bht with Dr.Arvind and other thoughts

[mathew]

I like many other people with hair loss, was always concerned as to how many hair will make me really satisfied. I did not want to settle for just thinning hair or proper expectations. That is why I was always hopeful about bht.However, everything could not be as per my wishes.

I was considered an unlikely candidate at the time by Dr.Arvind because my chest hair grew only about less than 1 inch.

But I really coaxed him to try it out.I wanted to see for myself how my body hair will shape up on my head.

Today, 9 months later, my hair are growing longer AND are absolutely indistinguishable.

I dont know if bht will work for everyone.It does on my head and I have decided on a megasession with Dr.Arvind.

I think I couldnt wait years for what some call CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE.

So I chose this short cut. But for those who wish to know my experience with bodyhair- my chest hair did not shed but rather just held on for some time(around 2 months) and then started growing. I get them cut at regular intervals as in my job I cant keep very long hair(2-3 inches max). I have noticed them grow as long as 3 inches and they are indistinguishable from the remaining hair. No one has been able to make out any difference.

 

I wish all the doctors doing bht my very best. And I thank Dr.Arvind the most for his understanding approach and his continued efforts in bht.

I am planning for a megasitting of bht with Dr.Arvind soon and hope to use leghair as well as I have quite a bit of them.Will keep you posted.

 

Other thoughts-

How many people really believe when someone tells them that 5000 grafts are going to give them a full head of hair.(I know veterans may say it will appear like a full head with a bit of thinning).

That was the time it occured to me what the real scam about the strip surgery is- they keep saying fue and strip are just extraction methods.

But there is a difference between fue and strip overlooked till recently. Fue can give you a chance of going in for body hair which strip can never. And if you look at it seriously scalp hair are never going to be enough to provide the coverage a person will consider satisfactory.

I wont settle for any thing less than 8000 grafts in all for me at least.

Of course, it will be better if I could increase that to 20,000 grafts which I think I have lost till now.And reading dj's experience i think it may be possible for me one day soon.

 

I have had 2500 fue grafts in my last surgery + 100 chest hair grafts.

 

 

 

<edited for promotional website content - Robert>

[mathew]

I like many other people with hair loss, was always concerned as to how many hair will make me really satisfied. I did not want to settle for just thinning hair or proper expectations. That is why I was always hopeful about bht.However, everything could not be as per my wishes.

I was considered an unlikely candidate at the time by Dr.Arvind because my chest hair grew only about less than 1 inch.

But I really coaxed him to try it out.I wanted to see for myself how my body hair will shape up on my head.

Today, 9 months later, my hair are growing longer AND are absolutely indistinguishable.

I dont know if bht will work for everyone.It does on my head and I have decided on a megasession with Dr.Arvind.

I think I couldnt wait years for what some call CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE.

So I chose this short cut. But for those who wish to know my experience with bodyhair- my chest hair did not shed but rather just held on for some time(around 2 months) and then started growing. I get them cut at regular intervals as in my job I cant keep very long hair(2-3 inches max). I have noticed them grow as long as 3 inches and they are indistinguishable from the remaining hair. No one has been able to make out any difference.

 

I wish all the doctors doing bht my very best. And I thank Dr.Arvind the most for his understanding approach and his continued efforts in bht.

I am planning for a megasitting of bht with Dr.Arvind soon and hope to use leghair as well as I have quite a bit of them.Will keep you posted.

 

Other thoughts-

How many people really believe when someone tells them that 5000 grafts are going to give them a full head of hair.(I know veterans may say it will appear like a full head with a bit of thinning).

That was the time it occured to me what the real scam about the strip surgery is- they keep saying fue and strip are just extraction methods.

But there is a difference between fue and strip overlooked till recently. Fue can give you a chance of going in for body hair which strip can never. And if you look at it seriously scalp hair are never going to be enough to provide the coverage a person will consider satisfactory.

I wont settle for any thing less than 8000 grafts in all for me at least.

Of course, it will be better if I could increase that to 20,000 grafts which I think I have lost till now.And reading dj's experience i think it may be possible for me one day soon.

 

I have had 2500 fue grafts in my last surgery + 100 chest hair grafts.

 

 

 

<edited for promotional website content - Robert>

[Smoothy]

BHT is a option for those who dont have enough donor to reach their goals, and it's good to have docs lik Arvind that conduct these rare cases.

A normal person only has roughly 6,000 FU's to begin with. A person with EXTREMELY natural thick hair might approach 8,000 FU's, but the majority of non balding patients have around 6K in the donor areas. So if your goal is nothing less than 8,000 FU transplants--then nobody has that much in their scalp so you must add BHT to reach your goals. It's all individual preference/goals. I wish you the best of luck.

 

 

Personally, I would utilize strip HT first, then save FUE and finally BHT for last case options-- YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT 30 yrs will be like?

 

Best of luck with your results-- sounds like your happy and that's what counts.

[gillenator]

Mathew,

 

First of all I want to congratulate you on choosing one of the best FUE surgeons in the world, Dr. AP. Dr. Woods did the hard evidence research on chest to scalp BHT procedures whereby he concluded in his case studies that when chest hair was moved to scalp, it grew "longer". The reverse was also true. When scalp hair follicules were moved to the chest, they did not grow to the length that they did in the scalp. Many of the FUE surgeons then preferred the chest because it had the "emperical" data to back it up. Chest hair also parallels scalp hair characteristics better as it is generally more coarse, though not always. I read that you did 100 BHT grafts which would equate to approximately 100 hairs "if" they all survived. Body hair is established primarily in one hair groupings so one of the primary benefits of utilizing your scalp first is that you typically get twice the hair count, if not a little better from scalp grafts. More hair, more coverage. Now Dr. Arvind has probably the cheapest FUE graft pricing and he is a top notch surgeon, however for those of you considering BHTs in the US, the price is as high as $12.00 US per BHT graft. One can get strip done with a good surgeon as cheap as $3.00 to $4.00 per scalp graft and be able to triple or even quadruple their coverage. The thing that gets me is the patient who has done their research very well but "just cannot afford it". Man, I talk to MANY guys who are divorced, supporting their kids first, and never have enough left to save nor the ability to borrow funds for something very important to them. And then there are guys who do most of their coverage by strip and know they can add FUE later and even implant into their scar. So economics does play a major role in their decision even if they would opt for FUE/FIT.

 

Now let's discuss the behavior of a BH follicule. I am happy to hear that alot of your BHT grafts continued growing in anagen. Just know that some of them did enter telogen due to the trauma factor alone. BH follicules can remain in telogen for up to 18 months when they do cycle compared to the average telogen duration of 3 to 4 months with scalp follicules.

 

My heed to you is to use BH as a back-up or reserve as Smoothy so well put. WHY? If too many of your BH follicules go dormant at the same time since they were transplanted at the same time, you could end up with what appears as some uneven density, especially if too many BH grafts are placed in the front forelock. I AM TOTALLY AGAINST USING BH ON THE HAIRLINE.

 

One other thing is that although the BH looks parallel in characteristics at a shorter length, that does not mean it would not "kink" or "curl" once you let it grow longer. I am not saying it would but I have personally seen this happen even when the donor was from the scalp. Possibly you will always wear your hair at two to three inches if you desire to do so.

 

We really have to be careful whenever we imply that there will never be enough scalp donor to satisfy someone because that is simply not true. And 5,000 grafts can work miracles on lots of patients which I am sure Futzy would agree with. It's a matter of hair characteristics, donor density, recipient surface area, and the patient's goals.

 

The avearge individual bears approximately 50,000 hairs on top of their head. If you were completely bald on top, 20,000 grafts at 2.15 hairs per scalp graft average would get you approximately 43,000 hairs IF they all survived and they obviously all do not. However if you utilize a fair amount of BH grafts your total production of hairs will go down significantly.

 

Trust me on this. You won't need that much coverage. Wait and see. Here's the big issue though. 20,000 grafts whether from the body or scalp will create 20,000 incisions in the top of your head. Have you ever heard ethical HT doctors mention that it is virtually impossible to get that level of density? Think about it a minute. How much would the blood supply and flow be compromised to the recipient area? Every time another pass is done through the same recipient area to gain density, some compromision of blood occurs due to the scar matter that is formed in the healing process. The scalp is amassed with a capillary system of blood flow. These capillaries are intregal in delivering blood to the follicule. Although they do heal, it is not and I repeat not the same environment of blood distribution "before" the recipient incisions were made. Create more incisions later, more scar matter develops in addition to what is already there from the previous procedures. If a follicule loses it's blood supply, it will perish. Our bodies do not regrow tissue or flesh when severed or damaged. They formate scar material to fill in what was taken or missing.

 

All I am saying is step back, think about your goals as you age like Smoothy stated and approach your restoration in a methodical way that will produce the results you will be happy with "as they happen." You'll never know until you see it grow! That way you will only sustain whatever trauma and scarring that is minimally necessary and promote the best yield that you can. Best wishes to you Mathew!