Whats the Percentage of Unsuccessful HTs?

[yukhan80]

Hi, I am Junior member just joined few days back after my 1st HT. I browsed through net especially this forum and found out the best surgeon in my budget, discussed with him over the email,saw some of his HT's and took the decision. Point is, IMHO HT is a gamble , which you need to decide whether to play or not. Max you can do is to find out the best doctor to reduce the chances of failures. To be honest, I have not seen any case where single HT gave a satisfactory results(for Norwood IV and above). its always the multiple HT which has given close to good results. of course this is my opinion but here i am expecting a very good result in 1st HT :-)

[Garageland]

How can we be quoting numbers and percentages here, none of us are privy to the information as to why patients stop updating their results or why they start a blog/forum raving about their Doctor and showing lots of pre op and post op photos and then nothing.

 

I think if you look at the statistics in general patients tend to stop posting after the first few months some even after a few posts. To say that a patient stops posting 99% of the time because of a bad result is pure speculation.

 

Here's a statistic for you

 

Currently Active Users: 281 (7 members and 274 guests) Most users ever online was 3,613, 06-18-2013 at 11:46 PM.

Garageland, abhay, ALEXD, GuitarBoy, joeshmo209, Rez1, yukhan80

 

 

Just look at the number of guys logged in and the number of browsers/guests. These guests read and learn without most of the time ever posting a question, some will come forward and ask some questions. Look at the figures 274 guests and 7 members and that is a quiet time 9am here in the UK.

 

Some of these guests immediately after surgery and those that have had surgery will know this that you experience a quite short lived high. Some then decide to pluck up the courage to post or feel that they want to give back to the community or some will do it out of feeling an obligation to do so.

 

These generally don't make the best posters to document their results and the vast majority disappear before documenting their full journey and in my experience most in the first few months. You've all seen these guys who come on and update their own thread only and don't interact with any other posts.

 

Patients in the first few months after surgery need this forum as a support to ask the post op questions about shedding, washing their hair and so on, they need reassurance from others going through the same experiences as them and once they are over the ugly duckling stage and the new growth grows in they disappear. That might be at 3 months it might be at 8 months or somewhere in between.

 

There are a number of blogs that don't make it past the first few enthusiastic posts some only even document their first months progress, so how can these patients be attributed to a poor result?

 

What is boils down to is that some people are forum posters and others aren't the hardcore guys on here that are currently researching, asking questions and being involved with forum are the ones that if they do have surgery will document it hopefully to the end. Many do this and that is what makes this a great community for people to be involved in and research but there is a much higher percentage of patients that do not have the time or commitment or interest to continue posting because they were never forum posters in the first place.

[Cryingoutloud]

You don't go to the trouble of taking well-lit photos, uploading them to a blog, doing the written updates and then, when your "ugly duckling" phase gives way to solid, consistent growth, turn around and say "I'm not gonna bother sharing my delight and elation with all the guys on the forum who gave me encouragement when I was at my lowest" . . . unless, of course, you HAVEN'T had the growth or the result you were expecting.

 

For every coalition surgeon, there are likely a thousand hacks each churning out anything from passable to horrendous results. The whole raison d'etre for this forum is the fact that there was, at one time, a totally justified perception that hair restoration procedures invariably turned out less than favourable results for a significant number of patients.

 

Even now, hair mills like Bosley crank out borderline butcheries on a weekly basis so this forum remains relevant because there's a very good chance that going to any old surgeon will end in tears. If there were only a tiny percentage of failures in hair restoration on the whole, the forum wouldn't be here.

 

You're right though; we can't possibly know what proportion of those "guests" are doing HTs, thinking about it or just interested in looking at pictures. We can only base our opinions on the evidence we're actually presented with and, in this context, that's blogs and results threads. With more than a few blogs or threads being abandoned after a few months, there's a high likelihood that poor results are to blame.

[taurusrisen]

You don't go to the trouble of taking well-lit photos, uploading them to a blog, doing the written updates and then, when your "ugly duckling" phase gives way to solid, consistent growth, turn around and say "I'm not gonna bother sharing my delight and elation with all the guys on the forum who gave me encouragement when I was at my lowest" . . . unless, of course, you HAVEN'T had the growth or the result you were expecting.

 

For every coalition surgeon, there are likely a thousand hacks each churning out anything from passable to horrendous results. The whole raison d'etre for this forum is the fact that there was, at one time, a totally justified perception that hair restoration procedures invariably turned out less than favourable results for a significant number of patients.

 

Even now, hair mills like Bosley crank out borderline butcheries on a weekly basis so this forum remains relevant because there's a very good chance that going to any old surgeon will end in tears. If there were only a tiny percentage of failures in hair restoration on the whole, the forum wouldn't be here.

 

You're right though; we can't possibly know what proportion of those "guests" are doing HTs, thinking about it or just interested in looking at pictures. We can only base our opinions on the evidence we're actually presented with and, in this context, that's blogs and results threads. With more than a few blogs or threads being abandoned after a few months, there's a high likelihood that poor results are to blame.

 

I got an issue with what you said. If I had a great HT and started to write about it in a blog, I wouldn't continue to write about it forever. I got a life too and I would want to enjoy it rather than stay at home and write about it online. I would be partying.

 

I dont think a patient with a bad HT would necessarily abandon their blogs. More than likely, they would write a poor review on it and possibly warn others not to go down that path.

 

It doesn't make sense that patients abandon their threads, especially when they're seeing good results. A HT stays with you forever, good or bad. What I'm saying is, we really dont know the reason why people jump ship from writing their blogs or threads.

 

BTW, whats a coalition surgeon?

[gillenator]

I certainly agree that those individuals who had a poor result and also do not educate themselves online are a significant part of the equation.

 

Some guys just do not like to do the extensive required research and are more apt to be drawn by ads and marketing. There is a horrible HT clinic in my area who continually recruits men by placing expensive high end display ads in the major newspaper here. They place it primarily in the sports or entertainment sections. This clinic also does routine radio advertising campaigns offering discounted graft prices to lure patients.

 

The large chain clinics still run their infomercials on TV and place high end ads in body building magazines, etc. They know this approach works for them...:confused:

 

There are plenty of highly skilled and competent HT surgeons world-wide. So unless the individual has physiological issues, there are few reasons to not have a successful procedure providing the individual has completed their required research including careful surgeon selection.

 

I do believe that if those who did their homework were compared to those who did not, the scale would tip favorably to the informed group of patients, all other factors being equal...