slightly dubious about Dr Woods

[homer]

Reason being that on his site he seems to say that strip excision kills many follicles in the harvesting process, this i believe is untrue. Furthermore he also says he lets the patient tell him where to put the grafts during surgery; this dos not seem very wise. shouldnt the DR be telling the patient where he would advise the grafts to go, to help prepare for future loss? Also this is not my opinion, but i think many people may be put off becaue he is Australian and people usually associate the newest technology with the U.S. So they may wonder if it is such a great procedure why have none of the american docs been preforming it, those that do have only recently started to do so. Furthermore DR Bernstein is reported to have said that the technique wastes more follicles than the strip procedure. so at this junture i am undecided on this doc. but open to other views of course.

[homer]

Reason being that on his site he seems to say that strip excision kills many follicles in the harvesting process, this i believe is untrue. Furthermore he also says he lets the patient tell him where to put the grafts during surgery; this dos not seem very wise. shouldnt the DR be telling the patient where he would advise the grafts to go, to help prepare for future loss? Also this is not my opinion, but i think many people may be put off becaue he is Australian and people usually associate the newest technology with the U.S. So they may wonder if it is such a great procedure why have none of the american docs been preforming it, those that do have only recently started to do so. Furthermore DR Bernstein is reported to have said that the technique wastes more follicles than the strip procedure. so at this junture i am undecided on this doc. but open to other views of course.

[Guest]

I want to respond to this because I'm also interested in, but have questions/concerns about, Dr. Woods.

 

As to strip excision killing many follicles, I think this is probably true. Not only would dragging a scalpel across a multitude of follicles cut and kill them (and these follicles being ones you obviously would not expect to be excised, therefore they are wasted -- don't even continue to grow in the donor area), but apparently the longer follicles stay outside the scalp, the greater chances that some will dry up and die "on the operating table" so to speak. Like a flower picked from the tree -- it ain't gonna survive very long without being replanted.

 

So, if you pick ONE follicle, or follicular UNIT containing a few hairs, and transplant it right away, I believe the success rate is going to be much higher -- assuming the transplanted follicle wasn't transected/damaged on extraction. (You can't replant a broken flower.)

 

As for the patient having some input into placement, I say "YEAH!" Not that I think I know MORE about design than a doctor...but, then again, looking at the designs some doctors have INFLICTED on their victims...er, PATIENTS, I tend to think I at least know what I do NOT want.

 

I think I'd have a talk with the doc before surgery, telling him what I want and eliciting his feedback (actually I'd do this in the research phase, which actually I'm TRYING to do, if only I could get a REPLY from Dr. Woods!). Then I'd let him go to work, with the added "security" that if he were about to place a hair in the exact center of my forehead I could say -- "AAAHH, hey, what's up, doc? NOT there!"

 

As for the U.S. leading the world in technological advancements, well, thank you "Scotty." (I see you're from Scotland, sorry for the crap Star Trek joke at your expense.) But I live in L.A. and I have travelled the world and can assure you that a number of countries in Europe have very advanced technologies, and in some areas so does Japan (though Japan's is mainly limited to a narrow electronics scope and hardly includes the latest in medical, environmental/ecological, or agricultural advances).

 

Besides, we're not talking ROCKET SCIENCE here -- we're talking about the best manual method of picking out a hair, or hairs, from someone's scalp and moving them to another part of said scalp. At the end of the day, any qualified doc with an imagination, in any country, can develop a new technique. What matters is whether it really WORKS, and I don't think we need consider nationality in the evaluation process.

 

I think Arfy has also contributed much to your questions/concerns. He, too, at one point, talked about how a strip excision damages follicles. Simply put -- the strippers (haha!) are more invasive. More cutting, more ripping of sinew and flesh, equals more dead hairs. That's it.

 

And Arfy has had something good to say vis-a-vis why U.S. doctors have been slow to adopt the Woods/FUE technique -- profit. Shit, think about it. Car companies develop new hybrid and solar-powered and fuel-cell-powered cars all the time; you see them at auto shows every bloody year (have been since the Sixties!). But do we stop lusting for oil? Just look at the situation in Iraq for the answer to THAT question.

 

Point? A new, better technology does NOT necessarily mean the industry (HT, auto, take your pick) adopts it widely.

 

After all, you CAN buy a fuel-cell-powered car that drives JUST as fast as a gas-guzzling SUV. You just pay through the nose (and other orafaces) for the priviledge.

 

Until U.S. cosmetic surgeons figure out a way to make as much or more money from FUE as they do from strip (and remember some docs STILL don't even do strip because they make more with SUPER EASY plug "technology"), you just WON'T see it widely adopted, or, hence, more cheaply offered.

 

(You WILL find it more cheaply offered by those on their learning curve, though... Be careful.)

 

As for what Dr. Bernstein reported, all I can say is I have NO idea. Could be true. But I just can't see HOW. I mean, if I hand-pick my carrots, I know exactly how many I'm picking and I have a closer view of those that are wasted, can keep better track. If I "harvest" my carrots with a bulldozer, I just can't see the wheels NOT crushing a few of those orange veggies in the process.

 

Pic

[arfy]

To add to what Pic said, Australia actually does lead the way in certain technologies, for example computer special effects for the film industry. All of the effects (or most of the effects, certainly) for "The Matrix" were done in Australia, where "the Matrix" was filmed. This is just one example.

 

Dr. Bernstein caught a lot of flak for his comments, and probably with good cause... he has admitted later that he doesn't know what Dr. Woods is doing, exactly. So his comments were unfair.

 

Doctors doing strip excision say that they can avoid damaging follicles when making their incision... as long as the scalpel is travelling in a straight line. But the scalpel needs to curve in at the end of the strip (forming an oval shape or an "ellipses") in order to bring the top and bottom incision together. I believe that it is probably inevitable that follicles get damaged when the scalpel "closes the loop" on the oval and doesn't travel in a straight line anymore. Also, the sutures themselves can infringe on living follicles, when the missing gap is sutured together. Probably a minor amount of damage, but damage all the same.