GHI

Max, We have uploaded additional photos of his donor. The photos are 1 motnh after his procedure. We did not feel the need to continue taking pictures of his donor because we could not find the exact area when he came in for his 3 month photos. I wish we had our micro-camera back then so we could document the donor better. Bill, Thank you, we don't want to sound to corny, but we really are here to help people with their hair loss. We have joined this forum to help teach people the REALISTIC benefits and limitations of FUE. Believe it or not, we would much rather teach a person the truth about hair restoration, give them all of the options, then let them make the decision. The good thing for us is most cases, Class 5 and smaller, once they have all of the information they choose FUE.

Max, We purposefully harvested the larger 2-4 hair units from the superior mid-occipital region for the density grafts behind the hair line. Once we harvested the larger grafts, we pulled the softer 1-2 hair grafts from the inferior mid-occipital region for the frontal hair line. This is one of the true benefits of FUE. FUE alllows us to access hair in the donor region that was not harvestable with traditional strip surgeries. We did not record the total number of 1-4 hair grafts for this case. GHI

We peformed a "Hidden Transplant" of 930 .75mm FUE grafts in one, two day session. A "Hidden" procedure can be performed when the hair in the donor region is long enough to cover the harvested area. This way of approaching FUE does away with the need to shave down the entire donor region for smaller cases, 100-1500 grafts. The lenght of the person's hair and f/u density will determine the number of grafts we can harvest. This patient wanted to fill in the L and R Temples. We joined the frontal tuft of hair to the sides by recreating the frontal hair line in the L and R temples. He began taking Propecia immediately after his procedure. The following photos are 1 yr post.

We peformed a "Hidden Transplant" of 930 .75mm FUE grafts in one, two day session. A "Hidden" procedure can be performed when the hair in the donor region is long enough to cover the harvested area. This way of approaching FUE does away with the need to shave down the entire donor region for smaller cases, 100-1500 grafts. The lenght of the person's hair and f/u density will determine the number of grafts we can harvest. This patient wanted to fill in the L and R Temples. We joined the frontal tuft of hair to the sides by recreating the frontal hair line in the L and R temples. He began taking Propecia immediately after his procedure. The following photos are 1 yr post.

Please Grow, We have loaded additional photos for this case. Please let us know if these are the kind of photos you were asking for. GHI

Bill, We have uploaded additional photos. See the photo gallery and let us know if these are the kind of photos you would like to see. Thank you for the help with our first couple of posts. GHI

Bill, We are by no means finished with learning about FUE and h/t in general. This is a new dawn in h/t, (please pardon the poetry). The most important thought we took home from the ISHRS meeting is we need to learn more by true scientific method. Let us hypothosize a solution, then check it's merits,not the other way around. We hate to be particular, but we are GHI, Global Hair Institute, not DHI. Thank you, GHI

Pat, Thank you for allowing us to post in this forum. We look forward to helping educate the community on both the negative and positive attributes for FUE and other procedures. We also look forward to your visit to our clinic. You are correct, most offices who attempt to perform FUE have a very difficult time harvesting full, intact grafts. I experienced the same concerns when I first started working on the FUE procedure back in 2002. FUE is a skill set that must be practiced, evaluated, and practiced some more. The reason most offices are using larger punches is because they are incapable of harvesting 2-5 hair follicular units. We have spent the better part of the past five years attempting to perfect the FUE process with a .75mm punch. We have done this because this is the largest punch that can be used that will consistantly provide NON-VISIBLE SCARRING in the donor. Obviously the smaller the punch the more challenging it is to harvest multi-hair follicular units. We have spent the better part of the past year compiling data to prove our abilities in FUE. We are now able to harvest 2-5 hair units without comprimising the overall hair count. What we mean to say is we measure our transection rates by each transected hair per graft, not each transected graft. Example, if we attempt to harvest 100 grafts each with 3 hairs we will have a 2-5% transection rate. This means for the total 300 hairs, we will consistantly harvest 285-294 total hairs from the 100 grafts. We know this sounds impossible by todays standards, but we are willing to send in transection rate sheets to back up this claim. If you would like them, please give us a fax number and we will provide you with the documentation from the patient charts, names and dates excluded of course. Now for the negatives of FUE. The one main negative would have to be the amount of time needed to perform this procedure. We have diligently tried to speed up the donor harvest. The problem is we are more concerned with accuracy than speed. To date we schedule our patients for 800-1000 FUE per day. A 3000 graft FUE case will take 3-4 days to perform. This is very taxing on the patient. When asked, the patients who have had both strip and FUE which method they preferred, the majority of them state they prefer FUE. Another concern for FUE is the placement process. Due to the harvest, the FUE graft does not have adipose tissue around the base to aid in the placement of each graft. This makes placing FUE grafts very challenging. The graft, without the adipose, is extremely delicate. If the technician places the FUE graft as if it was a strip graft, often times the graft yield will be compromised due to damage at the bulb. We have worked out a two person placement technique that allows us to place these grafts without damaging the exposed dermal papilla. FUE is just like any other advancement in medicine. The idea is impossible until some one takes the time to try and figure out the process. Remember, approximately 10 years ago, follicular unit transplants were impossible? Remember when 3000 graft strips were impossible? We look forward to answering questions about our FUE procedure. If anyone has any additional questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Bill, Thank you for your assistance with these posts. We have tried to upload high resolution photos but your site will not allow files larger than 2mb. How can we add these photos at the higher resolution without cropping and/or resizing the images?

This patient has had two procedures totalling 4039 FUE grafts. He began taking Propecia after his first procedure. He wanted to fill in his crown and bring his hair line forward.

This patient has had two procedures totalling 4039 FUE grafts. He began taking Propecia after his first procedure. He wanted to fill in his crown and bring his hair line forward.

Never mind, we added the procedure photos to the original album.

Bill, With regards to FUE, multiple day sessions are still considered one procedure because the total amount of grafts is completed during that one visit. Depending on the clinic, most offices are only able to harvest and place 1000-1500 FUE per day. If you were to have a 3000 graft strip over two days, strange we know but it does happen, then we would still consider this one procedure. Multiple strip surgeries broken up over years, such as your case, are considered seperate procedures, in our opinion. The amount of time needed to complete a 3000 FUE case is the one real downfall of this procedure. In my experience patients would prefer to sit for multiple days with FUE rather than sit for one day for a strip. The FUE procedure is far more patient friendly than a traditional strip harvest. Is there a way for us to add photos to the post rather than attaching them? GHI

Bill, The asnwers to your questions follows: 1-We harvested all of the 3948 grafts in one procedure over 5 consecutive days. 2- The name of our physician is Dr. J. Salameh. Here is a link to hid profile with the ISHRS. http://ishrs.org/doctor-search/physicians-profile.php?RegID=49597 3-Our office is located in Jacksonville, Florida 4-We are going to post better photos of his results in two weeks with proper lighting and our clinical camera. 5-We will load additional procedure photos. How do we add photos to this post? 6-We do not know how this result looks grown out. He is going to start growing his hair out from this point moving forward. We will have additional photos the week of October 15th.

This patient came to us to recreate his frontal third and increase the density throughout the scalp. We transplanted 3948 .75mm FUE grafts. Here are his updated photos. Pay particular attention to his new crown. He began taking Propecia daily two weeks prior to his procedure.