How much time did you spend on researching before having the HT?

[justanotherguy]

I really wonder how much time people spend on researching before having an HT. Please invite everyone who had an HT before. I am really curious!!

 

Poll : How much time did you spend on researching before having the HT?

[justanotherguy]

I will post the results as soon as numbers make some sense..

[Spanker]

About 2.5 years

[Loags79]

it was about 6 months before from when I joined HTN and when I choose my HT surgeon.

[Jimbo34]

I suggest you amend the options on your poll as the longest duration you have is 3 months plus. Most if not all responses will fall into this category with some vast differences already identified (2.5 yrs and 6 months) so not sure what you will gain as it stands.

For the record mine was 8 months research.

[decow]

14 months, in my case before finalizing the HT doctor

[stinger99]

10 years for me. Glad I waited.

[justanotherguy]

apparently, i wasn't expecting this. i just updated the poll options. however, can you tell me how did you spend your time ? where did you research? why did it take so long?

[justanotherguy]

guys. i am looking forward to hear your experience..

 

1) how much time did you spend on researching before making a reservation with an HT doctor..

2) what did you do in this research period?

[scar5]

My Dad, who is NW7, asked the local physician for 'a name' of an HT doc during a routine check-up. The doc joked, "Aren't you leaving it a bit late?" To which my Dad said, 'No, it is for my 19 year old son"

I saw the doc, who told me i was too young.

 

Five years later, having progressed to NW3, I asked a buddy of mine, whose father was a radiologist to suggest a name. Two weeks later, the same HT doc name came back to me. So in I went, and this time the doc said, 'Yep, you've waited long enough" 26 years ago.

 

Had the internet been around, would I have done any better? Probably not. The guy was a well respected strip doctor with a staff of one who answered the phones, kept the books, and when I woke up from my valium slumbers mid-session there she was, putting in the grafts while the doc was talking to the next lucky guy.

 

I started to do HT research on the internet around 2001-2 and I made several big mistakes thereafter, as well as some good choices that have got me to where I am today, which isn't bad considering. 'Cept that life has passed me by in the meantime.

 

I think personality precludes me from making objective choices based on a forum environment where all kinds of agendas get mixed into the wash, especially in the repair game, when it is not only your HT that needs fixing, your whole mental make-up has taken a screwing.

 

Still overall, so much info out there, and if you stick around long enough, a fair percentage of people must be wiser for it.

[alaw19]

Hey Gents,

 

I've been researching for about 3 months now. I'm 27 years old, most likely going to go with an FUE as I am a NW2 - NW2a. I'm leaning towards Bisanga in Belgium, but I have also consulted with Rahal, and Shapiro. I'm open to FUT but feel FUE is better for my circumstances.

 

Any advice?

[Rawkerboi]

@alaw19 Even i am NW2, had a consultation with Rahal, he said stick on medicines and later he will fix my hairline. At present medicines are doing good job for me. I personally would opt for FUT coz its more economical, but if you willing to shell out some more money then go for FUE

Good luck!

[bismarck]

I've been researching hair loss for the last 2 1/2 years and counting. Still have not decided on the right surgeon, if any.

 

Unlike much of plastic surgery, this is a decision that has a finite number of 'redo' attempts, and a procedure in which subtle mistakes are very difficult to conceal (ie. unlike a botched liposuction or breast implants).

 

Beyond this, FUT and in particular FUE are extremely young as surgical procedures, without much formalized research. Although they were 'invented' 10-15 years ago, over half the research published on FUE surgery, for example, has been in the last 2 years alone.

 

Many of the surgeons practicing FUE didn't formally train in the technique during residency, but are 'self taught' (ie. have taken courses, and learned on patients years into private practice). As a user on here that is a cardiologist pointed out, there is an analogy to when angioplasty emerged to replace much of classical open heart surgery -- it's still the heart, but the benefit of formal training will almost always put you a cut above the self-taught. A cardiothoracic surgeon just can't do the same things with a balloon as an interventional cardiologist.

 

FUE is also a 'blind' technique, which makes its results even more unpredictable. Even with the best, there are no guarantees. Facelifts and rhinoplasties, by comparison, have been around for far longer, and so have more vetted track records. There has been a learning curve for the surgical specialty as a whole.

 

Punch grafts of the 90s were replaced by strips of the 2000s which have begun to be replaced by FUE in the 2010s. It is not unreasonable to expect a relative paradigm shift in hair surgery every 10 years.

The longer I've waited, the more refinement I've seen with surgical technique. We are in a field that is still undergoing a huge amount of flux.

 

I expect we will look back at the forums in 10-15 years and marvel at what we are calling 'state of the art' now and view it as archaic, much as we do now. Such is the nature of medical progress.

 

There are two current trends that appear to be happening with surgical hair restoration:

 

1) There has been a 'dilution' of FUE surgery with a recent influx of surgeons adopting the easier robotic techniques. This raises concern for a relative increase in subpar FUE results over the next several years.

2) At the same time, the best in the field only seem to be getting better.

 

Patient posted results on forums, as a consequence, are invaluable in helping to assess your surgeon. They are a caricature in some sense, as the patients that post online tend to either be very unhappy (either due to terrible failures, or neurotic personalities), or extremely pleased (usually due to excellent surgeries). It is also good to look at cases from the clinics themselves, but clearly these will more often be best case scenarios.

 

It seems the somewhat indirect point of your question is that you are wondering how long you yourself should research before proceeding with surgery.

 

If you are on these forums, and have read this far into this post, you are likely far more educated than the average hair loss sufferer.

 

Taking that into account, I would definitely advise waiting over rushing forward for even the lowest level doubt. It is expensive, irreversible, and a bad result can alter the course of your life on virtually every imaginable level (Joe from Staten Island comes to mind, god bless his soul).

 

As one very ethical hair surgeon once told me, you can always go forward with surgery, you can never go back.

[scar5]

 

Many of the surgeons practicing FUE didn't formally train in the technique during residency..

FUE is also a 'blind' technique,

 

Punch grafts of the 90s were replaced by strips of the 2000s:

 

1) There has been a 'dilution' of FUE surgery raises concern for a relative increase in subpar FUE result. you can always go forward with surgery, you can never go back.

 

At what stage in your research did you become aware that FUE was a blind surgery? How much study did iy take?

 

What is a strip residency?

 

For your research, I had strip in 1988, the same year FUE started. FUE was cockblocked by stateside in the states, and the originator developed a rqther caustic attitude, furtyer styming its progress.

 

HT industry doesnt and hasnt relied on research of a this kind.You sugges that FUE is moving without research...well, the entire strip industry did it too. Business and balls drove the industry forward, not research. Strip was everybit as cavalier as FUE.. remember, it is he sqme guys.. residencies and research rank very low-y on the HT world..its not rocket science, a very simple procedure.. that one can improve at, but never faster or beyond wha tje economic circimstances dictate, and they are very much based on momentum and opportunism, not science.

[Raiden76]

@alaw19 Even i am NW2, had a consultation with Rahal, he said stick on medicines and later he will fix my hairline. At present medicines are doing good job for me. I personally would opt for FUT coz its more economical, but if you willing to shell out some more money then go for FUE

Good luck!

 

I wish I had known about Rahal 14 years ago when I started with this experience.

[hairthere]

I had my first HT in 2005. I Yahoo'ed "HTs New York," and MHR and Joseph Karamikian were the first two to come up. I consulted both: big chain versus individual doc. Figured I covered all the bases. I liked the personal touch from the latter and that's who I chose. Little did I know both were bad choices. Immediately after surgery I realized my error, went back online and found a hairloss forum. Went to see a recommended doc in the area (dr Feller) who confirmed my suspicions that the surgical methods used were outdated and would not yield pleasing results.

 

I then consulted with 5 other surgeons and ultimately decided on Dr. Feller to fix me up. So, my initial research and surgery took place over a few weeks. The MHR sales guy tried to get me in the chair for a surgery the next day! I had my surgery with Karamikian --who has been run out of the business thankfully--about 1 month after consult.

 

I would suggest you first make sure you understand FUE and strip surgeries, and the risks/rewards of both. Also consult with as many surgeons as you can. View their work, in person if possible. Then formulate a short list of 3 doctors and pick the one that best suits your needs and who's work you like. At this point you can also weigh in factors like cost and travel. You should also have a solid game plan in place with your doctor of choice, go through all the scenarios of future loss and potential future surgeries. At least a year spent reading these forums, consulting docs, and speaking to patients, should put you in place to make a sound decision.

 

I would say that current HT patients are in a pretty good place right now though. There are many doctors doing excellent work, and your odds of having a good outcome are greatly increased, especially if you go with a doc recommended here.

Edited October 31, 2014 by hairthere

[bismarck]

At what stage in your research did you become aware that FUE was a blind surgery? How much study did iy take?

 

 

Yes, it is blind. You don't know where the follicle ends with FUE, you're just going on feel. Wesley has spoken about using high-frequency ultrasound to reduce this risk, but we're not there yet. That's why FUE can have a higher transection rate than FUT. Plain and simple.

 

What is a strip residency?

 

For your research, I had strip in 1988, the same year FUE started. FUE was cockblocked by stateside in the states, and the originator developed a rqther caustic attitude, furtyer styming its progress.

 

There is no such thing as a strip residency. Not sure where you got that. I am referring to training during residency.

 

For the dates, I am referring to the first published peer reviewed articles on Pubmed.

 

Strip was everybit as cavalier as FUE.. remember, it is he sqme guys.. residencies and research rank very low-y on the HT world..its not rocket science, a very simple procedure..

I would disagree with both of these statements. If it was simple, we would see a higher success rate and graft yield. The difficulty of the procedure is reflected in the number of disappointing outcomes posted online and in the literature. And like any new procedure, formalized training and research come later.

 

In the beginning, yes, it was the unregulated cowboy medicine and economic opportunism that you refer to, but with time, a formalized reproducible technique has emerged, and will continue to develop. You can't abandon the scientific method.

[gillenator]

I wore hair systems for 11 years before I had the nerve to pull the trigger in 1996, my first procedure. There was no internet when I started my research so all that was available was what I could find in the main library, and that was not much.

 

In 1980, when I started research, most of the medical community regarded HT surgery as a renegade field of unscrupulous doctors who preyed upon desperate individuals. Almost every doctor I inquired with thought I was nuts to ever consider HT surgery. But of course back then, it was open donor methods and had no aesthetic appeal. I remember Dr. Bosley doing segments on public TV channels which set the stage for infomercials which came later. I got referred to Bosley a number of times, but did not want that type of result with plugs.

 

I waited for the industry to begin doing micros and minis and did my first procedure in 1996 which came out reasonably well. It freed me from wearing hair systems which I desperately wanted.

 

So in conclusion, it was not a matter of how long I spent doing research, it was a matter of waiting for the right techniques to arrive and then finding the best surgeon that I could find at the time.

[KO]

scar5 is referring to your quote:

 

 

"Many of the surgeons practicing FUE didn't formally train in the technique during residency.."

 

His point is that there is no strip residency either, HT surgery is still the cavalier backwaters, which makes the point that surgeons who do FUE have no formal training moot. HT surgeons are surgeons from other fields who moved into this. For example Rassman was a cardiac surgeon before going into hair transplantation.

[gillenator]

While it is true that there are really no formal residency programs for HT surgery, some docs do offer internships including for FUE but they are far and few between. A good share of them do have formal training and education in the field of dermatology and you will see that if you read their respective biographies. But as KO stated, some come from a wide array of medical specialization.

 

There is another thread in this forum entitled, "FUE: Extractions not done by the doctor" where I posted some comments. Interesting thread...:rolleyes:

[justanotherguy]

How much time did you spend on researching before having the HT?

 

 

Thanks for the responses. Come on! We need more people to express their ideas..

 

Current Results

Responses: 6

Count Percent

6-12 months 33%

1-3 years 33%

3+ years 33%

Less than 1 month 0%

1-6 months 0%

 

 

Your turn! How much time did you spend on researching before having the HT?

 

[Britanium]

6-12 months...

[justanotherguy]

More responses?