HSLC in Boca Raton

[Guest]

Hello everyone. I am a 33 yo white male with crown and vertex thinning and about 1" receded@ the temples. I have looked over The Bald Truth and this site in depth, and they are very helpful. I am considering the Hair and Scalp Laser Clinic in Clearwater Florida (listed under the bald truth as recommended). I understand there is less scarring and trauma with this method, and this is important to me as I work in a very appearance conscious office. I understand the doctor is Paul Riggs. I am wondering if anyone can tell me what they think of this clinic, and the Laser as opposed to the scalpel. Any inputs will be greatly appreciated! Thank u

[Guest]

Hello everyone. I am a 33 yo white male with crown and vertex thinning and about 1" receded@ the temples. I have looked over The Bald Truth and this site in depth, and they are very helpful. I am considering the Hair and Scalp Laser Clinic in Clearwater Florida (listed under the bald truth as recommended). I understand there is less scarring and trauma with this method, and this is important to me as I work in a very appearance conscious office. I understand the doctor is Paul Riggs. I am wondering if anyone can tell me what they think of this clinic, and the Laser as opposed to the scalpel. Any inputs will be greatly appreciated! Thank u

[Teddw2ds]

Ethan... I just got back from a trip to Tampa (Clearwater area) to have a procedure done by the HSLC. I researched a great deal about several places and felt comfortable with the reputation of Dr. Riggs and liked the laser procedure's supposed quick recovery time.

 

When I got there, though, I just did not have a good feeling about the place, especially since no one bothered to disclose to me the fact that Dr. Riggs is no longer associated with that practice. I left without getting a transplant, but I did visit Dr. Paul Rose while I was in the area, and I could not have been more impressed. I am almost sure I will go there for my transplant instead.

 

The Dr. performing transplants at the HSLC now is a Dr. Michael Markou, who I know nothing about. With a HT, the expertise of the surgeon is paramount, and I want the veyr best, not some guy who I know little about, and whose experience I am not familiar with.

 

Just my two cents worth.

[rodfl]

Hey guys---I had two surgeries with Doctor Riggs at the hair and scalp laser clinic in clearwater, Florida----Doctor Riggs is wonderful but is no longer with the practice--I went back for a third procedure and was convinced by clinic director John Satino that Dr. Markou was an incredible Doc and was very skilled---Doctor Markou made a very poor decission to strip donor too low on my head and the result was a HUGE stretch scar---I returned to the clinic several times post surgery and Doctor Markou and John Satino tried to convince me that the huge gap was due to shock loss---I went to see Doctor Rose in Tampa for a second oppinion and he immediately told me that I had a stretch scar which was caused by taking the donor hair too low on my head---Doctor Markou had made no attempt to follow up with me and has accepted no responsibility for the scar---please avoid Doctor Markou and the hair and scalp clinic in Clearwater and Largo Florida

[rippedoffhair]

LISTEN TO ME..

Do not go to anything affiliated with Paul Riggs or John Satino. Those a-holes ruined my life. When I was 28, I scoured the internet looking for easy, painless ways to fix my receeding hairline. So I found these quacks at their laser clinic. I had 2 phone consultations with John Satino. The guy is an extremely good talker. Told me everything I wanted to hear. So I decided like a dumb kid to go to them. First of all if I knew then what I know now, I would have sued them. John Satino is not a Dr, yet he is the one that cut the strip from my head. I was in the procedure for 8 hours. They did not offer me food, water, nothing. I was in extreme pain the whole process. Let me tell you, the laser they use, they still have to punch into each hole they drill in your head with an instrument before inserting the hair. Riggs was hardly there he was bouncing from room to room working on others. The 2 assistants inserting the hair, one kept coughing on me the entire time, like not just coughing, but hacking.

 

It gets better. When the process is just about finished, John Satino tells me, hey we have about 200 extra grafts left, we can put them in for $5 each. Well of course, who the hell is going to say no, so I did that. Actually with the sized strip they took out, they should have had 2500 extra grafts. Afterall, they cut me ear to ear. Anyway, 9 months after the procedure my hair had thinned more and the plugs of this procedure looked horrible. Most of the laser holes are too deep and look awful. The procedure left craters in my head. The hair groups they used in my front hairline were all 3 or more which left me looking pluggy. At the end of the procedure Riggs walked in and asked, so how did everything go? I was in so much pain and agony and ready to pass out from hunger what should I say? Being this was my first procedure, I was no naive I didn't know what to expect.

Anyway, Riggs offered me a cigar, he was celebrating the $7K they just ripped me off with.

 

Wait theres more!!! Their website offers they will take care of a hotel for a night. Well, I had to fight with Satino for that so he wrote me a check for $75.00. Imagine that, just was ripped off and $75 is a struggle for them.

 

These guys are jokers and incompetent. How either is still in business in ridiculous, but I will tell you how... Who is going to challenge them in court? Who wants the embarassment. All of these pukes know this and therefore this is how they get away with it. They leave the unsuspecting like you and I with our lifes ruined and they go wreck more lives.

 

What I know now is that this industry is all just a hoax. Nobody can give you back your hair in a way that it will be dense enough to make you happy. They certainly don't tell you things to make an educated decision from the beginning. You will need multiple procedures. You will need to have adequate donor supply. You will need to have enough money to get these procedures done. Yes, I am very bitter, but if you cannot handle what I am saying and figure I am just one that went bad, think again! Most of the posts and groups are paid for by the Dr's for marketing. Anyone who says Riggs is a good surgeon does not know crap. How can The Bald Truth recommend this guy? This guy ruined me for life. That's a recommendation? Common. My guess is that multiple people write in saying how good these Dr's are. These people that write in are props, straw men. I think each person that gets a transplant that wants to post good things about their Dr should be required to send a copy of their drivers license and the bill from the Dr. Afterall, how do we know?

[john2008]

I know that my post is very out of date, and I have not logged on in quite a while. I am looking to have my third transplant. I am sorry to hear that you had such an experience. I can say that both of my prior transplants were done through this clinic and can give some clarity to the last post.

My first was in May or June of 1998 with Dr. Riggs, and my second in March of 2009. Firstly, the author is correct in saying that John is a sales rep at the end of the day's but in neither procedure did he remove my scalp strip. He was in the room for both (granted, I don't quite know why), but he has never touched my head during the surgeries. They did provide me lunch in both instances -i can't recall what it was in '98, but it was some kind of wrap or sandwich in '09. I have not had a bad experience in either situation. My head was numbed the whole time and both doctors told me to let them know if there was pain,a d the would renumb the area (I assume all other Dr's do the same).

That being said, I will admit that when you talk to John you are going to usually hear about the latest and greatest like lasers and PRP and all that jazz, and you usually have to redirect the conversation back to hair transplants.

 

At the end of the day Dr. Markou did a great job on my 2nd transplant, I am considering him for my 3rd. But since I live in Tampa Bay and we have ht doctors on every corner, I am shopping around. But I would not have a problem referring someone to Dr. Markou.

[rodfl]

I hope that you had a better experience than I did ! John convinced me that after having two ok surgeries with Dr Riggs that Dr Markou was the bomb and I should have another surgery to fill in the frontal hair line to make it all look more natural. Lets see he jotted down on a piece of paper a forest full of trees, and explained that when the trees end and you have an open meadow the tree line looks all rough and straight--so then you have to take some weeds, and shrubs and strategically place them in front of the trees so that you get the appearance of a nice soft smooth look--------------I can still puke when i hear him say those words. The problem was that I had run out of a space large enough to take any more weeds, and shrubs.

 

Now being all professional and caring, and supportive he should of simply told me that i no longer had enough shrubs to replant in front of the trees----no! he had Dr Markou cut my head open lower than any Dr should--- I was left with a huge nasty bloody red scar that I still wear ten years later. If only I could go back in time and be that little nervous, and scared kid that let those two quacks cut me open, and of course I would have handled the entire situation totally different, and you can bet there would have been an attorney involved..

 

Be careful out there guys!!! research, study and question everything

 

Rodfl

[ChristianAg]

Hello Rodfl and everyone. I stumbled upon this post and site when doing some further research on HLSC and Dr. Satino himself.
My name is Christian, I'm 39 from Spain. I've flown all the way to Clearwater on 2019 to undergo a procedure involving Acell PRP, driven by the claims on https://dnahairregeneration.com/ and the experience and credentials Dr. Satino shows.

The results: Instead of doing what I signed and paid for, he had some cosmetiscian making me a "very poor" scalp pigmentation that remains until today, holding me from at least, wear a buzz hair cut. 

If someone reads this, I'll be happy to expand on my experience and show pictures of what I had done. I've been feeling really depressed because of this, assuming the guilt, shame, embarrassment and responsibility of decition I've made.

I see that this "Dr" claiming to have being involved in the discovery of finasteride, is now promoting natural mixtures such as Truvarin and CBD after acell, hair transplants, laser caps and all that you already know they try to take money out of you in expense of your health.

I don't know what to expect by writting this but, at least, I wanted to share the experience so others won't fall on these life runing scams.

What would make me real happy would be to see people like these out of business to say the least.

I'm very sad at the moment, but realized 3 years later that I'm not the one to blame for what happened.

Thanks to everybody.
 

PS: My mother language is spanish so apologies if my English is not perfect. I'll be happy to clarify anything.