Accurate Information

[Thomas2012]

This is my first posting thread, so bear with me. I am new to this community member, but have been gaining knowledge and information for the past 4 years. I want to start out by saying thanks to the Forum for helping with my recent procedure at SMG.

 

Most of the posts I was looking in the past were the results posted by clinics. I was trying to get a match with someone with my hairline that had a good result and see how many grafts I would need. Basically something to show my doctor of what my expectation level was and get feedback from him to say if it was realistic or not. Searching thru current posts and going thru a lot of photo albums realized there has to be a more simple way to be able to do this, thus my question to Doctors, Clinics, and this Forum: Why isn't there a more standardized way of posting results.

 

I pulled a random 12 posts from clinics, three of them justed listed grafts, no hairs, 4 of them did no physical description or age of the client, and a third had terrible pictures. Physicians and Clinics, you are " all over the board" I think a majority of members who have procedures done continue to be a part of this Forum because they have had a good experience(s) with a transplant or meds and they want to help others, especially younger people who go thru hair loss at such an early age. Basically to educate and inform. Where I think this forum and especially the Physicians fall short in the posting a standardized description of procedures that include:

AGE. I want to know ages of people similar to me. NORWOOD SCALE: If a person is about the same age and same scale, there is some definite correlations I could draw from. Part of this to is to give an opinion on where that person is heading based on... MEDS, how long the individual has been on meds, or not. Hopefully some young people are reading this, but if you are not stabilizing your hair loss and you get a transplant of lets say 2000 grafts, you could be losing an additional 500-1000 at a years time. So when you post a year's result and not being totally sastified, there you go. NUMBER OF GRAFTS and HAIRS. Big deal on the 1,2,3's basically how many hairs average per graft. A majority would range from 1.8 to 2.3. It has an impact. HAIR DIAMETER. Why isn't this posted more often? Especially the donor density going in. Dr. Bill Reed had a great explanation on the impact of hair diameter on a recent post. 40-80 microns? It has an impact that people need to know. A person with really fine whispy hair is going to need more hairs to create more density. PROCEDURE: FUT, or FUE, that is a given. PICTURES: Standardized, I don't know what that is, but maybe one of the clinics like SMG could give some input because their photos are always crisp and clean. A lot of clinic apologize for their photos. They, the clinics posts on this forum, but in reality it is a great advertising tool for them. Yes they definitely educate, but they also gain a lot of clients like myself because of it. Nohing wrong with that. How many feet away? what resolution? how many front, side, top, and back shots? Every clinic a part of this forum gain afford a new camera and take the time.

 

If the posting is more uniform I really think if would make it easier, for especially younger people, for them to gain knowledge and have very realistic expectations if they decide to have a transplant. There is a lot of passion to help others in this forum, especially from guys that have had 2 or more procedures. Put that energy into developing a more standardized reporting that clinics need to post. In closing, (this book)! I will say this. It really hit home when I went to get my procedure done that the doctor I chose was an artist and I felt good about my decision Some doctors are just plain better than other in the placement of the grafts in achieving results. For a person thinking of getting a transplant and drawing their conclusions from this forum, put yourself in the hands of a skilled surgeon and more importantly an artist at his or her's craft. Even though travel, money, etc, go into your deciding a doctor when the time comes its a major decision in your life and the money part goes away. Doctors and Clinics help people draw their opinions from more uniform and standardized posts. Thanks.