session of 1200 FUs that is indeed a great result. You have come to the right place. I do not know much about Dr. Quatela but he should be a safe pick because he is one of the coalition doctors. Im sure there are many on this forum that can give you feedback on Dr. Quatela. This forum is a great start and many members are on here to help others. Before making the decision learn as much as you can about the HT industry. Take your time making a decision and you will find yourself leaps and bounds from where you started. Never let location be a factor when choosing a HT Doctors. Most Docs will offer a discount for those traveling, pick up the hotel tab or pay for the flight. Getting an HT is a life decision. Repeat to yourself several times..I Will NOT LET LOCATION BE A FACTOR. Good luck!!

Hey guys..thank you for educating me on this. It all makes sense now. You are putting me at ease that the number of graphs in the area covered should be enough to have positive results. I didnt know that the natural density falls in the range of 95fu/cm2 and also that everyone's natural density differs. I know I never had extremely dense hair when I teenager and my donar area is currently characterized at medium density. I am looking forward to the final results and most of you have already pointed out that I can get a 2nd HT if I am not satisfied. I know I will need one eventually down the road for the mid scalp and crown area. I am working on retaining it now with 1/4 proscar tablet every other day and starting up Rogaine again in a couple weeks. I know the sentiment on this forum about Armani. Nervousnelly..I know where you are coming from. He does produce great results and not everyone agrees with where he stands on ethics but I think that he is a great HT surgeon and I love his results. I know you meant it in a postive manner. Armani was one of the reasons why I went with Rahal. He didn't personally reccomend him but they both have similair techniques. As I become more educated I plan to reach out and help others on this forum as others before me has helped me. Thank you Gorpy and Nervousnelly for your time!

Gorpy, I just heard back from Dr. Rahal again via text. I asked him what percent he is using relevant to cm2. He said that 65-70 graft/cm2 is 70%. Thats only at the hairline and back from there it decreases to 40%. Its a dense packing method that creates an illusion of fullness. Does it make sense mathmatically to you? You are good at this stuff. I like to hear your thoughts on this. John - Thank you for jumping in to help me understand. I am still new to all of this graft estimation and understanding what it takes to achieve a nice full look.

I just heard from Dr. Rahal via text message. It was nice of him to take the time to respond to my question that I asked by email last night. He said I am in the 70% range in the front hairline decreasing to the 40% range in the back. I am not sure what he means by this in terms of grafts per sq cm. Can anyone help me here? Gorpy - You were right. I misunderstood the doctor and thought he was speaking about grafts cm2. You estimation is pretty close. I am hoping that I do achieve appearance of fullness. What do you think he meant by percent?

I am waiting to hear back from Dr. Rahal on Tuesday regarding the density of grafts. I just sent him another email to ask again. I was under the impression from what he told me in person the day after surgery that I recieved per 80 grafts cm/2 at the hairline and it decreases behind that to 60-70 grafts per cm/2 and its 50 per cm2 way in the back. From what I undstand from reading postings the dcrease in density as it works its way back is similiar to another Doc in Toronto that Rahal used to work with methods. Does the numbers above sound possible or did I get it wrong? Let me know what you think.

Hey Bill- I just came across this posting from Christmas eve. Very impressive posting and you make a very sound and reasonable argument in Dr. Feller's response. I agree with you on the principles of how patients should be treated. Now you may not enter my home again because you are a socialist haha I am just kidding. I hold the same views as you. There is not one single perfect system for society. Everyone individual will have a viable argument in this case. You hit the head on nail. We are not perfect beings. Although, I take pride in my patience when driving, but I do have many other weaknesses when it comes to patience. I fully understand that the patients comes first. They are the ones paying and come to YOU for surgery. We don't go shopping to buy a worn out rug at Kmart. When we open the box and find that the rug is thin and worn out we take it back and get our refund or a new one! On top of all this, it's the reputation of the surgeon thats more important especially in this new technology age. Everything is information orientated. We can find out if something it good or bad by just a push of a button. Scary but good for those who do the homework.

Nervousnelly - Its good to see you back on here. Both you and Bill are excellent mentors. I know you needed some time off. Well deserved time off! Its good that you are still able to jump back in every once in while and share your thoughts. Im glad that I listened to you and followed you advice along with some others on the forum. I am glad I went with Dr. Rahal and got more grafts than if I would have received if I went with my 1st choice before I learned about Rahal on this forum. Right now I am hoping that the final result turns out nicely! I was able to get a bit better price than average because I was a last min fill in for a cancled appt. I assume its like that with any doctor. I set surgery the date less than 3 weeks away. Rahal does offer reasonable and fair pricing in canadian dollars. I did not know that its possible the Canadian gov. can reimburse me the tax portion! I will look into that. Thank you! Bill - I agree with you. Things could not better any better. A new friend from this forum and a great woman in our lives.

Hey Thank you everyone for being positive! Its nice to have a team behind you to give you the encouragement to look at the bright days in many months ahead. There is no way that I would have been able to accomplish this without everyone's help on this forum. I seriously would have ended up going to a non coalition local doctor and recieved only 1500 grafts which would not have been enough in my case. Pat - I agree with you that I am lucky to have a mentor in person. Bill is a great person with good intentions on this forum. Also, both of us gained a new friend from this forum as well as hair! At least I hope I am on the way to having hair again Hairbank, Mrjb, and its-only-hair - your comments mean a lot. Thank you!

I agree with all those posted before me. I just had mine done 2 days ago and I already exprienced the feeling of joy/happiness the day before and after surgery. I still can't believe I have all these little hairs now sticking up on my head in areas that were completely bald for many years. I know now I am in for the long hard phase of waiting for the new ones to grow in but I feel a great relief that I went and did something about my hairloss. I have seen great results from the coalition surgeons in person. One is Billaros, he came over today to check out my progress. Its a relief to see it in your own eyes that ultra refined HTs do bring undetectable results. First step is making SURE you pick the Doc with good reputation and is practicing the updated techniques of HTs being done today. This forum is a great place to start.

You can now see my pre and post op photos in the Photo Album section under Dr. Rahal 4/4/07 Enjoy! Please let me know if you have any questions. I will be glad to help and share my experience.

Hey Bill, Thanks for all of your help today. Its a relief to have someone with experience to check it out and see if its moving along in the right direction. Also, thanks for resizing my photos and showing me how to post them. It would have taken me hours to figure that out. I hope you had a nice evening with the wife and friends. Ill be in touch this weekend.

Surgery day 4/4/2007: Number of grafts: 3489 Singles - 455 Doubles - 1986 Tripples - 1048 Total number of hairs 7571

Jobi - I understand. I am a semi-private person myself. I work with many people so I prefer not to post my full face. I am going to stick with hairline shots at eye level and up. I will have the pics posted shortly!

I am noticing that the swelling is now working its way down my face. Its at about eye-ear level now. It is more noticable on my one side of face. Under one eye it is a bit puffy. I was having some fun and made funny faces in the mirror!

I think its important to find out how many years of experience the techs have for a particular doctor you are considering. If you are going with a doctor who has produced excellent results for many years and have had the same techs from day one you are relatively safe with the techs placing in the grafts after the doctor has made the incisions. Beware of doctors that have had high turnovers with techs. Im sure that Pat takes this in consideration when picking those who qualify for the Coalition Doc list. I think you are safe with any of Coalition Docs. This is just my own personal opinion. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Bill - I just emailed you my address. Please text me if you have trouble finding the townhouse. MRjb - Thank you for your support. I went to look for your pre post op photos and couldnt find it. I would like to check yours out. We can monitor our progress together along with Pushing40! I asked Dr. Rahal why I recieved sutures instead of staples. I asked if it was because I had laxity. He said no, he said that he does sutures on all of his patients. Wanted to put it out there for all those who are considering Rahal. I will have my post op photos up by this evening.

I am now writing this from home. This morning I woke up in great shape. I slept very well througout the night. Actually, at one point I woke up at 1am because I was in bed early and watched the Manchester U. vs Roma soccer match on ESPN for an hour and then went back to sleep. I guess I was exhausted from the long day! I had a great breakfast at the Days Inn when I got up. I was back in Dr. Rahal's office at 9am. He took some post op pictures and answered any last minute questions that I had. One of his techs, a lovely lady, dropped me off at the airport afterwards. She worked for Dr. Rahal all 13 years since he opened his office in Ottawa. Top notch service and I had the chance to see up front how much Dr. Rahal cares about his patients. His own techs speaks volumes about his passion for his work and to make people happy. My flight home went well and I was back on my comfortable sofa by 2:30 in the afternoon. Nothing like home! Now its all movies and hanging out with my fiance' I am about to wash my scalp for the first time and apply some Vitamin E oil to the scalp. I am starting to see slight swelling now on the sides of my face. I am now entering tansformation phase Pat- Thank you for following my story! I love your new Hair Force One and what you do for everyone on this forum. I will create my own web log soon. B Spot and Hairbank - Thank you for following my story as well! I will have some post op pics available soon. I was having trouble posting them. I am hoping Billaros will be able to help me post the pics and creat the web log tomorrow. He is expected to stop by in the afternoon around 3pm. Billaros - I hope I didn't bother you when you were watching the movie this evening. Thank you for answering a question I had. I look forward to having you come by tomorrow. Dr. Rahal gave me a CD with all of my pre and post op photos. I am not sure how to downsize the pics. I'll have you take a look.

Hello! I just got up from resting in the room. I will fill in all of you on my day! Last night I got to bed around midnight. I just couldnt fall asleep. I woke up on and off throughout the night worried that maybe I wouldn't wake up to the alarm and many thoughts were racing thru my mind. Im sure most of you had the same thing happen I got up at 6am and took a shower and took a good look at my hair for the last time before heading into the surgery. I ate the contintental breakfast at the hotel and took a taxi to Dr. Rahal's office two miles down the road. When I arrived Adrian, his patient advisor, had all the consent forms ready for me to sign. That took about 20 minutes. After that I met with Dr. Rahal for the pre-op consultation. He took many photos and drew the hairline. I explained to him that I would like a mature hairline and that I wanted to go for more than 3000 grafts. He felt that I would get good results at 3500 grafts. He took about 30 minutes to draw the hairline. I guess he is a perfectionist! Several times he erased part of the line and made adjustments. I was very satisfied with what he drew up for me. After that I was off to surgery! The removed the strip as I was in the seated position. They did not make me lay down on my stomach. I guess every doctor does it differently. The only pain I felt was the injections into the donar area and after that all I felt was a slight tugging and it was over in 30 mins. After they removed the strip I was able to walk around and see what the techs were working on. It was really neat to see my own scalp sliced up and put into cups by the number of hairs each follical had. The techs were very friendly and explained everything to me. Next Dr. Rahal made all the incisions into my scalp and he planted some grafts into the front. It was all painfree! The techs took over and planted the rest. I had a lunch break and ate the egg salad sandwich they provided for me. They were back to work on my 20 mins later and continue planting grafts until close to 5pm. I watched the Green Mile in the afternoon Here are my final results 455 single hairs 1986 double hairs 1048 three hairs I got a total of 3489 grafts - 7571 hairs I asked if they cut any of the grafts into single hairs. The techs said no. They do not believe in the process of cutting 3 o4 4 hair grafts into single hair grafts. Dr. Rahal dropped me off at the hotel and he was very friendly. The staff was very easy going and everyone kept making sure I was comfortable. I was very satisfied with the service. I got back to the hotel around 6pm. I was uncomfortable from 7-10pm because I felt slight pain and tightness especially in the donor area. I stayed in bed and rested for a few hours and when I work up the pain was all gone. I still have little tightness but it is much better. I will put up some post-op photos. I better get them from Dr. Rahal in the morning when I go in for post-op care. My flight leaves at 11:20am. Please let me know if you have any questions! Hope you enjoyed my recap of the day. Tom

Does anyone know why the hair sheds when taking Finasteride? Is it only the weak hairs that shed? I just started on proscar two weeks ago. I am now taking 1/4 pill everyday and plan to continue with it until my shockloss hairs grow back (tomorrow I have my first HT) After several months I plan to cut back to 1/4 proscar pill every other day. Does that sound reasonable? Or should I just take 1/4 pill every other day starting now?

Hello folks, I am now at the Days Inn Ottawa airport. I made it to the aiport in Philadelphia an hour ahead of schedule. I had some ice cream in the terminal and just relaxed till boarding time. When the plane took off I fell asleep and woke up as we were landing. It went by quick. I'm glad that I had my passport in hand. I didn't know that it was mandatory. I texted Dr. Rahal after I walked through customs and he responded quickly offering to pick me up at the airport and take me to the hotel. I thanked him and told him I was taking the cab. He told me to make sure I eat a good breakfast and looked forward to meeting me in the morning. When I got to the hotel around 8pm I asked if it would be worth checking out downtown Ottawa and the front desk person said that the restaurant across the parking lot is very good. At that point I decided to stick around the hotel. I got in the hot tub to relax and then went over to THE STEAKHOUSE & BAR across the parking lot. I had a NY Strip steak classic with a salad and baked potato. It was top notch food and the service was excellent. I highly reccomend it for those staying at the Days Inn to visit Dr. Rahal. Im off to bed now. Good thing I brought along my own alarm clock. It will definately give me security that I will get up on time. I plan to get up at 6am and have the continental breakfast here at hotel before heading over to Rahal's office at 7am. I will take some post-op pics to post. Billaros..Thanks man for all of your support. I am fortunate to have you on hand to help me out as I go through this process. I will drop you an email. Everyone else..thank you for the support as well. I will keep you posted on my journey.

Thank you for your support! I just posted all of the pics I took last night. I am brining along my passport just in case for back-up but a drivers license should be good. I just checked the weather in Ottawa..snow on the day I return. I hope it dont get me stuck at the airport!!!

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