Advice on hair transplants in Australia

[Frontier Bivouac]

Hi, I am looking for advice and recommendations from people who have sought or have had a hair transplant in Australia. I understand it can be very expensive here (~10-13k AUD for 1500 FUE grafts) compared to overseas but I am reluctant to travel for medical care and value the security of having it done here.

However it has been difficult to find somewhere that I trust doing it at, a lot of the clinics seem a bit shady from their sites and peoples experiences with them. At the moment the Knudsen Clinic is on the top of my list, one of the more expensive ones, but it seems trustworthy and from conversations with Knudsen he was very upfront and realistic on what I can expect.

However I am open to other suggestions and would really appreciate if anyone can help me with what is a pretty large decision.

[duckling]

41 minutes ago, Frontier Bivouac said:

Hi, I am looking for advice and recommendations from people who have sought or have had a hair transplant in Australia. I understand it can be very expensive here (~10-13k AUD for 1500 FUE grafts) compared to overseas but I am reluctant to travel for medical care and value the security of having it done here.

However it has been difficult to find somewhere that I trust doing it at, a lot of the clinics seem a bit shady from their sites and peoples experiences with them. At the moment the Knudsen Clinic is on the top of my list, one of the more expensive ones, but it seems trustworthy and from conversations with Knudsen he was very upfront and realistic on what I can expect.

However I am open to other suggestions and would really appreciate if anyone can help me with what is a pretty large decision.

On this forum i haven't seen any clinics from australia get recommended. In knudsen clinic i think dr russell and dr vikram work , who are in " the hair loss show" youtube channel. I have been seeing their videos since 5 years but never seen anyone post their hair transplant results from them.

I understand your conversations going well since they are great speakers. But choose surgeons based on their results on multiple forums (where you can see patients posting results) and not conversation skills.

If there was a good clinic in australia then there would have been no problem spending a lot considering you didn't wanted to travel and a sense of security comes when doing it in their own country but here people travel to another part of world to get it done, since its going to be on your head for a lifetime. 

In my opinion you can travel to these surgeons (order is not based on quality of work, they are all good surgeons) : 

1) india-Eugenix  ( but only if you can get Dr sethi or Dr arika 's package)

2) turkey- pekiner , hlc, turan , gur , yaman , bicer

3) thailand- Kongkiat Laorwong

4) bulgaria- zarev

5) canada- hassan and wong

6) belgium- bisanga

7) spain- de frietas

and many more you will find in this forum. These are the ones i follow more.

[A_4_Archan]

I would echo what duckling said...you need a better surgeon and not a better orator or conversationalist ..there may be many surgeons who even possesses very good theory based knowledge and can perform surgery in a good way..but achieving a natural result is beyond all that...it is a skill and art which unfortunately is possessed by very few in this world....

you can atleast travel to india or thailand and you will get better chance of a natural positive outcome than in Australia ..so the traveling discomfort is worth considering ....best of luck..

[Gatsby]

1 hour ago, Frontier Bivouac said:

Hi, I am looking for advice and recommendations from people who have sought or have had a hair transplant in Australia. I understand it can be very expensive here (~10-13k AUD for 1500 FUE grafts) compared to overseas but I am reluctant to travel for medical care and value the security of having it done here.

However it has been difficult to find somewhere that I trust doing it at, a lot of the clinics seem a bit shady from their sites and peoples experiences with them. At the moment the Knudsen Clinic is on the top of my list, one of the more expensive ones, but it seems trustworthy and from conversations with Knudsen he was very upfront and realistic on what I can expect.

However I am open to other suggestions and would really appreciate if anyone can help me with what is a pretty large decision.

If you have surgery here in Australia you will regret it. Trust me. This is surgery that is permanent. For the sake of spending several hours in the air that will soon be forgotten long after your hair has grown the inconvenience is negligible. 

[Frontier Bivouac]

3 hours ago, A_4_Archan said:

I would echo what duckling said...you need a better surgeon and not a better orator or conversationalist ..there may be many surgeons who even possesses very good theory based knowledge and can perform surgery in a good way..but achieving a natural result is beyond all that...it is a skill and art which unfortunately is possessed by very few in this world....

you can atleast travel to india or thailand and you will get better chance of a natural positive outcome than in Australia ..so the traveling discomfort is worth considering ....best of luck..

 

3 hours ago, Gatsby said:

If you have surgery here in Australia you will regret it. Trust me. This is surgery that is permanent. For the sake of spending several hours in the air that will soon be forgotten long after your hair has grown the inconvenience is negligible. 

Is Australia really that bad or is it just a less common/talked about procedure here?

My main concern is just that I cannot travel to certain popular countries for transplant due to professional reasons, Thailand or Canada are probably the most likely but also Canada would be difficult when considering the cost of flights.

[Gatsby]

I don't know how old you are, your current Norwood scale. if you are on medication (finsteride, minoxidil, etc). You need to consider all of these things when you choose a surgeon to be able to make a plan over your lifespan. MPB is progressive full stop. If you have managed to stabilize your hair loss then that's ideally when you consider surgery.

As to Australian surgeons. I've been deliberately having consultations for the past 38 years and I cannot find anyone who has a volume of work that they can show me that I would consider acceptable. Not one. And I don't see patients posting there results either. Dr Knudsen for example took over the business decades ago from Dr Richard Shiells (a great guy). Yet I have never had Dr Knudsen show either myself of anyone his body of work. The same with his off sider Dr Jayaprakash. When I last spoke with him he had nothing to show me but a few photos (very old photos) of patients with no more than Norwood 3 loss. Dr Vikram Jayaprakash was charged and prosecuted in 2008 for several offences of academic fraud at Auckland Academic Hospital. I implore you to Google this because you need to realise that this industry in Australia is quite bad. Another surgeon Dr Marzola in Adelaide will only perform 1,000 grafts per surgery. His reason is because it promotes better results. So if you need 3,000 grafts you are forced to have three surgeries! The real reason? Well I know one of his tech's and the reason is that because of his age he no longer has the skill set to perform more than 1,000 grafts in a day. I was speaking with one of his ex patients two weeks ago who reached out to me and told me he went through with this same scam years ago with him. Another surgeon Dr Rhett Butler who was quite well known down here never woke up one morning (along with his wife) because they died of a fatal recreational drug weekend. How would you feel being operated on by a surgeon high on drugs or coming down on drugs. I could literally go on and on. I was butchered at 18 by a surgeon and I have made it my business to do what I can to try and prevent others from being unethically operated on here in Australia. You just cannot compare the lack of skills here compared to other places in the world that are a mere plane flight away. Go to Thailand and consult with Dr Path or Dr Laorwong. But at least look at the forum's recommendation of surgeons based on the volume of work they have completed. I have only seen two case of Dr Jayaprakash on here and both cases had doubles in the frontal hairline. When one of these patients informed Dr Jayaprakash about this his response was that that is how a hairline appears in nature! Total BS!!

In summary never base surgery on price and geography. That's just a recipe for regrets. In this case though you will be most likely spending less and not more. All the best!

[Melvin- Admin]

In my opinion, you’re better off traveling. Dr. Laorwong, Dr. Path in Thailand would be the closest.