Dr. Lindsey's Wendy, gives advice on a typical call

[Dr. William Lindsey]

So we get TONS of calls of guys, and a few girls, saying they had multiple surgeries and although they initially looked better...the hair they thought they got is "all gone". My best guess, and what we almost always see if they come to the office is the same thing. A person goes to a hair clinic, often gets sold a bunch of laser treatments and vitamins as they "weren't ready for surgery". After a year or so, when they have spend 2000.00 and are still losing hair...they now proceed with HT at that office. After all, they are now really comfortable with that clinic...they've been getting light treatments and spending money with them for more than a year. So they get surgery, sold as "filling in all of the weak areas". Now those clinics are great sales people...they convince the customer that they can fill in a couple of thousand grafts, with existing long hair in place, and in a day or so...the patient can go back to work. I hear these ads on TV and the radio! Probably would sell me too on this if it weren't for forums like this!

 

 

 

And so they get some hair placed, my best guess is that its hard for the doctor to see where to make the holes, harder for the techs to see the holes, and impossible for surrounding hair not to stick to and pull out some of the new hairs... And when a year is up or maybe longer, the clinic says...."well our surgery worked, its just you lost more hair!" Whereas in reality they have lost DONOR hair and MONEY, often with little to show for it.

 

 

 

Here's a typical call:

 

 

 

Please do your research!

 

 

 

Dr. Lindsey

[Davis91]

Hey Dr. L

 

Hope all is well. You and Wendy are making some AWESOME educational videos, please keep going!

 

I think you said something important on this one that warrants discussion, specifically that one of the issues of HT failure MAY be in some cases that hair grafts put in between non-shaved hair may be uprooted and lost by the non-shaved hair sticking to new grafts in the recipient area.

 

This is of course correct. Moreover there is NO DOUBT that a shaved recipient area is the best option to prevent this, better for visualization by the doc, the placers, and even patient when taking care of the grafts post op.

 

However, a large number of established coalition recommended doctors on this site offer no shave recipient (and donor) FUT and recipient no shave FUE placement. They offer this to the patient to allow for example going back to work sooner or with less obvious work done, some offer it standard, and in many instances their placers are very used to doing it. Again, there are a lot of variables involved to go ahead with non shaved placement (including both doctor and placer training), so the question is with the caveat that it is always better to work in a visually clear placing area, are you saying that the danger of placing hair into a non-shaved recipient zone will sometimes, frequently, or always result in lost grafts due to existing hair sticking to and pulling out grants?

 

This issue may be of prime concern to a subset of patients hoping to get a HT without shaving down their recipient area.

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Davis,

 

You correctly point out that there are a lot of factors involved in success. Regarding shaving, there are 2 big issues. One is the technical aspect of completing the case as planned with hair all over the place. While I'm not the smartest guy around, I am reasonably clever, and have yet to figure out how I can make dense enough slits with hair in place, much less have the girls insert all of the hair correctly and completely, AND how the surrounding hair doesn't stick to and extract the newly inserted hair in the first couple of days. Maybe some of these guys have better technique and better staff than me, but I'm not so sure about all of that adding up...

 

The second issue is that IF you are just filling in...as soon as the native hair, often on its LAST LEG, goes (potentially hurried up by the shock loss of the case...) then it looks like nothing was accomplished. I see that ALL the time. Thousands of patients have seen me with the same story, not 10, not 100, but thousands... They were "sold" a preventative transplant or a fill in job, that would thicken them up and they wouldn't have to worry about their existing thinning hair anymore.

 

What really happens is they get a little hair, often less than I'd expect probably due to technical difficulties in executing the case, and then the existing hair goes...and all they have is a lower bank balance, a scar, and complete distrust for the hair industry.

 

In general I've found on all topics, if it sounds too good or too easy....it isn't all going to turn out the way it is expected.

 

Dr. Lindsey