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3,500 FUE w/ Dr. Armani


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I know many have different thoughts about Armani. But I truly think he and his staff are first class. They really took care of every concern I have. I know many feel he can be a little agressive for younger men, but that is really what I was after. Below is the address to my recent surgery.

 

http://hairmeplease.blogspot.com/

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  • Regular Member

I know many have different thoughts about Armani. But I truly think he and his staff are first class. They really took care of every concern I have. I know many feel he can be a little agressive for younger men, but that is really what I was after. Below is the address to my recent surgery.

 

http://hairmeplease.blogspot.com/

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Hairme07,

 

The results look awesome. Very refined work that we are used to seeing from Armani, but once again another case that I'm sure some of the members here will be scratching their heads about.

 

Your prior to Ht pics look like you have no need for a HT. Yes we all have differing levels of loss and what we are happy with, but it is the surgeons responsibility to educate and use some forethought.

 

Hopefully you don't have future hairloss because this is a very aggressive hairline even though you are 27. There is no question of his outstanding technical and artistic skills. If you hold on to existing hair you will be gold. I hope for that for you. Heal well and best of luck with things. Thanks for posting and let us know how things work out for you.

 

NN

NN

 

Dr.Cole,1989. ??graftcount

Dr. Ron Shapiro. Aug., 2007

Total graft count 2862

Total hairs 5495

1hairs--916

2hairs--1349

3hairs--507

4hairs--90

 

 

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Dr. Armani does quality work IMO...

 

But I do have strong reservations of his overuse of the finite donor supply on younger patients when future hair loss is unpredictable.

 

Your immediately post op results look very solid and I'm sure you will have an outstanding result.

 

Looking at your before pictures however, I would argue for certain that you did NOT need an HT.

 

I know...Armani is VERY appealing for those who want aggressive surgery...let's be honest...don't we ALL want that? The problem is that Armani often seems to operate under the principle that donor supply isn't finite, and IMO, agressive surgery for YOUNG patients who just started to lose their hair is NOT in the best interest of the patient, despite the hype and the desire of the patient. The point is, though we all may WANT it, it's not practical, because it MIGHT blow up in our face later in the event that we lose a lot more hair. I say "MIGHT" because there is a risk....but you also "MIGHT" not lose a lot more hair and end up being just fine!

 

I'm glad to see that you are not in your early 20s getting this type of aggressive surgery, however, depending on how long you've been losing your hair (which doesn't look long from your before pictures), I'd be a little concerned that too many grafts were used for the hairline for the same reason I described above. Future hairloss is unpredictable and donor is finite (whether or not you choose FUE or Strip).

 

But I do wish you the best of luck and hope you are using finasteride or minoxodil to stabilize your hair loss condition.

 

Bill

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Hairme, Sure it looks like good work.

So you will happy to be sure.

 

Th following doesnt relate to you Hairme,

 

However I would like to see some actual balding patients from Armani!

A norwood 5 or 6.

 

Why are all his patients so young?

 

It is ez for most any doc to have seemingly incredible results.

 

thanks for posting hairme!

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This HT is an violation of ethics.

 

There is no moral ambiguity when you start losing hair in your early 20's---- YOUR GOING TO LOSE MORE HAIR.

 

It is not brain surgery.

 

Pandering to the impetuous, instant gratification, live for today only 22-27 year old age group is a recipe for disaster.

 

This is a patient who did not need a HT and should have been placed on meds and watched for a few more years.

 

I am so tired of people being told they have in excess of 10000 grafts.

 

Does anyone else notice that Armani made this claim of "the average patient has 10-15K of available" BUT ONLY through FUE.

 

Then the announcement that Armani is switching to only FUE sessions.

 

Oh and at 14.00 per graft, I might add.

 

It is my sincerest hope that this young man never needs another hair transplant.

 

The work is fine, the result is and will be fine, but this hair transplant is WRONG.

 

Take Care,

J

Go Cubs!

 

6721 transplanted grafts

13,906 hairs

Performed by Dr. Ron Shapiro

 

Dr. Ron Shapiro and Dr. Paul Shapiro are members of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.

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Thanks for all your comments. I agree with everything you guys are saying. The reason I pushed for such a dense hairline is b/c my hair loss has halted for the last 3-4 years since I have been on preopecia/minox. I know I could possibly lose more hair in the future. I researched for well over a year and still wanted this particular surgery. Is it dangerous for the future? Of course it is, but I have always been one of those 'live for today' types and reap the concequences later (bad philosophy I know). But I am also an optimist. I think after this surgery and maybe another in the next 10+ years I will be set for at least 20 years with a resonable amount of hair. I personally believe in 20 years, medical advancements will be at a place where I can correct my brash early move to dense pack the shit out of my hairline (possibly harvesting needed follicles for other places). If not, I will be thinking in my head, I should have listened to those wiser men! hah. Seriously though, I do appreciate this forum taking the ethical stand for HT's. Some saw what early technology and little research can do (i.e Bosley, plugs, etc..) I wish everyone good growth and hope all reach their goals to what they would like to achieve from a HT. Everyones goals are different. Please don't take me for an dumbass, I really researched hard and thought long about this choice. But your right, it still could be the wrong choice.

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Hi Hairmed

 

Your results look truly awesome. Your hairloss was very minimal prior to surgery so I am a bit surprised. I do see your point of view/strategy and at the end of the day it is your decesion. My only concern is "what if".. Hairloss is so unpredictable that, in my opinion it is better to be safe than sorry.. Again though,it is your head & money and it looks like you will be extremely happy with the result. I hope you are right about the advances in medicine in the next 10-20years. That is a fair prediction

 

Personally, if I had your balding pattern I wouldn't have anything done yet

JOBI

 

1417 FUT - Dr. True

1476 FUT - Dr. True

2124 FUT - Dr. True

604 FUE - Dr. True

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My views are based on my personal experiences, research and objective observations. I am not a doctor.

 

Total - 5621 FU's uncut!

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Mrjb - I am editing this post . I was out of line for calling you an oxi-moron about the uncut thing. I never said anything about your family though. Where are you getting that from.

In anycase I apologize to you for being rude as my comments twords you were not appropriate.

A hair on the head is worth two on the brush.

I don't work for commision.. I bust e'm for free. Thank me later.

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Hairme07,

 

As you can see from the posts, everyone is in agreement that the work is excellent. We are all a little concerned for your future. I can understand your point but it is up the the ethics of the surgeon to keep your wants in check. Once again Armani failed to do so.

 

Many times there are consequences for the live for today type attitude. There are many people on this site that had the same thought once, now they are facing plug extraction, scar revision, etc. and may never be fully satisfied with their results.

 

Ofcourse none of us wish this for you but the future is unknown. There may be all kinds of future technology to help you should there be any issues, but will you have the cash to correct things?? That is another thought as mortgages, children, etc. start to become a part of your life.

 

All of us want to be as positive as possible for you at this time. You need support and positive well wishing, but we also have to be cautious for other lurkers or members. We want to make sure that there is indeed a lot of forethought taking place with these procedures.

 

I truly hope that all goes well for you and your plan of action works out. Sorry that we aren't 100% in support for you. Best of luck with everything.

 

NN

NN

 

Dr.Cole,1989. ??graftcount

Dr. Ron Shapiro. Aug., 2007

Total graft count 2862

Total hairs 5495

1hairs--916

2hairs--1349

3hairs--507

4hairs--90

 

 

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Of course I am in support of the session being successful, regardless of any other circumstances.

 

What concerns me the most is this type of decision is pushed into the faces of young men--- men like myself who lost their hair at 23 and are NW5-6's by 25-26 years old.

 

AGAIN, there is no ability to forecast hairloss, hairme might stay stable for the rest of his life......... then again, he may accelerate his hairloss and in 3-4 years be a NW6....

 

What then?

 

Dr. Feller recently posted a patient who is 22 years old(different site), but had more frontal recession than hairme.

 

Dr. Feller placed 2200 grafts in a higher, more conservative hairline, and has a long-term plan for the young mans future.

 

I don't have to agree with the age of the patient, but I can comfortably support his plan of attack and recognize that he has 5-6K of donor left that will provide coverage should his hairloss reach NW5-6 territory.

 

Take Care,

J

Go Cubs!

 

6721 transplanted grafts

13,906 hairs

Performed by Dr. Ron Shapiro

 

Dr. Ron Shapiro and Dr. Paul Shapiro are members of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.

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I agree with B-Spot, NN & Aqu that from the before pics there seems no need for an HT at this stage. The short term results will obviously be fantastic, however I hope the meds prevent anymore significant long term loss otherwise Hairme07 could be in trouble.

 

Im interested in how we are seeing more FUE megasessions from Armani & prohairclinic etc when other respected Drs. still insist the limist are c1000 FUE grafts.

 

Is this explained by Dr. ability & experience, different techniques or compromises?? Be interested to know your thoughts.

"Plan for the worst & hope for the best"

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Hi all

 

Aquarius, uncut means my Follicular units are not cut like many other doctors do.. If you are going to joke please do it in a pleasant way, as I certainly don't appreciate your insults. I am here to help people, not make insults or jokes. You can be funny, but making lude remarks aboout my family is not right.

 

This site is to help people not a venure for you to make cheap shot about people who might disagree with you

JOBI

 

1417 FUT - Dr. True

1476 FUT - Dr. True

2124 FUT - Dr. True

604 FUE - Dr. True

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My views are based on my personal experiences, research and objective observations. I am not a doctor.

 

Total - 5621 FU's uncut!

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Wow i can't believe Armani performed a HT on a kid with that much hair.

1045 FUT "hairline" with Dr Feller on Nov 05

825 "hairline" with Dr Loria "saw so so results" on Jan 01

MHR 325 "hairline" micro/mini 's 1999 "big mistake"

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Slow down fellas.....breath in....breath out..... icon_cool.gif First of all, I would like to say congrats to hairme for simply being an apparently well educated, emotionally well balanced, and well spoken young man. It seems to me he truly understood ALL of these things prior to surgery AND knew the bubbly cesspool of conflict his story might bring here; he was still willing to deal with that to get his story out and engage in dialog with us. Admirable, without exception.

 

At 27, with so little hair loss, he may be in MUCH better shape than we think. Do some people rapidly accelerate later on? Sure, but NOT everyone. Again, he understood this.

 

If you had looked at me at age 23 with my Jack Nicholson temples, you would have said "he'll be a N5 by age 30". But my hair loss slowed to a turtle's pace for the next almost 20 yrs and I only ended up barely touching the N4 scale, if that.

 

In the end, it was his decision and he appears to have made it with all the needed forethought, judgment, information, and maturity with which it called for. Does that AUTOMATICALLY mean it was the right decision? Of course not. But its better than an uneducated, emotional, spur of the moment decision any day of the week.

 

ALSO, it was FUE; no strip scar. Yes, tiny little eeny weeny scars, but over 10 or 15 yrs, they will be hardly noticeable.

 

I was shocked however at the number of FUE. That's a lot in one day!

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First of all, I enjoy and appreciate all of your comments. I love to engage in debates over ethical ht surgeries. Believe me, I enjoy the disagreeing comments as much as the ones that agree w/ my decision of a dense hairline. I take comfort that people on this board are looking after one another. I have some questions for some people that have had the FUE surgery. I believe that Armani is able to perform this procedure so quickly and in such a large number, b/c he has literally invented a tool for FUE transplants. Was your FUE punch a drill? Or was it manual? Also, did you have 2-3 people working on your grafts or just one? This post isn't meant to be taken sarcastically, I really am wanting to know.

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Hairme07--

 

This issue is exactly the point of all the controversy. Armani's estimates of donor grafts are the subject of whole threads on numerous MPB forums like this one. Here's the short version (and I hope this isn't a total surprise to you):

 

 

Armani's notorious for estimating the remaining donor grafts at much higher numbers than the other respected HT docs ever do.

(Most of the respected HT field seems to agree on the idea that 6-7K is average and 8-10K is rare & great.)

 

Armani has a way of estimating donor grafts at "10-15K" on a lot of people. But so far, he hasn't actually produced any patients with any higher numbers than the other docs. We aren't finding cases of angry patients coming up short yet, but Armani hasn't been doing this long enough for the issue to have really shown up yet in a big way either.

 

 

And when those anomalously-high donor estimates are being used to justify doing pretty aggressive HTs on younger patients . . . This is why Armani has developed a repuation for being ethically questionable, even though nobody ever argues against his actual transplanting skills.

 

 

------------------------------------------------

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Yes the 11,500 donor grafts is an exageration.

 

Fue certainly allows for a slightly wider band of excision in the donor region.

 

However, one must understand something----

 

With strip surgery the tissue is removed along with the grafts, so in essence one is removing any need for hair in that empty space, then the space is closed leaving a scar.

 

With fue, you remove tissue, but it is left to close or "fill" on its own.

 

If you are not reducing the donor area, then you still need coverage in the same area.

 

Many Doctors like Dr. Rose, Harris, Wolf, etc... feel that you can remove 33% of grafts in a given sq cm through fue before donor thinning occurs. (law of 3rds)

 

So if the average patient has 16,000-20,000 grafts in the safe donor region, you can see how estimate of 10-15K AVAILABLE grafts is ridiculous and a risk.

 

Through strip, you would be able to harvest roughly 6-8K, whereas if you used fue you would be limited to 6K total, before thinning occured.

 

Now at 27, the odds of you becoming a NW7 are very slight, but a NW5? That would be a very real possibility, and one should plan accordingly and use grafts wisely.

 

I have stated that I believe fue extractions are being taken from outside the safe zones.

 

Here is another question: Given your minimal loss, how are you going to know if 500-800 of those grafts do not grow?

 

Your results will still be tremendous, because you will have 2500+ grafts growing in an area that might have needed 1200 max.

 

Turing fue into a mega-session is great, but when your transplanting into thick existing hair it becomes difficult to discern what actually grows.

 

10-15 NW5-6's with 3500 fue grafts on slick bald scalp will tell the tale.

 

Take Care,

J

Go Cubs!

 

6721 transplanted grafts

13,906 hairs

Performed by Dr. Ron Shapiro

 

Dr. Ron Shapiro and Dr. Paul Shapiro are members of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.

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I think your work looks very clean + very good, like many other I have some reservations about Dr.Armani...talented as the best, but ethical as the worst-IMO....My recent research has lead me to the conclusion that Dr.Armani learned his Fue technique from another doctor who is notorious for Fue mega sessions (2k range) maybe four/five years ago. So when you mention he has invented a extraction tool that no one else is using, giving him a distinct advantage....I would respond.... 1st you would have to know a considerable amount about the inner workings of punch instruments...for if you don't how hard is it for me to tell you I have a magic tool that is .75mm and has zero transection and yields full growth....words yes...fact not so much.

 

Cheers your work looks great and like P40 said you don't look to be in that bad a shape IMO plus you are on a steady Rx so I think you took and educated gamble that will work for your case...good growth in the coming months.

 

For those that want to know if Dr.A ever does advanced NW cases search his site and take a look at some of the other version...Persian translated, Arabic....you will see some guys that were nw6 and the outcome of a dense front and bald back is clear as day note almost all are strip work but that will change in a few years pic wise. At the end of the day HT are a decisions one make to improve their physical appearance, some may want to front load even in advanced Nw cases to avoid the diffuse look so the argument will go both ways about planning... till cloning or something new breaks through, again in regards to aesthetically pleasing results Dr.Armani is one of the best HT doctors in the world hands down.

My current Top5 (Rahal, Hasson, Shapiro, Armani, Epstein)

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hairme07,

 

Do you have pre-op photos of you with a shaved head. This would be a great way for us to actually see the changes and possibly there is more thinning than the photos show. Just a thought.

 

NN

NN

 

Dr.Cole,1989. ??graftcount

Dr. Ron Shapiro. Aug., 2007

Total graft count 2862

Total hairs 5495

1hairs--916

2hairs--1349

3hairs--507

4hairs--90

 

 

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NervousNelly,

 

I think Armani took some pre-op pics of the shaved, but I am not certain. I have better before pics there for sure. I will see if I can get ahold of a few for ya.

 

Best, Hairme

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