wylie

Looks good Joe, thanks for sharing. Also, great explanation scar5.

Thanks so much for the info., Mirko, much appreciated.

I've also learned today that each session is performed 6 weeks apart, which means flying somewhere is not really viable financially. Thankfully there are a few clinics here in the Midwest.

Best Regards.

For plug removal I would definitely consult with Dr. Vogel of Baltimore, I have always been very impressed with his repairs (and all his work in general)

Good luck, removing 20 plugs should not be too difficult, and you will have peace of mind that they are finally gone.

I recently learned that the cost for an SMP session to address strip scars was $800.00, and that the treatment consisted of either two or three sessions. The first session is the base pigment, and it's typical to see scars reject around 50% of the pigment in the first session. The next session is where the majority of the ink is applied, and then the third session is for touch up.

So here are my questions:

1) For three sessions, are these done 24 hours apart, meaning three days in total? If not, what is wait time between sessions?

2) if the quoted price is $800.00, that is the price of each individual session? So around $2400.00 for the three session treatment?

3) Are there any other hidden costs to be considered, such as blood work, anesthesia, etc?

I've been told that the final result can fade in as little as 6 months. This means a cost of five grand a year to maintain coverage. This gets pricy.

Anyone been down this road and can give a newbie some guidance? Thanks.

You are smart enough to not get a HT based on cost. And most everyone feels the pinch of the prices this industry charges.

Your best option, at this point, is to do ALOT more research. While I'm unfamiliar with Dr. Rani, you had better research this doctor exhaustively if you think you are going to save a lot of money and still be satisfied with the result.

The possibility certainly exists, but repair work can be expensive, and if necessary, costs more than taking the more expensive option would have.

Don't take a leap of faith. Know everything there is to know, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. I did not know she is recommended here until I read your post above, that is a good sign.

Sounds like a budding bromance.

I will be posting new photos and video soon. Additionally, I will be responding directly to Dr. Umars responses in detail to provide the information that refutes his claims.

 

Heliboy, has side-stepped the question and is unwilling to produce high quality digital photos of his hairline because he does not want his results to be scrutinized or risk the possibility of finding fault. I will be posting a undeniable photo of my hairline measurement asap. Furthermore, how much did you pay for Dr. Umars work? You had 19,500 grafts how much did that cost? If you are satisfied with your results and have put hair loss behind you providing the requested photos and final costs should not be an issue.

 

 

Heliboy's hair looks great. He has no obligation to provide you with pictures because you choose to discount his work. But if you want to see an awesome hairline, check out my signature. The result left me in awe, not only because of the result, but because Dr. Umar got the result with so little to work with. I also visited three other coalition doctors (strip only) who either could nothing or very little. For the rest of the coalition doctors, I was a lost cause. And still would be today were it not for Dr. Umar.

I think you and I are the only people on your thread that have visited a certain Georgia doctor. I had my initial repair surgery with him and, ignoring numerous red flags on the internet about him, proceeded anyway. Nothing to show for it, more time and money wasted, including finite scalp grafts. But then I turned to Dr. Umar, and my first repair was the hairline rebuild. After that grew in I knew I had a chance of a normal appearance, and a few years later, I would have one.

You went the other way, and started so-called "corrective surgery" with this doctor a mere 6 months after your procedure with Dr. Umar, which, in and of itself, is a red flag. If you think this Georgia doctor has anyone but his own interests in mind, then I'm afraid you've been fooled. At this point, you are merely a pawn in this man's game.

And that is not saying, for whatever reason(s) you have, that you are not truly unhappy. That is your right and your belief and I'm not here to change your mind. But someone ginning up your dissatisfaction and exacerbating the situation simply to disparage someone he does not like, to say nothing of doing removal at 6 months, speaks to the character and ethics of this individual. Or should I say lack thereof.

Hi Wylie,

 

Simply, amazing!!! Instead of showing some common courtesy and apologizing for a totally false, baseless and irresponsible accusation against a reputed HT Surgeon, you have chosen to charm me with your sarcasm.

I have no interest in disrupting your "precious thread". I was not trying to impress anyone with my “Masters” degree but you did make a derogatory comment about “Dr. Bhatti not having the sense to employ people that can speak/write proper English”. I was just responding to that misguided comment.

As far as your other sarcastic comment about me “being proud of myself” is concerned, yes, I am proud of myself. Not because I have a Master’s degree but because I do not make any offensive/insulting comments against anyone and if I do mess up, I have no ego issues with owning up to my mistake and apologizing.

Thank you,

California.

Your indignation has been duly noted.

Again, I bid you a good day.

Best,

Wylie.

Hi Wylie,

 

I am not getting involved in this issue/discussion BUT I have to take issue with this particular comment of your's. I would be the last person to point fingers at any reputed surgeon and I am requesting you to please do the same. You made an "assumption" that Dr. Bhatti has "employed" FUEONLY. Can you back up that claim? Can we please refrain from being unncessarily disprespectful to the doctors. Please note that FUEONLY has no relationship whatsover with Dr. Bhatti. He is not a patient of Dr. Bhatti. He has never met Dr. Bhatti. He has never spoken to Dr. Bhatti.

I represent Dr. Bhatti in the North American region. As far as Dr. Bhatti's criteria for "employing someone that can use proper English" is concerned, I do have a Masters Degree in Mass Communication and Journalism. I am hoping that would qualify me for meeting the "proper English use" benchmark here.

 

Thank you,

California

Feel better now? That's good.

How about you and fueonly quit disrupting the thread with off topic commentary? I'm really pleased to hear you have a Masters Degree, that is very impressive, you should feel very proud of yourself.

Have a wonderful day.

Thanks for your responses Wylie and Spanker

 

Does the recipient area really look that bad? I am going to go see another doctor in Houston but I really do not think I want to go through this procedure again. What can I expect to happen in the recipient area? Right now it feels like hard hairs that stick straight up, they do not move or bend at all.

 

I also filed a complaint against Dr Rashid and the Mosaic Clinic in Houston.

It is too early to tell what to expect. Hopefully the angulation of your grafts is correct, and you can add a few grafts to increase the density and be done for good with your hair. Any shaving of the donor area can get done far more inconspicuously in the future. And however many grafts you will need should be relatively few. In the next few weeks those hairs in front will shed and you'll be waiting then for the growth that is forthcoming.

In my opinion, the premier FUE repair doctor in the world is Dr. Umar in LA. I have had extensive repair work done with exceptional results. Your repair is tiny by comparison, but it is in a high visibility area. I think for now your best option is to disguise the donor area and be patient while you shed. It may be 6-8 months before you know for sure what work you need to do.

And remember this: Not all FUE doctors are created equal. You need to do your homework. I'm not sure there is even an FUE specialist in Texas you can rely on, but I might be wrong. Choose wisely this time.

It appears Rashid had a shill on this forum last year. After this example people should be warned about this charlatan.

Amazingly, the OP is considering three doctors, and the only one in the U.S. Is Rashid. Baffling.

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/167661-having-hard-time-deciding-doctor-go-%85.html

The good news is three fold: your hair can be repaired, that ridiculously large donor shave for 100 grafts will regrow, and you only had 100 grafts done with a hack doctor.

The bad news is you will likely need another session, because this guy did hairline work, and if it turns out to be subpar, it will be noticeable.

So you are going to have to be patient while you research repair options (I'd start looking into this now and get out in front of it) and while you wait for your hair in back to grow out.

I would look into a hair vitamin regimen like MSM and maybe even Niacin (low dosage on that, too much can raise your blood pressure FAST) and you need to do your homework on FUE, unlike strip surgery, there is a wide disparity amongst the best doctors in their FUE ability (unlike strip, where the differences are far less, in both techniques and results among recommended, vetted physicians on this forum)

Also, for your large donor area, you might be able to hide that with a concealer, I suggest your order some Dermmatch and try that on the donor area, it might work with hair over it.

Be patient, do your research, and don't ever lose hope, you'll get thru this!

Who in their right mind gets corrective work done after 6 months? I've honestly never heard of such a thing happening before. And what kind of doctor would perform so-called " corrective surgery" after 6 months without consulting the initial doctor who performed the work? It is apparent to me that someone is not making the correct decisions, the reasons for this I can only surmise, and is getting absolutely reprehensible advice from another doctor who has an ulterior motive in doing so.

Hairguy, when you repeatedly claimed that the last thing you remember is laying your had back and passing out after a hairline you did not consent to was drawn on your forehead, only to be disproven by the actual hairline plan bring shown while you were upright and awake, you lost all credibility after your claim was shown to be untrue.

Very interesting case! My case was the exact opposite, and my beard hair grows well on my scalp. I will be watching this thread for updates, thanks for sharing and grow well!

Some may think this thread should remain unlocked and "run its course", but let's remember a number of untrue allegations have been leveled against a respected doctor, and it is entirely unfair for these specious claims to be left out there for anyone, including those with a similar agenda, to use this discussion as their personal pinata.

I agree with Bill and Spanker and think this thread should be locked. It has already "run its course", IMO.

@Atticus: Your link still doesn't work -it says "Your session has expired"

 

Why is his current doctor even being brought into question here? Obviously Hairguy is unhappy with his previous work with Dr. Umar -not his current doctor.

 

I'm guessing the insinuation is that he's being treated by a doctor with some sort of vendetta against his previous doctor and is now using poor Hairguy as a pawn in some weird payback???

 

Bizarre and pretty insulting to Hairguy if you ask me.

Apparently you don't know the doctor in question then, or you don't know what some in this industry are capable of.

Probably both if you ask me.

Wylie, the microscopic photos give you an upclose look at the fron the hairline where you can see the use of multi-hair grafts in the direct front of the hairline. There is an abundance of 2 and 3 hair grafts in the very front of the hairline.

Did Dr. Umar use nape hair in your hairline? He did in mine, and I seem to remember that nape hair has lot of 2, maybe even 3 hair grafts. You can't ask other doctors on this site if that is true because they don't use nape hair.

Where is there photographic evidence of multi haired grafts in the hairline?

The one thing many people on this thread are not familiar with is they do not know the man behind the curtain, and just what he is capable of. I might be the only one on this thread who knows his history AND has sat in his chair for surgery.

It is not only possible that photos of multi haired grafts are purported to have come from this patients hairline, it is indeed likely that this physician would make a blatant and egregious falsification and use photos from outside the hairline as evidence in doing so.

I'm really seeing someone who is vulnerable being exploited to further a certain doctors vendetta against Dr. Umar. If that sounds paranoid or conspiratorial, it is quite likely that many of you do not know what kind of people are involved in this industry.

I'm entirely grateful for forums such as this one, where these issues with consumer satisfaction and alleged doctor ineptitude can be examined, hashed out, and openly debated. But something just didn't smell right from the beginning, and when I found out a certain doctor was involved behind the scenes, I have a deep suspicion that this story has been manipulated from the very beginning and Hairguy is being used for someone else's ulterior motives.

If you look at fueonly's post you will reralize he only does three things on this forum, injects Dr. Bahtti's name into every thread, insists that doctors (primarily Dr. Umar) give patient medication so they don't know what's going on, and incessantly asks every bht patient and doctor for pictures of under the jawline.

He's a Bhatti shill, and a damn poor one at that. The very least Bhatti can do is employ someone that can use proper English.

greatjob I know what I am saying. You will see this is not umars first time

you will see how many cases are now coming up .

this a a breaking of silence by hairguy

why dont you go and find out contact medical boards of different stae and see doctor striped of licenses in US who were naturalized citizen and GC holder what happen to them.

I said this is opinion in general

You don't know what you are talking about and are trolling. . You have not contributed one cogent thought or opinion to this entire thread, or any other thread I've seen you comment on, to include one that I started a few weeks ago.

In the interest of full disclosure, the doctor Hairguy is seeing for his alleged repair is a notorious doctor with a very polarizing reputation in the industry who has alot of skeletons in his closet. I know you are unaware of this Hairguy because it would appear others who pursued a similar vendetta against this man have disappeared, their own personal websites being scrubbed from the web. I will assume he spent some of his earnings on legal pursuits.

I ignored the red flags that were all over the web about his history and started my repair with this doctor. We had agreed to a small test session of 500 grafts. After sedation and having my head shaved the doctor suggested we double the size of the procedure to 1000 grafts. I gave my permission. I got zero noticeable growth from the scalp grafts mainly because of a change in plan once i was in the chair and them just being added to existing "mini grafts" for reasons that now appear strictly for financial gain. Furthermore, the entire plan he followed was to waste my precious scalp grafts by spreading them amongst a scalp full of the dreaded "mini grafts" which, if any growth resulted, it was not at all apparent.

The entire session was to be a 500 graft beard session to determine the efficacy of this donor. They were added to my strip scars and yielded some growth. But the scalp, if it grew, was not apparent upon close inspection 9 months later. So I ended up wasting close to ten thousand dollars and squandering my precious and finite scalp donor. I remember this doctor telling me "I might not need another surgery" when the session was done. He never made any plan for a follow up, largely because he knew I would be disappointed and not come back. And I barely saw him that day, as he spent most of his time working on another patient, only stopping in briefly a couple times.

My own repair journey got off to a dreadful start, but when I found Dr. Umar, that all changed. You see, Dr. Umar not only got me results, but he was someone I could trust.

I certainly had the exact opposite experience in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Dr. Umar, I honestly don't know why you would share this very personal information about one of your patients online.

While it may seem to be vindictive, it is important to lay all of ones cards on the table, especially if someone is making such damaging accusations against your business and against you personally.

For starters, someone in his frame of mind is potentially not only going to be unhappy with his result, it is also possible this patient asked for, and received, a hairline placement of his own design, then after 6 months did not like his own suggestion for hairline placement, and decided to blame it on Dr. Umar, and then accusing the doctor of taking advantage of him while he was "passed out", which, on its face, really makes no sense.

Around 6 months ago there was a London based poster in his 40's.on here with a full head of hair and a slightly receding hairline, which was not visible in pictures until he pulled his hair back in the photos. This poster came online to complain that his "hair loss" was ruining his life, even to the point he no longer had a social life because of concerns over his hair. There was simply no way his completely normal looking hair should be responsible for these feelings, but he projected his personal problems onto a receding hairline and in 2 months was on his way to the U.S. for a hair transplant.

The point is, someone's frame of mind is very relevant, and often times not necessarily grounded in reality. If someone attacks you both personally and professionally, it is only fair to be able to defend yourself with any and all relevant information related to your accuser.

After ingesting the medications and waiting in the operating room while techs scurried around, Dr. Umar arrived. This was the first time I had ever seen him in person. I had been instructed by a tech to write down my final questions for Dr. Umar and that we would discuss these prior to starting the surgery, that never happened though. Yes, I wrote them down, and they are included in my medical record, but we never conversed about them like I was promised by the techs. He introduced himself, and asked me to draw where I thought I would want my hairline with a marker and a mirror. At this time my head was swimming from the medications and my recollection is drawing a line at my existing hairline. He said I was not much of an artist and instructed me to lay my head back, and that is the last thing that I remember, and that was the only time we ever spoke in person. 2350 Grafts were then subsequently placed.

With all due respect Hairguy, I don't believe what you wrote. As someone who has had 4 surgeries with Dr. Umar, I know the attention to detail he takes and I know the emphasis he places on making sure everyone is on the same page. There is no way in hell I believe someone took the medication you described, passed out, and woke up with a hairline not only placed too low, but pluggy. If you had of spun just one storyline here (either you were dissatisfied with the hairline placement OR you found the hairline to be pluggy) I might give your opinion more credence. As it stands, the part about you passing out and waking up dsfigured is simply too much. I realize everyone responds to medication differently, but my own experience is I've never come close to sleeping or passing out prior to any surgery. Either way, my hairline repair was the polar opposite of your story. To think something as important as the placement of your hairline was done without your consent, and placed too low, all after you passed out, stretches credulity. Count me as someone who is extremely skeptical of such a tale.

Since then in emails between the doctor and I, he has claimed that in the operating room that I collaborated and agreed to the hairline he designed in the operating room. However, as I have said before I was given a multitude of oral and intra muscular medications, which are listed above and transcribed from my medical record. Did I sign multiple pages of documents previously? Yes. Did I fully understand them? No. I was really anxious to ask my final questions in person because electronic communication can be misinterpreted, but never had the opportunity. In my opinion I was in no condition to collaborate on a surgical design in the operating room as Dr. Umar has said transpired due to the aforementioned medications.

I did not realize the gravity of what had transpired until several months later when the transplanted hair grew in, and around the six-month mark I felt something was wrong.

Here is where the narrative gets confusing: You say "around the six month mark I felt something was wrong". All I know is there is no way it would take me six months to figure out a transplanted hairline was too low. It would take me less than six hours to realize this. Why did it take six months for your dissatisfaction to materialize? This makes no sense. If after six months you don't like your result, that's one thing, but implying that you were passed out, woke up with a hairline too low, and then realized it at the six month mark, again has me questioning how plausible your story is.

Eventually, I consulted a reputable surgeon. Once again his opinion was that the hairline was too low, too straight, temple point angles were incorrect, hair type used was incorrect, and it did look pluggy. One lady said I had been butchered! Interestingly enough there was another of Dr. Umars previous patients present that day consulting about getting repair work too.

Ohhhhhkayyyyyy........if I had any previous doubts about the veracity of your story, this part erased them. I've been around these forums for 6 years, there are countless times that new posters pop up with hit job stories against various surgeons, this time you have got your complaints all very cogently stated, well explained, and meticulously detailed. But there remains one problem for me: it doesn't pass the "smell test". And if my Spidey senses prove correct, I bet I could guess who this "reputable repair surgeon" you at consulting with is. But that's another story, lets stick with your tale for now.

I look forward to seeing your pictures, until then, the only thing I believe here is you are unhappy with your result. As a repair patient myself, were it not for Dr. Umar, I would not have had a chance, and there was not another doctor in the world who could have done what he did. I'm also pretty sure Dr. Umar has a very different version of the story you shared. And his hairlines rock.

Welcome to the forum.

A fine choice by Dr. Konior. Congrats Spanker, I'm sure you'll prove a very valuable asset.

BeHappy,

All I can say is I've been in your shoes man. And as one one who has gotten over 5000 beard grafts added to his nugget, this donor source was a lifesaver for me. One reaches an age where they feel something has to be done. Guys like us, and most on this forum, reach that stage in our early 20's, and there are/were so many bad actors in this industry that young guys like us are targets of opportunity for scumbags like those who took advantage of us.

I first wasted ten grand with yet another unscrupulous hack repair doctor out of Alpharetta Georgia before I did the right thing and got in to see Dr. Umar. I'm not exactly sure how much I've spent with him over the past 4 surgeries I've had with him, but I do know I've gotten actual results for the first time in my life.

It's been expensive, and I'll be paying it off for the next couple years, but throughout those years without hope I invested my paychecks in my retirement accounts and at this stage I at least know that I'm not in too deep, that a safety net I built is beneath me.

It has absolutely been worth the cost, and I did not find anyone else who could have done my repair. There are some docs. in India using body hair for less money but I simply cannot take the risk of more failure, life is too short and my faith in the medical establishment won't endure any more disappointment.

So, in summary, I just want to remind you to not lose hope. Dr. Umar can fix anything, he has seen the worst this industry can deliver. I was in such bad shape I never left my house without a hat for over 15 years. It is a habit I'm still trying to break, but knowing that I can go out without one if I want to? Well, that is priceless to me.

Good luck man, don't ever lose hope. I did and now I realize that no one ever should.