John & Kate plus 8

[kman]

My wife watches this reality show about a couple who had twins and then had sextuplets. If anything could make your hair fall out it would be having 8 children all under 5, which brings me to my comment. My wife said on last nights episode the husband went to a transplant doctor to get a consult and have the HT. I'm hoping he goes to a coalition doc since if he gets butchered it might scare off some people considering it, that is if any men watch that show . On the flip side, if it looks great in a year it may help people to go for it. Has a lot of potential, one way or the other.

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

No wonder my hair started falling

You sure you werent watching . Its ok .

Heck I couldnt sleep last night and there was nothing on tv and I ended up watching 3 silly shows back to back

Runs house

Rob and big

Keepin up with the kardashians.

Now thats embarrassing to admit

[Dewayne]

Originally posted by kman:

My wife watches this reality show about a couple who had twins and then had sextuplets. If anything could make your hair fall out it would be having 8 children all under 5, which brings me to my comment. My wife said on last nights episode the husband went to a transplant doctor to get a consult and have the HT. I'm hoping he goes to a coalition doc since if he gets butchered it might scare off some people considering it, that is if any men watch that show . On the flip side, if it looks great in a year it may help people to go for it. Has a lot of potential, one way or the other.

 

If I were Dr. Feller or one of the others, I'd immediately call and offer to do it for him for free. Think of the publicity you could get from that.

[kman]

PGP, I might have watched one or two episodes, but that's it, I swear!

Dewayne, I think it might already be a freebie since they have limited means, plus alot of suppliers offer their goods and services free in return for the publicity on the show, which is quite popular...or so I've been told. I wouldn't know since I rarely watch.

[Byehair]

uughhhh!

If this guy thinks he needs a transplant, then I am in trouble. His hair looks great.

 

Maybe I need to load some woman with fertility drugs, knock her up and then wait for all the freebies.

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

PGP, I might have watched one or two episodes, but that's it, I swear!

 

See dont you feel better now. Only a real man can be secure enough to realize and admit that the small amount of estrogen all men have can take over once or twice a year.

Yeah I heard hes going to Armani for 4500 hairline grafts

[dakota3]

Posted June 04, 2008 12:56 PM Hide Post

uughhhh!

If this guy thinks he needs a transplant, then I am in trouble. His hair looks great.

 

Maybe I need to load some woman with fertility drugs, knock her up and then wait for all the freebies

 

I've seen this show and he definitly could benefit from a HT. He must be wearing a concealer in this pic!

[hairthere]

I'm pretty sure this family gets public aid. if that's true it means the tax payers are paying for his ht....

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

Dr Rassman performed it and offered it for free.

Well at least that what my girl said

[dakota3]

Ya after the surgery John slammed a winter hat over his head and they rush him back into the room to fix some grafts.

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

I only caught part of it but I did see that .What an idot. What a life .Cute kids though

[Eman]

I also caught the tail end of the show and was definitely not impressed by Dr. Rassman's work. You can see that Jon's need for a much bigger session is very evident by the various camera angles throughout the end of the program.

 

He received 1800 grafts for free and was told he would need another session. In my opinion, he should have received a minimum of 3000+ for at least two sessions. I am not a doctor, however, his need is a lot more than what he received. The whole time I was thinking, only 1800 grafts?!?

 

By the way, that picture that was attached above of Jon is at an angle/lighting/concealer/whatever that makes it seem as though he has a full head of hair which is misleading.

 

I was not impressed overall and am curious to see his results in a year as I am sure he won't either. Try to catch the show if you can...

[Arrie]

After I read this thread in the same day my sister told me about this episode cause she knew I had this done, anyways the procedure looked pretty sub par (# of grafts) but one thing we should get Bill to do is find the video of when he put the winter hat on that truly show what a lost/dislodged graft looks like, the oozing of the blood etc... See you learn something new everyday.

[hairthere]

I'd rather pay premium for my surgery to get it done right than to get a half-assed free one...i've not been impressed with rassman's work either..

[Bill - Seemiller]

What is everyone referring to? I'm not familiar with "John & Kate plus 8" however, somehow we seem to be discussing someone's dissatisfaction with Dr. Rassman's work. Did "John" have a transplant with Dr. Rassman? The photo above looks quite good - haven't seen any other photos.

 

Sadly, I haven't seen any of Dr. Rassman's results very recently presented on our forum by his clinic or any of his patients, but the majority I have seen looks first-rate.

 

I will send an email to Dr. Rassman asking him to present some recent results for the community.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[Eman]

Bill-

 

The show is on TLC and called Jon & Kate Plus 8. They are playing re-runs all the time. The title of the episode is "Jon's Hair Raising Experience" (2008).

 

I did not see the beginning of the episode but will try to as it is on this afternoon at 4:00 pm (CST) on TLC (5:00pm your time) and I am working from home today.

 

My concern with his procedure is the amount of grafts and the after care where one of the techs (could be one of the docs) basically said it would be ok to wear a knit hat the next day. It kind of caught me off guard as I know the first 7-10 days are crucial where the grafts truly take hold.

 

Also the picture above is not a true reflection of the density of his hair. That picture makes his hair look good--we all know how we can be decieved by pictures. When you see the show you will see that he is really thin throughout the whole top of his head. He clearly needed a larger session, not a typical mill size session that he received.

 

Sorry all, I just am kind of upset that when HTs get exposure on national television and the doc has a chance to really showcase modern HT technology and the potential for awesome results, I feel the job was average at best and the results I am worried won't be all that good for Jon. I know that he will need more sessions, but like he said in the show he does not have the money for this type of thing and this was offered for free (clear advertising for the doc). What happens when Jon is no longer on TV and needs at least two more sessions?? A "standalone" HT is not what he received (defintion-if another HT was not desired, the first one could stand alone without being noticeable to others). I know that Rassman is recommended here and the session was free and all, but I am not convinced that the plan here was a good one.

 

Will write more once I see the entire show this afternoon...

[Arrie]

Eman I couldn't agree more with your points. The techs and I believe even a doc said it was pretty much ok after the first day do almost anything kinda scary, but guys we aren't your average Joe pt, thank God. One thing I don't get if the doc wanted some real good publicity why didn't he do a mega session it just doesn't make sense, his procedure in total only lasted 6 hours. They probably had someone else lined up right after. I hope it turns out for him.

[Dr. William Rassman1530037930]

Response to comments on the Jon and Kate Plus Eight show:

 

In this patient (Jon), I agreed to do the surgery in exchange for the opportunity to get some public exposure and the opportunity fell my way. In a year or so, if he still had the show, he will return to our office (all recorded I am sure on his show) and so we will all be able to see his results. The show's producers were in charge of the presentation, the heavy emphasis on the pain focus (which was mostly theatrical) and the way the show was put together. If the show folded tomorrow, I would follow him through the entire transplant process at my cost, no matter how many surgeries it took provided that it was in the interest of the patient.

 

I see from the various comments on this forum that the opinions on the Jon and Kate show vary from (1) he had so much hair that he should not have had a hair transplant, to (2) we did not do enough grafts it should have been 3000 or more. First you should know that he has a Norwood Class 4 balding pattern with his hairline recession up about 1 inch in the center and 2 inches up on the sides from where his mature hairline belongs. What is left of his forelock was very weak and needed considerable reinforcement with transplants. I know that it is easy to criticize what was done from the sidelines as some of you did, but without information at hand, it is best to write to me to ask me directly (wrassman@newhair.com). I will address a number of points related to the number of grafts I transplanted on him. He is half Asian, but his hair density was all Asian which means that the densities were low. Asians have 80% of the densities of Caucasians. There was a substantial reduction of densities on the sides above and slightly in front of the ears, so the reasonableness to take a longer strip (I did a strip of 22cm) would not have been a medically prudent decision so I decided not to extend the strip beyond the 22cm length. The strip width measured 1.8 cm which is a reasonable strip width and the laxity of the scalp easily handled that width. Anyone who understands the way densities are calculated, can back calculate what the densities were on this patient (I published the methods to measure hair density in 1993). If any doctor were to take out a longer or wider strip on this patient to get as many as 3,000 grafts, I doubt that the patient would have done well (exposing the patient to possible necrosis and to a traumatic telogen effluvium).

 

Many of the readers may not know about my experience with large hair transplant sessions (megasessions), dense packing, Follicular Unit Transplantation or the science of hair density measurements. I performed the first 2000 graft session in late 1992, the first 3000 and 4000 graft sessions in 1993 and published these milestones in the Hair Transplant Forum. I believe I coined the term dense packing and was heavily criticized by the hair transplant community for both the megasession surgeries and dense packing and these criticism were also published in the Hair Transplant Forum in 1993-5 time-frame. I have been doing these Megasessions and dense packing techniques since 1993 routinely and most doctors who do them today would credit me with the practical breakthroughs in this area. With Dr. Bernstein, we were the first to identify the procedure we called Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) and adopted Dr. Limmer's technique of microscopic dissection, publishing many articles on FUT in peer reviewed journals dating back to 1995. The editors of the journal felt that our work would become the Standard of Care for all time and I am proud that the hair transplant network has taken the flag for our technique. My focus in 1992 on hair density measurement is noteworthy with the patent of the video recording device granted to me (I do not enforce that patent) and the first journal article on the subject which was published by me in 1993. Worthy of note are (1) my cv (can be seen listing almost all of my publications on these subject [ http://www.newhair.com/info/doctor-rassman-cv.asp ], and (2) the Forum's Pioneer of the Month from earlier this year with review of many of my contributions over my career (see: http://www.baldingblog.com/2008/02/08/dr-rassman-named-...-the-month-by-ishrs/ }. I don't doubt that I do speak with authority on these particular subjects and I would hope that Pat Hennessey would comment on my experience in this area. Enough touting my own horn and for that I appologize.

 

There seems to be an epidemic of large session hair transplants sessions that are reported to be common and increasing in frequency. This seems to be new in this industry. Hasson and Wong popularized my original megasessions and others are now touting expertise in this arena possibly because they may have felt left out by not doing them. I personally feel that those doctors that start doing these large sessions may be putting their patients at risk in many ways. I personally do not believe that it is reasonable to put 3000+ grafts in the first 1 ??“ 1 ?? cm of hairline and certainly it is not possible on many patients. I also do not believe that many patients will safely yield 3000+ grafts so I am mystified by the reports of such numbers unless the follicular units are being divided up into one hair grafts (then they are no longer FUT of course). I must therefore conclude that there is some lack of honesty with some doctors who routinely report performing surgeries of this magnitude through their websites and in their P/R efforts. If one were to transplant just one session of 3000 graft in a person with average density all in the first inch or so of the hairline, that might not leave enough hair for future hair loss (ignoring what I call a reasonable Master Plan for hair loss) and it may reflect greedy doctors interested in filling their wallets rather than perform what is in the best interests of their patients.

 

I read this forum with interest and what I particularly like is that the readers who comment on the material presented try hard to understand the technical nuances of the various procedures, but at times those comments are slow to find their way to these pages. For those of you who want to see photos of my work and who complain that I do not show our results assuming that I do not have photos available, you can see well over 300 of them between two of my websites http://www.newhair.com/next/hair-restoration-photos.asp . or http://www.baldingblog.com .

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

Thats a HUGE slap in the face to Hasson and Wong. They have been accused of splitting grafts for numbers before but no one ever proved it .

On the other hand a poster just commented how a patient of yours or newhair had many doubles in the hairline. I would pray that they

split plenty of grafts into ones for the hairline. A four thousand graft session by them with more grafts split into ones would double the density and create a totally undectable hairline for the same price as 1800 grafts with you.

I respect what you have done but dont agree with you on megasessions . I cant qoute textbook studies for you but I do have 20/10 vision and have seen a thousand 3000 and up sessions that are incredible with a 1-2 mm scar. I do agree that 3000 grafts in the hairline should be a crime.

[Dewayne]

Originally posted by Dr. Bill Rassman:

 

There seems to be an epidemic of large session hair transplants sessions that are reported to be common and increasing in frequency. This seems to be new in this industry. Hasson and Wong popularized my original megasessions and others are now touting expertise in this arena possibly because they may have felt left out by not doing them. I personally feel that those doctors that start doing these sessions

 

PGP, I didn't take it as a slap at H&W, but the imitators who followed............

[Bill - Seemiller]

Well you've all definitely peaked my curiousity to watch the show. Whether or not I'll get around to it is another story.

 

Thanks to Dr. Rassman for posting. There is no doubt that he is one of the pioneers in the industry and one of the first to perform larger hair transplant megasessions.

 

According to Dr. Rassman, this patient benefited from his first session being smaller due to his donor hair characteristics and to reduce the risk of post hair transplant telogen effluvium (shock loss). I have yet to see any pictures of "John" except for the one above where he looks good. I suppose I'll just have to watch the show.

 

Dr. Rassman,

 

In addition to your comments here, I encourage you to get more involved here by posting the occasional patient result in the "hair transplant patient photo albums" forum. I know you are quite busy updating your website and writing on your balding blog daily however, it would be to everyone's benefit if you share your work here once in awhile too.

 

Creating a photo album is easy and takes about 10 minutes. Posting results once a month would be enough for members and guests to start recognizing the quality of your work.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[PLEASE GROW PLEASE]

Looks like a slap in the face to me.

[M&M]

Originally posted by PLEASE GROW PLEASE:

Looks like a slap in the face to me.

 

That's how I read it also. Dr. Rassman stated "I also do not believe that many patients will safely yield 3000+ grafts so I am mystified by the reports of such numbers unless the follicular units are being divided up into one hair grafts"

 

If this isn't implying that H&W splits grafts, I'm not sure what it is saying.

[Bill - Seemiller]

I think sometimes we ought not to try to read too much into what others say.

 

The words "splitting grafts" weren't even mentioned by Dr. Rassman. It appears that he is speaking from his experience and in his opinion. Clearly other physicians will see things differently. It might make for an intellectual and medical debate .

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[PCC]

There is a marathon of episodes going on now "as we speak". My wife and I had never seen it before and just happened to stumble on to it while flipping channels this evening.

 

You guys weren't kidding about Jon's hairloss. His balding is readily apparent throughout the top and crown especially in scenes outdoors. Yes, I agree that he will need more than just an initial proceedure of 1800 grafts as well as getting on propecia to hopefully supress further loss. That portrait looks nothing like him and there must have been use of a concealer, different lighting, or the photo otherwise touched up. I have the same issue. In some pictures over the years my hair looks OK and others I just want to throw out.

 

Not sure about the sequencing of the episodes. One tonight had a Halloween theme so I would expect it took place last fall. I didn't see any indication of Jon having had a proceedure so I imagine these were shot before. In another(where they took they children back to the hospital where they were born for a reunion of sorts)he had a fresh haircut.

 

Jon is not the only one to have benefitted from a donated cosmetic proceedure. Another episode tonight centered around Kate undergoing a "tummy tuck" to get rid of the excess loose flabby tissue secondary to her childbearing. This included a recuperation stay at the affluent home of the plastic surgeon and his wife. Must be nice!

 

Oh well, you can't help but fall in love with the kids!

 

Phil