Scar Repair 1032 Beard Hairs Dr Bisanga

[MAGNUMpi]

Thanks for sharing ej.

I hope you get some great results from Bisanga.

Thanks for an interesting thread and please be sure to keep us posted on your progress.

All the best.

M.

[ej]

I took this picture yesterday outdoors ,in bright light , the tissue is a lot pinker now and looks healthier possibly due to the blood supply being re established , feels a lot warmer to in this cold weather !

 

The second picture is taken before i embarked on this repair journey and shows the scars i had been left with .

 

cheers

 

ejj

Edited January 25, 2013 by ej

[ej]

I have taken some pictures this morning of the left side of my head. The photographs show the scarring before BHR from former procedure, post op, and ten months later.

 

So far i have had 3000 grafts extracted from my face without any visible marks.

 

Regards

 

ejj

Edited February 16, 2013 by ej

[Modenese]

Huge improvement - I'm pleased for you. You stated earlier you just wanted to look normal. Have you achieved that yet?

[Mickey85]

Looks great ej. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your previous surgeries.

[ej]

Hi Modenese, yes I believe I have achieved a normal appearance. I am very grateful to Dr Bisanga, I now have the luxury of grafting into balding areas something that I never thought or expected, that I would be able to do.

 

I am looking forward to my fourth procedure in May and will update again post op.

 

Mickey thanks for the well wishes.

 

Regards

 

ejj

[Mickey85]

ej, what do you think of FUE for hair restoration? Do you think it will ever supersede FUT as the 'gold standard'?

[ej]

Hi Mickey

 

Strip has evolved greatly since I started out, and the closure technique is now much improved upon. FUE is great for scars and especially when the donor has been compromised as the Dr can cherry pick, or in cases such as mine use beard hair.

 

FUE has many advantages and may be the best option for some. It won`t be a one size fits all though, as factors such as the individual level of loss, donor density etc have all to be considered by both patient and Dr, so for some a strip/FUE combo may be the best option.

 

Taking into consideration some of the good strip work I have seen and my own level of loss, I believe a strip FUE combo would have been the route for me with a good Dr, and I`m confident I would have got a great result with both, and would not have had the scarring I was subjected to.

 

Regards

 

ejj

Edited February 18, 2013 by ej

[trinder]

Hi ej, i'm in a very similar situation as you. the whole of my head at the back is covered in strip and old large punch scars.

 

I've been looking into Dr Bisanga as a possible candidate for doing BHT into the scars, so seeing the results of your treatment with him is really encouraging and gives me some hope.

 

unfortunately i've been ill for 5 years (caused by Drs again) but am now getting better, so cost is quite a big issue, could you give me some idea what this is costing you please? its ok to pm me if you want.

 

I have been in touch with the BHR clinics rep Stephen, and he has asked for some pics. Ufortunately i'm not sure how to send them at the moment so until i get someone to show me it would be good to know the kind of money i have to find.

 

I had my first HT by a clinic called Harley Dean in Londons dean st. I found out later the Dr was a ex dentist. this was around 1978 i was 24, and so started a lifetime of unhappiness in the hair dept.

[ej]

Hi Trinder

 

Thank you for your post I am glad my own case has encouraged you and I hope others, and the reason why I decided to post my case in the first place.

 

It would have been easy to not give back from all that I have been through but I decided to help others as photos of previous cases helped me also.

 

For my own situation I sent photos and also saw the doctor in the flesh, photos only show so much but are a good start for getting an idea but the doctor may also ask to see you in person. For me seeing the doctor was needed as I had very little donor (scalp) left so needed to see what could be done and I saw a few doctors also to get varied views.

 

As for costings I can only say that I knew from the offset I would need at least 6 surgeries to get where I wanted/repaired, and the list price would have been a lot but all I can say is the clinic have helped me and acknowledged the fact that I would need to spend on travel, hotel and time let alone surgery money and they did their best for me as a repeat patient and I still have more work to be done, but happily will go beyond the initial remit of repair and already have started working in new areas.

 

Stephen the rep wrote on the thread below concerning prices on this forum also, and I can say that has been my experience also:-

 

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/169459-dr-bisanga-bhr-clinic-4-297-fut-2270-hybrid-strip-fue-2.html

 

"As for the costings, I cannot be specific on individual patient cases as such but just say we have a lot of patients that come back for repeat work, I myself was a prime example of this before working for BHR I had multiple surgeries with them and as so expected that the cost depending on multiple visits and graft numbers would then decrement accordingly and not be list price, and this was my experience and very much appreciated at the time.

 

It is important to do this and especially so on larger cases where there is significant investment from the patient be it time, money, planning etc, and some patients have been in the chair more times than I have.

Our list prices are on our site to give a general guide but for individual surgeries over multiple visits we are happy to be more specific on any individual case."

 

Hope this helps and all the best in your research and potential surgery, let me know if I can help at all.

 

ej

[trinder]

Thanks for the advice and encouragement ej much appreciated

[ej]

Here are some pictures of my crown pre op (last pic) and at six months post procedure. I had 420 beard grafts placed into the crown. I am returning to BHR in May for a fourth procedure, the plan is to address more of my former strip scars.

 

The original surgical plan was for six procedures, however growth and healing has been excellent and enabled me to graft into other areas of naturally thinning hair, this was something I never expected or thought possible.

 

If I stopped my repair now I would be happy.

 

I have no visible marks after three thousand extractions, and can safely extract more as the donor has been well managed, and no surrounding hairs have been damaged during the extraction process.

 

Regards

 

ejj

Edited March 8, 2013 by ej

[HARIRI]

You have a crazy beard ej, how many grafts has Dr. Bisanga managed to extract? 1032 grafts in the first session then another 800 in the 2nd session and xxx in 3rd session and now 420!!! Its around 3000+ grafts. Pretty impressive. How many grafts have you used from your beard so far? Also How many grafts can Dr. Bisanga extract from your beard in total???

[sl]

Hi ejj

 

Seems like yesterday when we first spoke and then we saw you in the clinic for the first time.

 

Really happy for the improvement and especially so that new areas can be targeted and not ony "repair" areas as such and as you said to me the touching hair in these areas again is a good feeling and one that I and many can appreciate.

 

You have certainly been blessed with a good beard and a real "get out of jail card" and glad that some positives are coming from your whole history of surgery.

 

Thanks for updating and being willing to show step by step so far.

[trinder]

when beard hair is placed in the scalp does it take on the characteristics of scalp hair? the new crown hair looks the same to me. This gives me a lot of encouragement as 450 grafts seem to cover quite a lot of scalp.

 

I'm looking to get them placed in old 5mm donor punch scars and although they cover the whole back of my head, not many would be needed in each scar as my hair is quite thin surrounding the scars.

[sl]

Hi Trinder

 

Beard grafts are usually traditionally larger than scalp, so the resulting hair is coarser and can have more curl also.

 

Like any transplant and even scalp hair there is a bedding in period and scalp also needs this, it can be coarser and darker than usual when transplanted and takes time to normalise, and even a few years is common as the hair goes through cycles.

 

The beard hair like scalp will take time to bed in and will become more refined but only to a certain degree, it is still beard hair.

 

I have seen hair take on the growth cycles of where placed though and have met patients whom we have transplanted scalp to eyebrows and for the first few years they are cutting the hair weekly as it grows but after a period of time notice they no longer need to cut as often as the growth phase seems to shorten and match the native hair in that region.

 

Likewise I have seen body hair grow long in the scalp after time as the growth phases change. It is still body hair as such though.

 

Beard hair for some will match very well natively and ejj and I myself are testiment to this and other posters also can confirm it has been a very compatible resource. Others may have large variations in coarseness and even colour and so it may not match as well and I know some patients with a large beard area that we have not offered surgery due to the disparity in beard to scalp and especially if the scalp hair is weak and ministurised in and around where the beard hair is needed and can be the case for scar work.

 

We personally ask for photos of the beard and scalp in order to make an initial assessment for compatibility and the doc may then progress to seeing the patient in the flesh and is often the case for repair work.

[ej]

Hi Hariri

 

Many thanks for your kind comments. Sorry for any confusion, third procedure was basically to join up the donor area at the rear of my head to create a uniform density. Once this was achieved we placed the remaining 420 grafts into the crown, this was my third procedure.

 

In total I have had approximately 3000 grafts extracted so far, my beard looks untouched I think I could tap in to another 5-6 thousand easily if required, I am extremely fortunate to have a strong beard, other repair patients are not so lucky.

 

Hope the pictures explain. Thanks for the comments sl, looking forward to May 21st and another step in the right direction.

 

Best Wishes

 

ejj

Edited March 8, 2013 by ej

[ej]

I thought I would include a couple of pictures of the donor area three days after the procedure and six months later.

 

My beard density is very good, it is because of this good planning and surgery that I am able to complete my repair.

 

Regards

 

ejj

Edited March 10, 2013 by ej

[Anthony23]

Oh wow, wasn't even aware that beard hair could be used as donor hair. Learning something new every day. By the way, that's a mighty beard man.. haha.

[ej]

Here are the pictures of my donor area after three thousand extractions. I took these photographs this morning after wet shaving.

 

I have been asked about white dot scarring being an issue, as some people have concerns over this due to what they have been told during the course of their research and consultations. I thought the best way forward was to meet patients and see the result for myself. This then gave me the confidence to proceed.

 

Hope this helps.

 

ej

[trinder]

Hi ej,

 

Do you have any recent pics of the scalp donor repair area? i'm interested to know what percentage growth you think you had.

 

Thanks for posting all this its given me lots of hope to get my mess repaired when i can eventually get to see Dr Bisanga.

[HARIRI]

EJ, This is amazing!!! Almost a scarless chin. Cant really spot the dots at all. Dr. Bisanga is a BHT expert for real. I wonder how will beard area will look when Dr. Wesely's Scarless FUE method become available in the HT market.

[trinder]

I wonder how soon someone like Dr Bisanga would adopt dr wesleys techniques once they were proven?

 

Maybe Steve ( Dr Bisangas Rep )could give us some idea on what Dr Bisangas opinion is on this.

[Gary1911A1]

EJ, This is amazing!!! Almost a scarless chin. Cant really spot the dots at all. Dr. Bisanga is a BHT expert for real. I wonder how will beard area will look when Dr. Wesely's Scarless FUE method become available in the HT market.

 

Just what I was thinking.

[sl]

I think any clinic is interested in developments in the hair transplantation field, some come and go as quickly as they came, so it is important to have the clinical evidence and over a range of patients, skin types, size of surgeries and then gain empirical data in the first instance.

 

Presently we are not seeking to change protocol but open to genuine improvements and presentations.

 

Dr.Bisanga does go to and participate in relevant meetings as well as talking to peers so is well informed on all potential changes. Whether we adopt them would be as said down to his satisfaction and believing that the change is demonstrable and beneficial to patients.

 

This method is still as said undergoing trials so will be interesting to see.