1 year post transplant

[Matt]

This week marks 1 year since I had my hair transplant. I am happy overall with my results as I do have more coverage.  Below is a side by side from 1 year a part and the other picture was a few weeks after the procedure during shock loss phase.

[Henry]

Pretty good result, care to share the number of grafts and clinic?

[Matt]

I’ll share my experience - I’m happy to have some more coverage but was not happy with the overall experience 

It’s been 1 year since I had my hair transplant done at Dr.Gartners office. Overall I’m happy with my results so far but was somewhat dissatisfied with my overall experience.

 

I’m pleased with the results because I do have more coverage in the areas I was thinning and in areas I couldn’t grow hair. I believe my hair loss was a Norwood 3 but I actually was never told what stage hair loss I was in.

 

Little background -I’ve had hair loss since I was 28 years old (currently 35) so I’ve been treating my hair loss with PRP injections and being on finestride and minoxidil. I had really great results from doing PRP 2-3x a year but overtime PRP injections were getting expensive and was not resulting in any consistent hair growth by the time I was in my mid 30’s so I decided to look into hair transplant because in the long run it would be permanent and cheaper.

 

I will say that normally I do my due diligence when researching procedures but I truly blame myself for not doing enough research on hair transplants and I blame no one but myself.

 

What I mean by that was I did a quick search for places in the area that were nearby that do transplants and Dr. Gartners was closest to where I lived and they were running a special. I was drawn to the price and to the close proximity to my home.

I researched another surgeon nearby and both offered the same things and same number of grafts but their price was a lot more so i figured if both surgeons have similar procedures and methods I will go with the cheapest (red flag)

 

I never met Dr. Gartner face to face until the surgery day and all I did was send him pics of my scalp and had one FaceTime video. I was told how many grafts I would need based off a few photos and never not physically evaluated. I ended up getting 3300 grafts implanted and they were able to schedule me within a couple of weeks of agreeing.

 

Dr. Gartner is a plastic surgeon who offers transplants in his office but he does not do the procedures himself. He rents out his space to Nova Medical Hair and I believe he just oversees the procedures and is the surgeon who can write prescriptions afterwards. He just rents out his space to this company. Technicians are the ones that actually do the work and from my research AFTER my transplant I found most technicians aren’t really reliable and it’s the luck of draw. I had asked after my surgery what their certifications were and I never got a full answer, I was told that these technicians have been with him for years and they do just a good enough job as he did so that’s why he doesn’t do the procedure anymore.

 

When looking into hair transplants I believe that you are better off going to a place that only focuses on hair and hair transplants and the surgeon whose office it is should be the one doing the procedure. 

 

It’s a very expensive procedure to do stateside so if you are paying top dollar for this procedure you should probably do it in place that specializes in this area.

 

When I made payments for the procedure I thought I was talking to one of his assistants  in his office but the day of the procedure is when I actually finally met his front desk assistances so I have no idea who I was speaking to before the procedure. In fact I was told I would be sent a list of pre-op procedures but I had to reach out to the office 10 days before my transplant to get that information. l finally got that information which included things to avoid. The list actually should’ve been sent out two weeks before because there are things that you need to avoid that I wasn’t (Again I blame myself for not being thorough with all aspects of the procedure)

 

With all the money I spent I felt that there should’ve been more contact from the office from them and not the other way around.

 

Day of the procedure I signed all the paperwork and was then met by the lead technician. Once again the day leading up to this I thought Dr. Gartner was the main surgeon doing the procedure so I just thought this was his assistant getting me ready. Within a few hours I would realize he would not be doing any part of the transplant.

 

They brought me into the office and took pics and explained how the procedure was going go. Stated if I needed a break to use the bathroom I would be able to whenever I needed to but that overall it’ll be a very uncomfortable day. The hardest part is lying still with people leaning on your back and not moving for hours. Perhaps I have the lowest tolerance of pain because after the first hour it became extremely uncomfortable.

 

In the beginning the technicians were very nice and accommodating but after a few hours they were seemingly getting annoyed at me when I asked to use the bathroom or  If i could just lift my head for a few seconds. There was a point that I just needed the technician to move her elbow off my neck because i was going really numb and the technician got upset at me and went on a rant for about a minute or two telling me the reason why she can’t stop. 

 

I understand that injecting too much lidocaine over 10 hours isn’t ideal for hair transplants and they want to get through the procedure quickly before it wares off. Too much isn’t good for the health of the scalp and there is a limit with how much they are comfortable using. However lecturing me on the reasons why they don’t want to stop and then stopping while not alleviating my pain was counterintuitive and this happened a few times during the day

 

Dr. Gartner came into the room a handful of times to check in on me but again he was not part of the procedure.

 

When the procedure was finally done I thought Dr.Gartner would come in and evaluate and assess everything but that was not the case. I was told he was in surgery and wasn’t available. This procedure was done on a Friday and I didn’t get done until 5pm. I was given a list of post op instructions that was simply copy and paste from another hair transplant surgeon out in Buffalo NY. It was actually done on word document and was riddled with spelling mistakes. 

 

Granted post op instructions are the same across the board for hair transplants but with all the money being spent you’d think they would’ve used spell check or not use someone else’s instructions.

 

What I also found odd was that their was no follow up with the team afterwards. Til this day not once did anyone follow up with me or have me come in to see my progress. The other surgeon i looked into had in person followups a few days after the procedure then 2 weeks and then 2 months. In fact most reputable surgeons had something similar. 

 

They simply just let me leave on my own. I wasn’t even given information if I had questions over the weekend. The fact that I wasn’t given even an emergency number was another red flag. The office was closed until Monday so having a surgery on Friday with no contact information for two days is not how any surgeon should run their practice.

 

I somehow managed to find the number to Dr.Gartner assistant on one of his websites and was put in touch with him early Sunday morning when I had a few questions. I will say that over the next few weeks when I called the office I was able to speak with Dr.Gartner on a number of post op concerns I was having so that was one positive.

 

I was also supposed to get one free PRP injection but that never took place. Most places I read stated they did PRP either the day of procedure or within a few weeks. I was told by Dr. Gartner that I should wait two months before doing PRP. 

 

I went back to my dermatologist 2 months later and he said l could’ve done PRP sooner. My dermatologist said the technician did a great job in my donor area and I was healing properly. I would go on and do 3 PRP injections over the next few months on my own and that helped get my recovery and growth off on the right track.

Recently I reached out to the office to see if I can get the pictures that they took of me before the hair transplant. So far they haven’t gotten back to me- I’ve emailed and called and was told they’ll try and find my file, but they haven’t located it. 

 

So overall I’ll give them 3 stars since l do have more coverage and certain area’s appear to be thicker and my hairline wasn’t messed up but i feel that there could be improvements made in all areas of their practice.