Back to square one on FUE

[socates123]

Hey guys, just want to share, I feel terribly frustrated when it comes to searching for the right surgeon - as much as you try to identify someone that you can try to meet your needs, you feel very uncertain on how to proceed.

 

I always worry what will happen to me 10 years down the road after the procedure. I do not feel confident yet with whats happening so far.

 

Is there anyone who is able to guide me on how to move forward, I've submitted online consults a few weeks back but no one replied!

[JohnnyDrama]

Hey guys, just want to share, I feel terribly frustrated when it comes to searching for the right surgeon - as much as you try to identify someone that you can try to meet your needs, you feel very uncertain on how to proceed.

 

I always worry what will happen to me 10 years down the road after the procedure. I do not feel confident yet with whats happening so far.

 

Is there anyone who is able to guide me on how to move forward, I've submitted online consults a few weeks back but no one replied!

 

You should send your info to Stephen at BHR (Bisanga) or Spex (for the attention of Feriduni). They'll reply in no time. Both docs are at the top end of the FUE scale. I'm booked in for FUE with Bisanga in August.

 

But to address one of your concerns......regarding the 10 years down the road thing.......well no doc is going to be able to tell you how you will look in a decade, that's down to so many variables it's not even funny.

[PupDaddy]

Hi socates,

 

The decision to get a transplant and the choice of surgeon are nerve-wracking experiences, to be sure.

 

It sounds like you’ve done some research and submitted online consult forms and photos to several surgeons. Why don’t you follow up with an email or telephone call to each clinic and ask about the status of your online consult request? Keep in mind that most clinics only have one day per week set aside for the doctor to do consults – the rest of the week is for surgeries – and priority must be given to in-person consults. Even after your receive a plan and estimate for your online consult, you might well want to personally visit two or three of the docs you contacted to better get a sense of which doc is right for you and to get a hands-on evaluation from the doctor – especially for FUE. A hair transplant is cosmetic surgery with life-altering implications (potentially good and bad). You likely wouldn’t get a nose job or face lift from a doctor you’ve never met, would you?

 

If I were to decide to get a transplant via FUE, my personal set of criteria would include:

 

1. The surgeon has posted a body of work that impresses me, which includes a good sampling of patients whose pattern and extent of loss and hair characteristics are similar to my own.

 

2. If I required more than, say, 2,000 grafts, I would want a surgeon who routinely performs large session FUE and can do it in a single day or over the course of two to three days .

 

3. I would want a surgeon who punches (excises) all the grafts himself. It’s fine with me if his techs remove (extract) the grafts after they are punched out (excised), but I want the surgeon to perform the critically important work of punching/excising each and every graft to be transplanted.

 

4. I would want a surgeon who makes all the recipient sites himself (no techs making recipient sites) and who, ideally, places most or all of at least the single-hair grafts himself in the frontal hairline and temple sites.

 

5. I want a surgeon who performs at least as many FUE transplants as he does FUT transplants, is recommended on this forum, and is recognized as a “star” with FUE.

 

Your concern with what your situation will be ten years down the road is a valid one. Male pattern baldness is a progressive condition. When and where it will "stop" for any given individual is an inexact science. You are almost assured that your native hair will at least miniaturize (the hair shafts become narrower) with age, even the hair in your donor area from which transplanted hairs will be taken. If you are transplanted into existing hair, you have to consider that the hair that currently exists might well thin and/or be lost over time, which means you will have to re-fill those areas with transplanted hair or use some sort of concealer. You also must consider that your hair loss might well progress farther back over time, requiring additional hair transplants to "chase the loss." It is for these reasons and more that relatively young guys are well advised to consider whether they might be okay with shaving their hair down very short and just letting nature take its course. If, on the other hand, you are relatively young and have only minimal to moderate hair loss for your age and decide to go the transplant route, you are probably best advised to start taking finasteride to help slow down future loss and, hopefully, delay the need for additional transplant work. There are many, many happy hair transplant patients, but there are also many who jump into it with insufficient knowledge and research, with unrealistic expectations, and/or with a surgeon and clinic chosen for convenience or cost or based on mass marketing campaigns, who end up regretting their decision.

 

Take your time. Follow up with your online evaluation requests, schedule in-person evaluations with your top two or three pics, then take some time away to think about everything you've learned before deciding whether to have a transplant and by whom.

 

Good luck!

[Mickey85]

through my research amd questioning i was displeased to learn that not all fue docs do all the extractions. doesnt mean the result wont be good given the clinics track record, but why exactly am i paying $8 or 6EURO for? no tech cares more for a practice than the surgeon that owns and operates it. if a tech makes a mistake he or she gets terminated from their position whilst the patient suffers. if a surgeon makes a mistake and is not quick to learn from it there goes their practice just like Mr. Armani. it boggles the mind that one of the detrimental factors against fue which i believe is a superier procedure(though not without its flaws) is being bottle necked due to a arbitruary factor. i guarantee(spelling i always hate this word) you that of fue prices dropped to fut prices overnight fut would go the way of the Dodo.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Mickey85

[socates123]

@pupdaddy, hey man, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have done my homework to a certain extent and for one - I'm certainly not going to do a FUT. I have thought about it for one year and hell no, I cannot create another problem right after the transplant (the solution) has remedied it.

 

As you have rightly pointed out, hair loss is progressive. What we are trying to do is to buy time.

 

Having said that, I was thinking to myself, in my 40s or 50s, (I have in mind on what hairstyle i can wear) and the worst case scenario is to shave my sides and my back with a #1 clipper.

 

At least I can safely say that hey well there is hair on my hairline, midscalp and crown.

[socates123]

@pupdaddy, question to yourself (or forum members)

 

Which surgeon fits the following criteria & use non motorised FUE tools?

 

3. I would want a surgeon who punches (excises) all the grafts himself. It’s fine with me if his techs remove (extract) the grafts after they are punched out (excised), but I want the surgeon to perform the critically important work of punching/excising each and every graft to be transplanted.

 

4. I would want a surgeon who makes all the recipient sites himself (no techs making recipient sites) and who, ideally, places most or all of at least the single-hair grafts himself in the frontal hairline and temple sites.

 

5. I want a surgeon who performs at least as many FUE transplants as he does FUT transplants, is recommended on this forum, and is recognized as a “star” with FUE.

[Mickey85]

@pupdaddy, question to yourself (or forum members)

 

Which surgeon fits the following criteria & use non motorised FUE tools?

 

3. I would want a surgeon who punches (excises) all the grafts himself. It’s fine with me if his techs remove (extract) the grafts after they are punched out (excised), but I want the surgeon to perform the critically important work of punching/excising each and every graft to be transplanted.

 

4. I would want a surgeon who makes all the recipient sites himself (no techs making recipient sites) and who, ideally, places most or all of at least the single-hair grafts himself in the frontal hairline and temple sites.

 

5. I want a surgeon who performs at least as many FUE transplants as he does FUT transplants, is recommended on this forum, and is recognized as a “star” with FUE.

 

i dont want to take away from anyone's business but this is a tranparent forum(once again i give my thanks to Bill, Blake and all the mod team for allowing me to voice my opinions good or bad) but Bisanga is your man. the man is ethical. he does not over-estimate graft quotations, he does not dense pack 80 grafts into a cm2, he wont perform a scar revision if it's evident a patient's physiology is the culprit. he uses a conservative approach like ej where he lightly packed the scar with grafts to ensure they survived. how many surgeons would do that?some would have tried revising the scar or would have packed a tonne of grafts with a 40 percent survival rate.

 

i recently found out that some very renowned fue surgeons did not do all the punching of the grafts, some are recommended on here whilst some have not yet been considered. to some people it is paramount that the surgeon himself does the extractions while other dont mind as long as the result is great...

[socates123]

@Mickey, cheers mate, I will take your thoughts into consideration. Thank you bro.

[Mickey85]

No worries champ. But do not just take my word as gospel. I can only give information that I have discovered but I do not know all the information that is out there. Whilst surgeons letting their techs do the extractions is not kept a secret, I do feel that it is not as openly known as it should be.

[GNX1]

 

5. I want a surgeon who performs at least as many FUE transplants as he does FUT transplants

 

an even better idea is one that performs FUE only!

[hairthere]

Regarding submitting online consults: If you're not hearing back I suggest you get more aggressive and phone these clinics to set something up. I think once you begin that process the rest of it will fall into place and you'll have a better feel for where/who you are comfortable with. But taking your time, especially with HT surgery, is not a bad idea. Neither is thinking ahead. A great HT doc will do the same.

[aj29]

I would strongly urge you to contact dr Bisanga via his rep Stephen who I've always found quick to respond with informative answers to the countless questions I bombarded him with before and post my hair transplant.

Dr Bisanga in my opinion is a genius and I've looked at thousands of results over the last few years whilst researching for my op and found no one to be more consistent with not only results but also patient aftercare,

 

Aj