wylie

I know prices are lower in Europe, and still do not know the level of involvement of technicians there. Outside of the branded doctors recommended on this forum (and even including some of these doctors) comes the very real concern: Who is actually doing the work? I know when I see a U.S. doctor that they will be involved in two main aspects of the procedure: The harvesting of grafts, and directing where these grafts will be placed. The tech's are expected to do the work of actual placement of grafts. For this I pay a premium in the U.S., in comparison to Europe and India. I don't doubt that many technicians in Europe and India are very good at what they do, but my greater question is, what exactly will the doctor be doing in comparison to his U.S. counterparts? Do technicians extract the grafts also? Surely they do not make the incisions where the grafts are placed? Doctors are no different than any industry, they try and do less and get more. From everything I read, they do even less outside the U.S., but the cost is far less than in the U.S. The risk is you have no idea who your "technician" will be the day of surgery, so as a repair patient myself, I would be inclined to pay more for a U.S. doctor, unless I knew exactly what to expect from someone outside the U.S.

It's not a bad idea at all. I did it and due to the number of grafts I had removed in the frontal third, as well as all the work I had done putting in beard hair, the ink was less effective in achieving a uniform look across the frontal third, but I do not regret the procedure at all. Had I have not had so much pre existing damage in this area it would have been an excellent alternative to further surgery there. The one drawback might be cost, I don't know if you can get just the frontal third done for less money than if you did the entire top. In my opinion, the goal of SMP is not to use the most ink for camouflage, it is to use it as sparingly as possible. Rates from the practitioners, however, do not reflect this approach. They charge the same for the frontal third as for the entire scalp. If you can find someone who is willing to work with you on price, this approach is optimal. You can always add more ink later.

Very well spoken, and I echo everything you said. With the advent of FUE in places like Turkey and India, American doctors are now scrambling to keep up with the results found in these locations, often performed for a fraction of the cost they charge here. This is great news for the American consumer, and I am definitely rooting for these new practitioners to succeed, and to give American and European consumers an alternative to the often ridiculous prices we are forced to pay for a limited market of FUE practitioners.

You need to have a HT in 2 weeks, and you are looking for the cheapest doctor to do it, in 2 weeks, with little or no knowledge of the clinic, the doctor, or what is necessary to achieve your goals. I would advise you to also start saving money for your eventual repair. If you are going to ask me why I said this, and you don't know the answer as to why I said this, then you truly don't know what you are doing and should not plan on getting any surgery done until you've done months of research and consultations with clinics and doctors you have researched, as well as researching their documented patient results. You are gambling with your appearance, I hope your gamble pays off for you.

The only red flag I see here is guaranteeing an 85% survival rate. While many doctors makes similar claims, the truth is none of them can do this approaching any measurable level of accuracy. They can make estimates, and results vary as to how accurate they ultimately will be. However, from the rest of this experience you documented, this is exactly the kind of doctor that gives the best results. One who does not hand off all the work to techs, one who does not work on multiple patients in the same day. These are very important considerations. He clearly stands out from the other three mentioned, IMO. However, if he recently transitioned from the Neograft (which many doctors are presently doing) than you need to more closely research his body of work, and make sure you find his patient results to your liking. 2000 grafts is a fairly typical amount of work, graft wise, and it should not too heavily stress your donor (without pics. I can't tell) As scar5 mentioned in his excellent advice to you, a strip scar is NOT what you need. In 10 years, strip scars will be looked on like we once looked at mini grafts, it will be an outdated procedure. Don't burden yourself with a scar, it not necessary if you choose the right FUE doctor. And keep researching. You are going about getting a HT in the right way, and it certainly increases the likelihood of a great result. And don't forget, do NOT let cost be the final arbiter of your decision. Let doctor competency and trust in their ability be the final arbiter in your decision.

Sorry to hear about your predicament pace. If you want to properly warn others of this clinic, and if you want others to know what their end result really looks like, I would encourage you to post your photos. It would certainly benefit everyone here. Best of luck to you.

Looks like you got a ways to go.

You are trying to get a great result for a cheap rate and have done little to no research. Do you know that this is a recipe for disfigurement? There is only one thing you should do at this point, and that is research. Or you can just roll the dice and hope for the best. You never know, you might even get lucky.

You are following a well worn path of people who did not do enough research and trusted the skills of untested physicians on something so important as the way they look and present themselves to the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the rest of their life. You are gambling with your appearance, and I must warn you, the odds are stacked against you. You can roll the dice if you want to, but be prepared to spend years of your life and all your money to repair things if you don't like the result. And one of the Cardinal Rules of getting a HT is not letting the doctor who gave you an unsatisfactory result do your repair, as they have already screwed it up once. Most doctors will be happy to try and get it right the next time around, and most patients will be unhappy a second time. Think, research, and invest your time and energy into getting things right the first time.

I am so happy for you. Dr. Lorenzo reaffirms he is the premier FUE surgeon in the world, what an incredible transformation. This thread serves as a testament that butchered patients can once again have hope. I do have to add you have excellent donor for this repair. My hair is very thin, and what little I had left for my repair could only be used at the hairline, a mere 1500 grafts. But I was able to use around 5k beard grafts to camouflage absolutely dreadful work from the mid-90's. I'm late to the party but I have read all 11 pages and am really glad you are updating with pictures, your hair is looking great!

Great advice, don't really need to add anything to this, it covers all you need to know. Worst case: Take the flight and do some in person consults (no surgery) and that can help you be an informed consumer who makes the right choices the first time. Best case: Pay a rescheduling fee and have your procedure done in 6 months, after you have thoroughly researched all your doctor options, viewed patient results, and been in contact with the clinic on multiple occasions, and have all your questions answered. Research is what allows you to ask the right questions. Also, you can likely get payment to your C.C. canceled if you tell them the clinic in question was dodgy and you canceled after finding out you were misled, just have a thorough explanation in advance.

Yes, it is very wise to start with temporary SMP to see if you like it, I would not recommend anything else.

That's a really wide scar, and I don't understand why a strip scar would be so wide. The doctor who sutured you up must have done a very poor job, there is no explanation for why a scar would stretch like that. While I agree that the SMP is blue, there is really no worry if you do what you should have done first, and that is FUE into your scar. You have plenty of available donor, and nothing breaks up an unnatural pigment better than actual hair. I have used both SMP and FUE into my strip scars and the results have been fairly amazing. I never thought I would be able to cut my hair in back to a #1 guard, but that is what I do every month. Without the addition of roughly 1500 grafts into my strip scars, I would never have been able to pull it off with just SMP alone. And without SMP added later, I would never be able to cut my hair in back like I do today. I needed both treatments. I have always said SMP is a compliment to FUE, not a replacement for it. As a stand alone treatment, SMP was not sufficient for me to shave to a #1 guard, and I have around 10 strip scars from numerous botched surgeries. And none of them are close to being as wide as your strip scar. Good luck!

Dr. Umar charges as low as $7.00 a graft and is one of the most experienced FUE docs in the U.S., possibly the most experienced. His extractions are not manual and he can do up to 1500 grafts a day. He is the best in the U.S., and I admit I'm hoping for success in the cheaper overseas clinics. Prices in the U.S. are too high.

So a Google search yielded zero results? Yes, that's what I got too. So I guess you are partially correct when you say "It's not how many anyways", because the number is zero (excluding the few truly unlucky outliers that no one knows about). If insurance providers based their malpractice rates on the number of successful lawsuits against industry butchers then insurance rates should be lower than what people pay for car insurance.

How many HT doctors are you aware of that have been successfully sued for malpractice in the United States? Can you name a single one? Also, there are practically no regulations on HT's in the United States, it is, and always has been, Caveat emptor.

Actually, based on the OP's desire to keep his doctor nameless, it's more accurate to call it Stockholm Syndrome. I appreciate the fact that moderation intervened in an attempt to understand what went wrong with a recommended doctor here. When I was getting butchered in the 90's, the butcher who was placing mini-grafts in my scalp also did one thing consistently: He tightened the sutures so tight that I felt discomfort for weeks after the surgery, sometimes even after they came out. The result was very thin scars, numerous ones, all across the back of my head. With the addition of beard hair, and later SMP, I've been lucky enough to camouflage them fairly well and even cut my hair to a #1 guard in back. I still feel like this is the only thing that hack ever got right. No such luck with a scar like that one. It's going to need repair. Shame that whoever did this remains anonymous, but patients usually cover for these guys, as they don't want to end the relationship, even if it is one that does not benefit them. And the community is left wondering who they can trust.

If you think you are being overcharged for a HT, makes sure that you did your homework and you get it right the first time. The real fun begins when you try and get it fixed. When you are unhappy with the result of a bad HT, you will pay just about anything to get it looking right again. That said, I'm very happy to see lower prices overseas, whether it be in Turkey or India or elsewhere in the world. Everything is more expensive in the United States, and if there is not competition to force prices to lower here, they won't. If doctors could get away with raising the prices every year, they would. Only if the "free market" forces a price reduction because consumers are looking elsewhere will we see a shift in what we pay for these surgeries. I'm pulling for the continued success of clinics that do more affordable work. Competition is the only thing that will cause a drop in prices for consumers in the U.S.

Very interesting PupDaddy, thanks for both explaining this and for bringing it to peoples attention. It's important that shill's are exposed, as it can save someone a lot of money and grief in the future.

Thanks for posting your pics., you should be real happy in another 9 to 12 months. I hope you will update this thread as everything grows in, and that all grows well.

Have you spoken with your doctor about this? He can prescribe you a skin ointment that should aid in the healing. If you don't think your doctor is helpful you can seek out a dermatologist. It might take you longer to heal but from your pictures the redness does not look particularly troublesome.

What a train wreck.

The surgery looks excellent, and with a shaved head, the SMP might have not looked too bad either. That looks to be very refined work on both ends.

1500 grafts can rebuild you a new hairline, you'll have to resort to beard hair for the rest.

I don't see any evidence of plugs anywhere. If those are pre-op pictures of 'plugs", those are the most natural looking plugs I have ever seen in my life.