Al - Moderator

Some pretty awful stuff. I find it very interesting that Lou Amico is shown with before and after photos and a testamonial from him in the CHC/Puig Medical booklet because he is also shown with those before and after photos in the old Long Island Medical brocures as a patient of Long Island Medical Associates. I had consultations with both Cleveland Hair Clinics and L.I. Medical. I must have gotten a newer booklet from CHC than the one on that site because Lou Amico wasn't in the one I got. Wish he was. I would have known something was wrong if I saw the same guy in both clinics booklets.

Minoxidil can really dry out your scalp, so yes it can cause or worsen flaking in some people.

He said he had already paid for it before going. There was a discussion about this some time ago. Some doctors require payment several weeks in advance. I disagree with doing that. I can see maybe a $500 deposit, but I can't see requiring more than that. Why should someone get paid full price for not doing any work? I can't see how a doctor can claim they have the patient's best interest in mind if they take your money first and then make a plan that you may not like without offering the money back.

The thing is if you have the same friends, SOMEONE is probably going to find out you're lying to her about it and tell her. If you break up and she tells people, so what. It's not going to matter. Besides once your hair starts growing in most people are going to know you did something anyway.

Whoa! Let's stop insulting his girlfriend and friends. We don't know anything about them. His gf could be the hottest, sweetest babe. Just because he's not sure if he should tell his gf about it (totally understandable in my opinion) that doesn't make her fat, a bitch, slut, etc. Insulting his girlfriend is not how to answer someone's questions.

If you were taking any other medication and had a bad reaction you would change your meds or reduce your dosage, so just do the same kind of thing with propecia. The problem with some people who want to cry about the negative side effects is they refuse to make adjustments. They want to either take a large amount or none at all... and the thing is propecia works almost as good at very low doses. The recommended dose is 1mg a day. Start out taking .5mg every other day for a few weeks. You will get benefits even at that level. If you have problems at that level, then I would probably stop taking it. If it's not giving you any negative effects then raise it to either .5mg every day or 1mg every other day. If that gives you trouble then just back it down to the .5 every other day and stick with that. If you're still OK you can try going 1mg a day if you want to.

Tell her you're having it done. If you don't, she'll just be pissed that you didn't tell before you did it. When you tell her, if she doesn't like the idea at first, then mention how hot you will look in 6 to 9 months time. If she still doesn't like it don't worry because you'll have fun getting new girlfriends.

So how did the chat go? I work Tuesday nights so I wasn't able to be there. Are those chats able to be logged? I don't know if that's doable, but if it is then for the next chat you should try saving the entire chat and then posting it. That would be interesting.

While a scalp reduction is a really bad idea on a bald scalp for hair restoration, it can be the right choice for other conditions. For example if you had a tumor or lesion and had surgery to remove it (basically a scalp reduction) that would be the right thing to do. Yes you would end up with a scar, but you eliminated the condition that was worse than having a scar. Also the scar can later be covered with some grafts to cover it. Here's another example. A strip surgery in your donor area to remove grafts is a scalp reduction done in an area where it won't be very visible because the hair around it will cover the scar. It's acceptable in many cases to do it because you're getting a benefit of more hair in your balding area. So yes I think a scalp reduction can be the correct choice depending on your overall condition.

hehe. No I'm not taking this personally. I actually wanted to wait another few months before I gave any results just to be sure what I'm seeing so far isn't temporary, but when you're using a product that seems to be working, it's hard to not chime in when others claim it can't be happening. I have nothing against Dr Feller. If I wasn't using the laser comb I'd probably agree with most of what he says on the subject. I also probably wouldn't have bought one if I had other options, but my donor area is more than depleted so I can't have any more transplants and I've been using proscar for 10 years. There seemed to be at least some evidence that it might work, so I decided to try it. I wouldn't have bought it at $400 but when I saw I could get a 6 laser comb for about $129 I figured it was worth a try. I said I'd let you know either way if it worked for me or not. If I didn't feel it was working, I'd be here saying Dr Bauman is crazy just like Dr Feller is doing and that's actually what I thought was going to happen, but to my surprise, so far I seem to be growing hair. Go figure! Oh by the way, I did take a few pictures a week or 2 ago. They didn't come out as clear as I hoped (it's hard taking pics of your own head!), but I'll try to take more once a month. I'll give a full report and show pictures at the 3 or 4 month mark. Good or bad we'll see what happens. I hope I didn't scare Feller away! That was not my intention. He said he was trying to get the topic going, so I did :-) If it turns out in a few months that all the little hairs I'm growing all fall out and I end up with no growth then I'll be back here saying he was right.

Here's more. Feller says: OK. I won't argue with that. I'll get back to that in a bit. He goes on to say: If he thinks using laser therapy will accelerate hair loss then we would be seeing after pictures that look worse than the before pics and this whole laser debate would be over in a hurry. We aren't seeing that as far as I can tell. But the fun part of all that is in the next sentence he says this: OK. So after all the talk about how if it energized the cells it wouldn't work, he says he doesn't believe it energizes the cells. OK, so he just eliminated his own argument about why it can't work. Perhaps something OTHER than energizing the cells is what laser therapy actually does. Sure I know that's what the advertisong calls it, but that's just advertising hype to make it sound good. Let's look past that. Now let's go back to the beginning about DHT receptors and cells/follicles being killed when DHT is there. Here's what I feel is happening based on using a laser comb for 6 weeks. Note that I don't claim to be an expert. This is just what I THINK is happening. I believe using the laser comb every day is breaking up the DHT in the follicle which is allowing the hair to grow better. Propecia stops the DHT from getting to the follicle, but it seems to me that laser therapy is breaking up, eliminating, disolving the DHT that does get to the follicle. Here's why I think this: My head and hair is less greasy since I've been using the laser comb. I don't get the gunk and hard sand like particles stuck in the pores/follicles that push the hair out. This is what seems to be making my hair feel softer and more manageable. It's less greasy and not weighted down after 8 hours of working all day. I've been able to cut down on how much propecia (proscar) I use because there doesn't seem to be as much problems with DHT any more. I do keep using it at a lower dose because I feel like I'm coming at it from both sides. Less DHT sent to the hair and what is getting there is being disolved. I feel that's what's allowing my hair to grow. This also explains why it's claimed to work better on people who have some miniaturized hairs. It allows them to grow rather than being killed by the DHT. So there ya go.

Bill, Here is what Feller said in his first post in this thread: If you think about it this is so ridiculous. If you use minoxidil on your arms and hands you aren't going to grow long head hair in those areas. If you could do that then we just solved the donor area problem. Let's all rub some minoxidil on our arms and grow long thick hair there and then transplant it to our head. A lot of the stuff Feller is saying sounds like it makes sense until you think about it. Then you realize how crazy his answers are... and yet he thinks it's Dr Bauman who is giving crazy answers.

I hate to get into attacks. I try to state my point without doing that, but I have to say a few things. Feller's reasoning that if lasers really worked then cashiers would have hairy hands is so obviously crazy. I don't see anyone who uses rogaine/minoxidil with hairy palms and fingertips, so is that is proof that minoxidil doesn't work on your head? Of course not! Hair doesn't grow on the inside of your hands or your finger tips! Why should it be different with lasers? I tried to provide some links to people who say it works. Feller says is that all I have? Well it's not my job to prove anything. I don't sell laser combs. I was simply showing that there are people claiming that it works for them. One was a TV news show where the ONLY thing the guy used for 6 months was a laser comb and he had growth. Another site had a very obvious improvement in the man's before and after pictures. If you don't want to believe it, that's totally up to you, but if you're not going to believe the pictures and posts that show it does work, then saying show pictures to prove it is just all talk. You obviously have your mind made up already no matter what you see or hear on the subject. A while back I said I thought I was a good candidate for a laser comb if it actually did do what they claim (thicken existing hair shafts and make some miniaturized hairs grow longer and better) because I have a lot of both after using proscar for 10 years. I started using a laser comb 6 weeks ago and said i would keep everyone updated on whether it works or not for me. I'm trying to not get too much into the debate about this until I use it at least 3 months, but I don't want to be silent either. So far I'm getting a lot more growth than I thought I would at just 6 weeks. I have a small area in the back of my head that's had a few sparse hairs for years and I can't believe how much that is starting to fill in already. I'm getting new growth over the entire top of my head. Most of it is still very fine baby hairs, but it's only been 6 weeks. I'm even starting to get a few hairs in my hairline which will be great if that continues because it will really soften up a slightly pluggy old transplant. While I don't want to make final judgements on whether the laser comb works or not, I can say I'm definately leaning towards saying Feller is completely wrong on the subject. I'll let you know more in another few weeks.

One has to wonder if the reason they are no longer doing strip is because with the price getting down under $4 per graft it's no longer very profitable to do them compared to doing FUE which they can charge 3 times as much money for. Anyway... are they willing to hold the deposit for another year? I like M&M's idea about doing a small amount of FUE to use up the deposit, but I think I'd choose to do a strip procedure first with someone else and then 10 months to a year later go to Armani and use up the old deposit for a bit of FUE for fill in.

2. How many FUE procedures should a surgeon have carried out in order for one to feel comofortable with his level of competence? Just because someone may have performed a lot of procedures doesn't mean he/she will be better than someone else. For example, I've been typing on computer keyboards for years, but I will never do 60 words per minute like someone who spent some time in class learning how to type the right way. 4. Are all transplanted hairs guaranteed to grow in this procedure? All transplante hairs aren't guaranteed to grow with any procedure whether it'd done by strip or FUE. 5. are there any long term issues that one needs to be aware of with this procedure? My opinion is the total number of grafts that can be removed with FUE before the donor area is depleted is less than the amount that can be removed with strip. So if you end up with a lot more hairloss as the years progress, you will have been better off doing strip.

It's interesting that some people on these forums will spend several hundred dollars a year for propecia, minoxidil, etc and not really be sure how effective those are on their own hair, and even be wondering what the long term effects are and complaining about loss of libido, yet they refuse to spend $129 to try something that has no bad side effects. Here are some links to testamonials and proof: http://www.amazinglasercomb.com/test1.htm [url= ] [url=http://youtube.com/watch?v=F_K_P7CG5MU]http://youtube.com/watch?v=F_K_P7CG5MU

I occasionally trim my underarm hair because some of it grows to a length of 3 inches or more and thick. Wish I had that kind of hair on my head. I also trim a few hairs on my chest that tend to grow longer than the rest. I'd really like to get rid of the hair on my back and shoulders though. If I did a body hair transplant I'd remove my back and shoulder hair so even if the hair didn't grow on my head very well at least I got rid of the unwanted hair.

2 things to watch out for. 1. If we can't predict how much hair loss a person will eventually have, then we can't really predict the size of the safe area. For example, some men lose hair in a horseshoe pattern and then after the pattern seems to be well defined they start losing hair further down the back as the years go by. What looked like a large donor area later can turn out to be not so large. I think some gys who are NW 5 and have several HT sessions should be careful of this. Also, I think there's been a few pictures of scars that look to be too high in the donor area. Those are some that might end up being not in the "safe" area 10 years later. 2. When you have strip HT the area is pulled together and stapled or sutured closed. What happens is the remaining hair bearing skin on the sides and back will stretch to compensate. This pulls the remaining follicles in that area slightly further apart from each other. It won't make any real difference if you only have 1 or 2 strip surgeries, but 3 and 4 of them may start to thin the remaing area a bit. It's not much to care about at first, but could make more of a difference years later when/if that area starts to thin naturally as you age. Just a note. I have lost hair past my scars, so it does happen.

I was trying to stay away from taking pictures because it gets to be too much of a hassle to load them into the computer from the camera and then upload them somewhere. I don't want my hair to be my life. However I WILL take some before pics tomorrow because I do want to be able to show if it actually works or not. Be advised they may look a little ugly. I had some transplants long ago that never turned out right. I have a definate line of hair at the hairline from the HT, so if any new hairs grow in front of that you'll be able to tell easily.

What I would do: Stop taking it for 3 or 4 days to get it out of your system, so you can sort of start fresh. Then start taking a lower dose, either .5 every day or 1 every other day. I personally would go with every other day.

I've been "secretly" using a laser comb for just over 3 weeks now. I was trying to wait at least 2 months before making my first post of results. However since this topic is being debated now I'm posting today. First of all from everything I've read about laser therapy for hairloss I felt I was a good candidate for it. Supposedly a laser comb is best on areas that have some hair or at least some peach fuzz. I get a lot of hairs that grow long, but the individual hair shafts have stayed very thin over the years. I also get some small hairs that grow for only a few weeks or months and then fall out. I started using a laser comb (the one I have is actually a brush with 6 lasers in it) that I bought for a total of $116.45 including the shipping. For that price I felt it was worth a try especially considering I came to this site some months ago looking into getting body hair transplants to thicken some areas. That would have cost a heck of alot more and be more uncertain than testing a laser comb. So here's what happened so far. In just one week I could already feel my hair becoming softer and more manageable. First I thought it was too early for that and maybe I just had a few decent hair days, but the softness kept improving. After 3 weeks my hair is definately softer and more manageable and looks healthier and has a more full look to it. This alone is worth using the laser comb. Aren't we all trying to get our hair to look thicker? I can also see some of the tiny hairs that usually fall out shortly after they begin to grow to now be getting longer than they have been since I can't remember when. I even have 2 or 3 hairs growing in front of my transplanted hairline and I haven't seen that in a few years. I hardly get any hair fallout at all now. I can't wait to see how it progresses after a few more months. For the ones on this site who feel it doesn't work, you really should try it. For $116 it's worth testing. Some of you spend more than that on cover up products and stuff. I've been posting here long enough for you to know this isn't just some advertisement. I'll keep you updated on my progress. I do use proscar and nizoral shampoo, but I've been using both of those and ONLY those for over 10 years. I do feel that they've kept my hair intact as far as continuing to keep the fine hairs coming back after they fall out, but after 10 years almost any sudden new growth in areas that didn't have anything for those 10 years is not going to be because of those 2 products.

I wonder if he's still getting free Rogaine.

Even though I had some really horrible work done years ago, I still would not say that I wouldn't have a HT if I could do it over again. In fact I WOULD do it again... BUT... I would have gone to a real doctor (the one I went to turned out to be a fake and didn't have a medical license) and I would have insisted on doing it the way I wanted it rather than accepting any methods I felt were inferior. So if the question is: Would I go to the same place again? HELL NO! But would I try it again differently? Yes. I want hair.

You can view the norwood scale on this page: http://www.hairtransplantnetwork.com/Share-Info/hairloss-photos-byClass.asp? It goes from class 2 (slightly receding hairline) to class 7 (completely bald except for a fringe of hair around the side and back). Basically the higher number you are, the more hair you've lost. People who are low in the scale are generally better candidates for most hair restoration procedures whether it is a hair transplant or medical therapy (minoxidil, propecia, etc) because they have more hair to work with and less additional hair is needed for a full appearance. People at a level of 7 may not be able to get a full look because of the lack of hair still growing on their head and the amount of hair that would be required to restore a full appearance. Age also plays a factor since people who are thinning at a young age are sometimes losing hair at a fast rate and also have a lot of years of potential hair loss to go if medical therapies are unable to completely stop the progression of hairloss for an extended amount of years.

Something to think about: In 1989 there was an article in Men's Health magazine that said advances in hair transplants and other hair growth methods are happening so fast that within 5 years it wil be unnecessary and even unacceptable for anyone to be bald. They said that anyone who is bald after that time will be laughed at and looked down upon so much more than today because that person will be in such a minority since virtually everyone will have spent a few dollars to either grow all their hair back or to keep it and never even start to go bald (who wouldn't want to keep all their hair). It was in probably either the July or August 1989 issue. I remember it well because it was part of my research into getting a HT at the time. I had my first procedure done in September 1989. Again.... That was 1989. 18 years ago.... and we aren't really a whole lot closer than we were then. Just something to think about.