My Experience with Dr. Armani

[youngandnaive]

Hey everyone, I'd like to document my journey and share my progress as a previous Armani patient. My first HT (FUE) was done on July 9th, 2009. I believe its safe to say that I have reached my final results. I had 3200 grafts allocated to zones 1 and 2 and supposedly some in zone 3. I landed in Toronto the evening before surgery and stayed at the Westin Harbour across the doctors office. The morning of the surgery, the doctor was somewhat rather late but as nervous and excited I was, the time didn't seem to much of a concern. The doc finally arrived and I probably discussed with him for about 10-15 minutes before the head tech arrived to shave and prep me up for donor extraction. Before I knew it I was numbed up and couldn't feel much throughout the surgery except for the freezing agents which stung for a few seconds but otherwise was painless. The extraction took a majority of the day and was quite uncomfortable being on my stomach and side and all. Dr. Armani came in every now and then to check up on the donor extraction but was pretty much not too involved for the exception of working on the incisions in my recipient area. All in all I was wrapped up and bandaged ready to go around 9 or 10 pm (don't really quite remember). When asked to come into the office the following morning for a wash, I had informed them because of my early flight, that it wasn't an option as I didn't realize that going through customs and everything would take such a long time. So the morning after I packed it up and was on my way back to the states. For the first month I was extremely careful not to dislodge any grafts and was persistent with applying shampoo, vitamin e oil and keeping the area moist to loosen up scabs. The rest is pretty much history.

 

I certainly wished that I had received any customer care after my surgery as I felt like I was pretty much on my own. I received no calls about how I was doing or how things were progressing. At about the 8-9th month mark i contacted Pats and notified him of my concerns about gaps, and how sparse things were looking. I was told to wait it out for the next few months to gauge the final result. The next few months after, i believe the only thing that had changed was the maturity of the grafts. However, still sparse, gaps, and see-through. I contacted Pats afterwards and he gave me the option to do a free touch up, which i had opted not to perform. I probably haven't done the best documenting my journey but i suppose better late than never. I was probably at the very worse a NW2. I'll see if i can track down some post op pictures.

 

As of today I am actually seeking a second procedure to rectify the situation. I recently contacted Dr. Rahal and he advised 2500 grafts based on the online consultation. My family has virtually no history of baldness so I don't believe that I will reach any extreme norwood levels. I guess you could say I'm somewhat disappointed but I realize that it was my lack of research and me leading to believe the results posted on another hairloss forum were the typical results of Dr. Armani patients. I assumed the bad results were the minority. I actually remembered seeing Balboa's results thread and telling myself, "hey his results aren't that bad, he's just being too critical". Boy was I wrong. My deepest apologies. Anyways what's done is done and hopefully i can find a solution and I hope Dr. Rahal will be able to help me out.

 

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3746/dsc00272jj.jpg

 

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8346/dsc00277le.jpg

 

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/7290/dsc00280r.jpg

 

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/627/dsc00287t.jpg

 

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/6316/dsc00288d.jpg

 

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/1103/dsc00286gn.jpg

[Rasu]

Hi youngandnative,

Your transplant pictures sure seems disappointing.How much did it cost you for your procedure? It would be better if you post your before procedure scalp photos so that we get a clear idea of howmuch area of your head had been worked on.

Edited December 20, 2010 by Rasu

[youngandnaive]

@Rasu - Thanks for the response! I was able to retrieve some pre op pictures from my email account, and here they are!

 

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/1306/cimg0034xq.jpg

 

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/1410/cimg0001c.jpg

 

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/7694/cimg0005f.jpg

 

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/2039/cimg0018h.jpg

[Rasu]

Hello again youngandnative,

Thanx for your photos, i did compare both your b4 & after photos and thats too many grafts for such a shabby work. Do you know Indian actor SalmanKhan?? Seems like he got his HT done by Dr.AntonioArmani and the result is too good.

 

Your valuable comments please..........

[Sparky]

It certainly is sparse, which is what we have come to expect from Armani along with his poor aftercare! But at least you haven't been butchered, I've seen a lot worse from Armani than this.

[youngandnaive]

@Rasu - I don't know of Salmon Khan, I'm not saying Dr. Armani isn't capable of producing good results, I'm just saying that most of the time it seems as if it's a hit or miss.

 

@Sparky - I was quite surprised by the lack of concern or line of communication between the patient and doctor after the procedure as I've heard of other patients being called upon at monthly intervals, maybe I was wrong. I am however glad my case isn't as bad as others I've witnessed (ex. Chanz). I figure if I can stabilize my loss (which is what appears to be the case now) I would go ahead and go get FUT done with Dr. Rahal, as I'm quite impressed with his strip work, I have yet to see the full extent of his FUE procedures but please excuse me for my lack of faith in FUE in general at this moment in time.

[Sparky]

Armani sucks at fue, so he isn't something to base an opinion on, although I understand your position.

[RCWest]

A good FUE surgeon like Feller would have made that small of an area look like new with about half that number of grafts. Unless he grafted way back into the middle, which would cause shockloss to native hair and make the after results look worse than before. Are you on Finasteride? Sorry to hear your ordeal with Armani.

[youngandnaive]

@RCWest - Thanks for the response, I definitely can agree with you on Dr. Feller's ability to perform FUE procedures at the highest level, in hindsight I probably should have! I wouldn't say my results look any worse than I was pre-op but with the amount of grafts used, I personally believe it SHOULD have yielded a much better result. Also, yes I am on Fin, my hair loss appears to have stabilized, I'm pretty confident that I wont reach into NW4 territory, at least thats just my assessment based on family history. Dr Armani also placed extra grafts in zone 3 just for the record.

[EpilepticSceptic]

I'll make a few comments here.

 

First, based on your photos (unless Armani damaged your native hair and caused you to go more bald) you are clearly in the diffuse NW4 category. Forget about your family history, you obviosuly have the MPB gene or you would not be going bald. It could have come from a relative many generations ago.

 

Second, I will likely be the only one to defend Armani here. I don't believe that he is incompetent at performing FUE because you can look and find many success stories from him that look amazing. I think the harsh truth is that he has no ethics and has also performed many more FUE surgeries than the newer FUE surgeons that you see getting praised on these HT forums.

 

So what is the difference ? Well, because he has performed so many more FUE surgeries he is bound to have more cases of failure than the other surgeons. What this tells me is that the technique itself is hit and miss, and even Feller (who is likely in the top 3 for FUE) will tell you this point blank. FUE megasessions have proven to be a fluke for the majority of patients. You just can't extract 3800 grafts in one day from most patients and get good growth; the grafts are delicate and get destroyed in the process.

 

FUE is good for small sessions, but if you need large #s of grafts then in most cases it cannot compare to FUT, not even close. Most of the competent, ethical top docs will tell you this point blank.

 

You are smart to not trust FUE at this point. You only have so many grafts and from the way your photos look you will likely need them to rectify your situation.

 

Good luck!

 

 

@RCWest - Thanks for the response, I definitely can agree with you on Dr. Feller's ability to perform FUE procedures at the highest level, in hindsight I probably should have! I wouldn't say my results look any worse than I was pre-op but with the amount of grafts used, I personally believe it SHOULD have yielded a much better result. Also, yes I am on Fin, my hair loss appears to have stabilized, I'm pretty confident that I wont reach into NW4 territory, at least thats just my assessment based on family history. Dr Armani also placed extra grafts in zone 3 just for the record.

[wb280]

EC, somehow your words dun surprise me but i am fully supportive of them mate Just worry that some poster will come and challenge u again

 

Anyway i do agree with the majority posters that the area is way too sparse for my liking.. Sorry about that mate, i think u r making a good decision with Rahal, i have seen numerous impressive results.

 

Best of luck!