Janna

Number of you seem to be affected by the "pimples". Try applying a very warm compress(moist cloth) to the affected red areas couple times a day. This will bring about the puss like lesion to pop. A little antibiotic ointment (Bacitracin) should heal it right up. If they persist, ask your doctor if you can get antibiotics to help it clear up. One or two course of the meds should take care of it. Midiman, Try not to stress over the numbers, remember? You've gone through with the procedure, you did your homework and went to a great facility. The waiting is hard, but what more can you do at this point. Stay positive. Hang in there, it'll get much much better!

Hi NikkiJ, Dr. Shapiro actually uses the same chiseled blades as Dr. Wong. We have the same blade cutter, etc. The size he uses are the same as Dr. Wong's. The area of the study is always in the same area. I personally did not see any difference from one type of incision over the other. The study was mostly done in the central area of the head where most density is required. Same size incision for lateral and sagital incisions were made. Dr. Shapiro started making lateral incisions because it made sense to him that lateral incisions would bring about a greater look of density. I compare our work with Dr. Wong only since I have not seen for myself Dr. Hasson's work, though I've heard he is basically the same as Dr. Wong.

Hi Anant, I remember that marathon day as I was in Dr. Ron's surgery room working on a 3100gr. case. A question was raise by "so tired" a while back as to whether Dr. Paul used lateral incisions on you. The answer to that is "no". Dr. Paul uses acute sagital incisions only. He follows the direction of the existing hairs to determine the angle and direction. Our clinic has done extensive comparisions on both types of incisions to see which is more beneficial. The study is still ongoing, however, in Dr. Paul's opinion (and mine) there does not seem to be any difference after couple years worth of observations. Utilizing very small blades with proper angle for the incisions seem much more of a determining factor in getting great results. Thanks for posting all your pictures, you did a great job! Good luck to you.

Eugene, I can post your before pictures for you if you like. If you decide you'd like the assistance, PM your information to me so I can search for your pics in our files. Hope you're healing well. Normally it's hard having to wait for the new hairs to grow, but you have the added agony of letting go of your HP. Are you wearing your piece at all now? The less you wear the better for your grafts. Take care.

People here are not against HT. We are all against bad HT that are performed by doctors who should not be practicing. There are plenty of people who have had bad experiences. This Forum and other like it are formed to prevent bad work as it negatively alters a person's life. If you go to the best transplant doctor, and you are realistic about your expectations, you will be better off with a HT. The hairloss is bothering you to the point where it criples your everyday life, so start your search. I think Jakevig has great advice and suggestions if you read all his postings. He really has your best interest at heart. I would not recommend the doctor you previously talked about. He gave you some misinformation. Good luck. I'm rooting for you!

Just from the pic it looks like you could use a small session. You'd have to have a proper consultation to get the actual number of grafts needed. I hope you heed the advice of many people from this Forum and go with a reputable doctor.

What a transformation. Very nice work. It's not just the hair though, you look like a different person. Maybe it's the spark in your eyes. Congrats to the girl!

One last pic

This is the only way I know how to post pics until I speak to Pat H. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Here's another pic

I'm sorry I haven't had time to post the crown pictures. I've been very busy in surgery. Here are some before and after pics of the crown. It's hard to make the crown really dense when you need the precious grafts for the front or top. Dr. Shapiro will only be aggressive with the crown if a patient is not in danger of losing hair elsewhere on the head.

Troy, I totally agree with you. I mentioned our webpage and the deficiency of pictures to Dr. Shapiro this morning, he said our webpage is getting updated shortly. Make sure you stop by to say hi to me. I saw your pictures the other day. The real short hair cut is a great look for you.

Maybe you're just not ready for a HT at this point. You should really look into every other option and look into HT if it's something you really want and you are ready for it. The thing not to do is stress over the situation (this could lead to hairloss). You're obviously doing some research on the topic, just try not let it consume you. Good luck.

Midiman, We "pair up" grafts on many occassions. If you use the one's to fill the frontal hairline and have extra ones left, the doctor might decide to pair two ones into one incision to give you more density rather than make two incisions for the two one's (I hope that made sense). Dr. Keene does great work and she knows how to get the max out of your donor. I'm sure you will be happy with the outcome.

This is really the first time I've heard where a patient felt they were worse off for trying Propecia. I've seen great results with Propecia for myself and the feedback on it has aways been either positive or neutral. Our clinic always recommend that a patient stays on it for at least one year. Again, I've never heard being on Propecia for couple months would cause permanent damage to hairs or follicles. I second JakeVig's opinion. Not being on Propecia myself, I have to go with the voice of the experienced.

Mrjb, The topic you brought up has been and will again be the "hot topic" at the next International HT Conference in San Diego. Forums such as this and the conferences are great to get the dialogue going. There's much to debate about. It's almost too overwhelming to speak your opinion. You and Bushy seem very much in line with my kind of thinking. You definately need to think about the future and not use up all the donor since it's in limited supply. Careful planning is a must.

Rashomon, I will post some crown work photos for you tomorrow when I get into the office. Dr Shapiro has done countless crown work. It is more rare to just do crown. I'll also try to work on our website to provide more crown work results. I think the doctors mentioned so far in your posting all do great crown work.

Just to clarify myself and my comments, these postings are my personal opinions and beliefs from my years of experience with SMG. I believe the HT industy as a whole is vastly improving and I'm very happy about that. I believe in our work and Dr. Shapiro. I know there are very good clinics out there, and again, I'm very happy about that too and it's never my intention to discredit other HT work out there.

I stand by my statement because there may be few other doctors that can put just as many, but not more. Dr. Shapiro utilizes a state of the art magnification system that allows him to make the smallest incisions in betweens the existing hairs to not harm the follicles. He takes a great deal of time making these incisions. He generally gets 40/50gr per cm2. He can do more if he feels it's safe. We don't get negative feedback from patients who feel there's been damage done to existing hairs even with the dense packing.

You can either send a "private message" from the forum, or you can send an email to me at: janna@shapiromedical.com Looking forward to hearing from you.

Don't worry about the typo's, it's still readable. If you want to send a pm with your address, I can send out our info packet to you. It'll save you a step. Then you can call to set up a time with Matt to get every one of your questions answered.

Hairraising, FYI, the cost of the graftcyte kit is $250.00 I also forgot to mention that due to the small incisions, dense packing and quick healing is the norm. After the healing, it is pretty much undectable.

It's no problem, glad to answer your questions. Yes, Dr. Shapiro does dense packing when possible/appropriate. There's no one who can pack more than Dr. Shapiro when he feels it's necessary. Does he always feel it's safe? NO. There a Graftcyte kit that includes shampoo/conditioner, pads, sprays, and Iamin gel that you're probably referring to. There a product called Mederma that works in place of Iamin gel, which you can get over the counter.

You have brought up some very good questions. I'll try to answer each one carefully. 1) No, you don't have to have your hair cut short to have a transplant. We can work around your existing hairs, especially if you need it to camouflage the tranplant. 2) Shock loss hairs do grow back. There's shedding and there's shockloss: shedding is when the transplanted hairs shed within the first couple months after a transplant (approx. 70% of transplanted hairs shed) this process happens for most patients. Of course all the hairs grow back at about 3 1/2 months after post-op. The shockloss of existing hairs happen on an occasion, but these hairs grow back as well (typically at the same time as tranplanted hairs). You may have some thinning after a transplant, you should not look bald in the transplanted area even if you have some shedding and shockloss. 3) You may have to define "noticeable" a little bit more clearly. Most of our patients who have hairline work done have expressed how great and natural it looks immediately after surgery. There's slight shading of redness for couple days, however, if you have some existing hairs (frontal tuft) like you mentioned, it should not be too noticeable. I cannot guarantee anything as it also vary between each patient. 4) The best of the best procedure: I would elect having the linear strip harvested with tricophytic closure. I would also take Propecia and use Rogaine. I would consult with the best transplant doctor known for hairline work.

The shedding of the transplanted hairs start at approx. 2 two weeks post op to 2 1/2 months post op. Being on Rogaine and Propecia will help you retain a lot of your tranplanted hairs. At least that's the feedback we've been getting from our patients. I usually tell our patients to expect 70% loss of transplanted hairs. If you retain more, look at it as a bonus. The main thing is not to look in the mirror to count each hairs or compare if you've kept the density. That's putting extra unnecessary stress on yourself.