Unhappy patients

[EmuSteve]

Just curious what everyone thinks of this site:

 

http://home1.gte.net/dschrode/newtransplant-tales.htm

[EmuSteve]

Just curious what everyone thinks of this site:

 

http://home1.gte.net/dschrode/newtransplant-tales.htm

[nobuzz4me]

Steve, good find, I read thru a lot of the patients stories which are a little like mine. I had 50 large plugs put in around 1981.

 

Now 2 HT's later with some additional plug repair, I have a pretty natural hairline, planning one more for working midscalp and maybe crown donor willing.

 

There is hope in repair work for these type patients. Many of the coalition docs spend a portion of their surgery's on repair cases.

 

 

Those stories are from patient who were butchered with old techniques mostly in the 1980's and 90's. The new techniques are not even a fair comparison they are so much superior to the butcher shops back then. You newbies should not be afraid if you see a great surgeon.

 

 

Not to scare anyone but check out this link which details a gruesome history of HT from the old days.

 

http://www.angelfire.com/indie/hairtransplant/plaintruth.html

 

Remember the internet could have saved a lot of us older guys (I am 48) from the kind of info we got back then.

 

 

If I were to do it over again with todays techniques, YES, todays techniques with the best surgeons are very natural. You young guys are lucky to get the info you get from this site! ONLY GO TO THE BEST SURGEONS AND STAY AWAY FROM THE PROFIT DRIVEN HAIRMILLS!

[Middleson]

Oh man, it's heartbreaking reading some of those stories.

 

I remember making a few calls to the hair mills before my own HT...felt more like a sales call than a professional consultation. Maybe I'm lucky I happened to reach someone who gave me that impression. I can understand how someone might be slick enough to pass themselves off as "professional" when the real truth might be something different.

[EmuSteve]

I found this "horror" story on these forums about one of our coalition docs, if you can believe it. Who knows, maybe as it gets closer to the time for me to take the big plunge, I just get more and more nervous.

 

http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/146...861/m/7006097391/p/2

 

What do you guys think of poet's story?

[EmuSteve]

Nobuzz, I just looked at that link. The language in those old adds sounds frighteningly familiar...

 

*shudders*

[mrkneed]

http://home1.gte.net/dschrode/newtransplant-tales.htm

 

 

I believe this site to be a scam!! They provide other alternatives to HT's - that is what the site is selling. Trying to discourage anybody from having an HT.

[nobuzz4me]

Mrkneed,

 

It is possible but they do not in the letters advocate hair club instead, most say just go bald and shave it.

 

Again, the letters and the stories are old and involve guys who got plugged instead of refined work of today. I think the guys letters are real since I could relate to them having gone thru that era.

 

The guys aren't saying I wish I never got an HT and went to HairClub sooner.

[MrJobi]

A shame

 

It goes to show you there are some really poor doctors out there. In addition, there are always risks involved with any type of surgery. Patients have to keep this in mind whenever they go under the knife.

 

However, these days, it is pretty an out patient procedure with excellent results when you choose the rigth doc and have realistic expectations.

[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.

[Al - Moderator]

Back then they all told you how great the procedure would be. The booklets I received said you would get a completely full head of hair, no scars (I even paid $150 per session for a guarantee of no scars), unlimited donor hair because the hair continues to grow in those areas, etc., etc. The L.I. Medical Associates claims were so much more full of lies and exaggerations than the CHC/Puig booklet, but the CHC booklet showed a lot of guys with full heads of hair, but no before pictures of any of them, so you have to wonder if they really had hair transplants.

 

I know L.I. Medical did show fake photos and I know other places did too. That's how it was back then. They would show a guy with a great hairline and tell you how realistic they can make a hairline, but what you don't know is that person only had grafts in the crown and the hairline you're looking at IS his real natural hairline. Thee was another one when they showed so-called amazing results with their new technique that they had just started and the picture was a picture I had seen in one of their booklets years earlier.

 

Unfortunately the damage had already been done on me by the time I found out most of this (you didn't realize it until you experienced it and kept seeing the newer brochures and booklets and then you realize they are lying to everyone). There was no internet back then to find out about this stuff.

 

I had consultations with 2 places and both gave similar estimates, but I could have gone to 10 and still would have gotten the same general claims. The ONLY people doing hair transplants in those days were con artists. There was no way to get a good result, so anyone Dr who actually cared about a patient wasn't doing HTs.

 

If you remember Grace's posts about Bosley she tried to say the technology wasn't there 15 or 20 years ago, so you can't hold that against the Bosely clinics today. Well YES I CAN! If Bosely admits the technology wasn't there then why was he doing them and claiming they are so great!? Just because technology has caught up to his claims over the years does not mean we should all suddenly trust him!

[Guest josh - b]

That site is obviously just an advertisement for hair weaves and one particular hair weave company that they have provided a link to.

[For_Indai]

Yes!!!!! That site is a Scalm ...which discourage everyone..But it is hard to find out the link for hair system.But it is there...in this way they suceeded in confusing people and promoting hair system.

When I was 23 and I was about to go for a HT [i was just strted lossing little hair at temple].

Then I did my final search to see the failure of HT and came across this site.One good thing they did is they stopped me having HT at young age...I learned a lot [especially from this site] now I prepared myself to accept and wait untill I am 30 [now 25]

[Guest wanthairs]

hey emu.......

 

I found that same site the day after I came home after my hair transplant and nearly shat my pants in horror.....Needless to say after reading it a few times I realised those were very old procedures of which we all know are pretty disgraceful. With regards to myself, my head is filling in very naturaly and I cannot wait for procudure number two which is going ot be eithe r with Dr. ROse, Epstein or H+W.

[Guest wanthairs]

And then, it will be a final number 3 procedure. Anyone who hasnt sen me for a few weeks is shocked at how fast my head is filling in from being a lighthouse before.....

[Al - Moderator]

The site listed in the first post of this thread is not a scam. It's just a very old site that was originally put up I think sometime in the mid 90's. I remember seeing this site way back when I was on the hairloss newsgroups before Pat decided to start this site. The guy had a really bad hair transplant and eventually decided his best option was to get a hair system. What is so wrong with promoting an option that you are using? Aren't we all doing that here in our signatures? We post what doctors we went to and how great we think the result was. I made my signature a few weeks ago about my laser comb usage.

 

All those horrible posts on the site are because that's how hair transplants were in those days. There was hardly ever anyone who was happy with it. Look at some of the people who go for repair work now. If you had a HT like that wouldn't you maybe start thinking about a hair system to cover it up?

 

I never posted a link on here to my own site I've had for 10 years now because it too is mostly a very old site, but here goes for comparison

http://members.aol.com/LongScars/

[TheHairLossCure]

(A little off the topic of the posted link, but hopefully relevant...)

There are at least two types of unhappy patients. One type is unhappy because the surgical results are substandard. The second type is unhappy because the result, while good, did not meet their expectations. This raises the question ??“ why are some (good) results not meeting expectations? One reason is that the patient's expectation is too high based on information acquired outside of the clinic that did the surgery. Another reason is that clinic personnel may have lead the patient to believe that the result would be better in order to make a "sale." In either case, it is a big problem. Aside from doing great surgery, it is crucial that clinics honestly educate the patients, setting expectations in advance.

[calvinmd]

The stuff about "unnatural hairlines" and "pluggy looking grafts" are related to older HT methods that the good docs won't mess with.

 

The stuff about donor scarring & young HTs & running out of donor hair before the job is finished is just as relevant now as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

 

Finasteride has worked to brighten the outlook and reduced the odds of at least some of these situations. (Among those who can tolerate the stuff, anyway.) The posters on those messages are almost all gonna have weathered their 20s & 30s without any DHT blockers, and that's by far the worse time for hair damage.

 

 

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[Guest wanthairs]

Needless to say, It still is pretty terrifying, those old ads do sound eerily familiar to what some of our top surgeons claim. I wonder what happend to "Poet" the guy that claimed a disaster with Dr. Bernstein.......

[EmuSteve]

Yeah, poet was the one who made me think the most, because he went to a coalition doctor.

 

Does anyone know what happened? Did Pat investigate it at the time? What did Dr. Bernstein say? Thats a very serious allegation. A 1 inch scar is a HUGE deal, and its obvious what effect it had on the poor guy.

[EmuSteve]

Also, behappy, thank you for sharing your site. I'm just curious... as someone who had an (obviously) terrible experience from 89-94 and thereafter, what do you think of the procedures today? How would you rate the quality of work being preformed now, as opposed to back then?

 

It must be hard for you to trust docs today after what happened in the past.... but with all that Doc's are doing today that they were'nt before, do you?

[NervousNelly]

Guys,

 

I believe that it is very important for all of us to research the hell out of everything prior to a HT, but to dwell on the negative is not healthy.

 

What we all can't lose sight of is that this is a serious surgery. Things will happen unfortunately that are unpredictable for the surgeon. Even the best of the best likely have some cases where things don't go according to plan. I can think of some cases that involve some of our coalition physicians. It happens. Even the best cardiac surgeons encounter complications.

 

Do lots of research. Find a good, reputable doc and if you want to go forward with things then schedule your appt. If you don't want to take a risk (although very small) then don't pursue a HT. Anyone telling you that there is absolutely no chance of anything going wrong is lying to you.

 

Just in other cosmetic surguries, there are many that are ecstatic with their results and some that would never recommend anyone go ahead with things. In the hands of a top physician you will lessen odds of complications, but they still do exist unfortunately. Lets point that out to people, but try to avoid scaring people also.

 

NN

[EmuSteve]

I agree. I don't think we should intentionally scare people, and I don't think we should try to dwell on the negative.

 

I do think we should be open an honest about the truth though NN. People asking questions and hitting a "if you aren't willing to take the risk, don't go forward" line isn't the best approach in my opinion.

 

No one is witch hunting, but this is a place where we can ask open questions and get the open truth, unless I'm wrong. If Dr. B made a mistake, he should own up to it. Pat should check it out and tell us what he found out.

 

I've seen other reputable Dr's do that, like Dr. Hasson. He did surgery on a patient that he admitted he shouldn't have. That doesn't make him any less reputable... in fact, in my opinion, it makes him more reputable, because now we know exactly what went on with that situation.

 

Let's not dismiss people wanting to know the truth.

[MrJobi]

Surgery is a serious event

 

People should always do research when contemplating any medical procedure involving cutting..

[NervousNelly]

Steve,

 

I'm not saying to not seek out the truth. I just believe that people should understand the possible complications, but seek out the success stories and go with those surgeons.

 

NN