Hair Transplant Repair Recommendations

[Antbite]

Hi all,

I am 10 approaching 10 months post op and as you can see from the photos below my angles & direction is all off which is very disappointing.

I had 2 seperate techs and one side definitely looks better than the other, my surgeon keeps saying to “wait it out” but the result is inevitable as direction and angle is completely off.

Can anything be done to rectify this? And if so, who do you recommend?

Thanks,

[HappyMan2021]

@Antbite   do you still have generous donor availability remaining?

If so, get electrolysis and literally just kill all the badly angled grafts off. Then go to a better doctor and start the hair transplant process from scratch. 

If you don't have a generous donor or for whatever reason you cannot bring yourself to kill off grafts, many good repair doctors can extract the bad angles, re-implant them elsewhere correctly, then implant brand new fresh grafts correctly into the recipient area. 

Absolutely keep in mind though that if you go the repair route, you are most likely looking at multiple surgeries. Even if the botched area is relatively small, removing and re-angling bad grafts is an extremely tedious process. You quite seriously may be looking at 3 or more repair surgeries. (2 extraction rounds for each of the temples followed by 1 normal implantation round) 

If you go the repair route I hope you have money saved up as well as its going to be much more $$$ than a normal HT

Electrolysis or repair are your only options.

The reason getting botched sucks so much isnt just because of how it looks aesthetically (even though that royally sucks as well), but more-so because the repair journey is exponentially longer, challenging, stressful, and expensive than non-repair HT's. 

Also, since repairs are much more challenging, less doctors do them and therefore you have less options available to you as well. 

Ex. while you may have a "good enough" non-repair HT doctor in your local city or state, you may end up having to travel halfway around the world to find your perfect repair doctor. 

Edited July 23, 2023 by HappyMan2021

[Antbite]

@HappyMan2021 this is my donor 2 weeks post transplant. Do you think I have enough left? I like to rock skin fades and do not want it to be noticeable if I go down the electrolysis path.

The left side seems to be repairable, what are your thoughts? I had 2500 grafts total.

[Bhumik Shah MD]

Your donor area appears to be good. But you also appear to be very young so you have to plan for the longterm and try to use the least amount possible from donor area for the repair. What is your age?

I would recommend relocating the grafts that are egregiously misangled and are bothering you the most. Then combining that with boosting the density in the triangles drawn should help improve your cosmesis.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Bhumik Shah MD

[Antbite]

I’m 25. What percentage of the hair do you think needs to be relocated? And where do you relocate it too?

[Bhumik Shah MD]

It is difficult to tell based on just 2 dimensional photos. Even though a lot of them are misangled, i think it would be unwise to try and remove every single one that is misangled. 

Once you add some density a lot of them will blend in and not stand out as much.

As far as relocation you can simply relocate them within the recipient area as you have a lot of empty areas still within the zone. 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Bhumik Shah MD

[Antbite]

Sounds great. Do you recommend any specific doctors who specialise in this?

I never thought I’d end up in this situation so definitely don’t want to go through it again.

cheers, 

[AhmadChaudhry]

Hi, I read all the details above. My recommendations are:- 

1- you should not go to electrolysis as an experienced & expert doctor can use your wrong angled grafts 

2- It is not a difficult task for those doctors who are performing it routinely

3- You have enough donor grafts and still one can extract and use for your both right / left corners. 

4- Mostly we use 0.7 mm punch to extract the wrong angled placed grafts so that minimum chances of white dot appearance. 

5- The correction procedure usually takes 4 hours 

6- It is a fact , this repair procedure is expensive in most countries but if you search and try to find it , you will get plenty of options with affordable cost without compromising the quality. For this you might need to travel abroad.

7- You can see before and after photos below regarding repair and use of extracted grafts plus addition of more grafts in the same session.

8- If some percentage will remain in the already transplanted area , there are two options A- some repair grafts or new grafts can be used to blend or cover the bad angled hairs B- after one year you can go for laser hair removal as it will be very small percentage so i don't think any major loss. 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by AhmadChaudhry

[Antbite]

Thanks @AhmadChaudhry. I am not opposed to travelling after this experience.

What do you estimate a broad cost approx on a repair?

Do you recommend any specific doctors?

[AhmadChaudhry]

Sir, normally the cost abroad is in the range of 1000$ to 1500$. Please search for a doctor as there are many talented doctors in the world. Some are in this forum and 95% doctors are not in this Forum due to various reasons. Broader your search on Google as well as in this Forum.   

Secondly as per terms and conditions of this forum, i can not recommend any name out of this Forum. ( my personal point of view)

[HappyMan2021]

5 hours ago, Antbite said:

And if so, who do you recommend?

Cooley or Shapiro in the US, Feriduni or Bisanga in Belgium. 

Also keep in mind that most repair docs will want to see you in-person before deciding to work on you. It's something I am extremely against and think is a bit ridiculous. Especially if you 100% have a good donor and no pre-existing scalp conditions, it seems silly to have to spend money and time to fly a long distance just for a doctor to examine you for 20 minutes and approve you for surgery...but it is what it is

Doctors want to work with the virgin 1st timers....once you become a repair patient many doctors view you as a liability of sorts. Which I guess kind of makes sense because repairs are indeed a lot more challenging. 

But it is unfair to the repair patients themselves because it really adds to the stress and expense of finding an appropriate doctor. 

If you are a 1st time HT patient, literally any doctor in the world will work with you as long as you can pay. But once you become a repair patient, some doctors make you jump through hoops and you have may have to market/sell yourself 

Edited July 23, 2023 by HappyMan2021

[AhmadChaudhry]

2 minutes ago, HappyMan2021 said:

Cooley or Shapiro in the US, Feriduni or Bisanga in Belgium. 

Also keep in mind that most repair docs will want to see you in-person before deciding to work on you. It's something I am extremely against and think is a bit ridiculous. Especially if you 100% have a good donor and no pre-existing scalp conditions, it seems silly to have to spend money and time to fly a long distance just for a doctor to examine you for 20 minutes and approve you for surgery...but it is what it is

Doctors want to work with the virgin 1st timers....once you become a repair patient many doctors view you as a liability of sorts. Which I guess kind of makes sense because repairs are indeed a lot more challenging. 

But it is unfair to the repair patients themselves because it really adds to the stress and expense of finding an appropriate doctor. 

If you are a 1st time HT patient, literally any doctor in the world will work with you as long as you can pay. But once you become a repair patient, some doctors make you jump through hoops and you have may have to market/sell yourself 

Well, hair transplant repair will cost him 6000$ to 10,000$ depending upon the doctor you name above.( my personal opinion) and this gentleman wants to repair it on a minimum budget. World is also exists beyond these names you mentioned above. However, he should take time to do his research and narrow down names.

[Antbite]

@HappyMan2021 what did your restoration cost approximately?

I’ve consistently read that Mwamba & Bisanga are great doctors for repair work.

[Bhumik Shah MD]

8 hours ago, Antbite said:

Sounds great. Do you recommend any specific doctors who specialise in this?

I never thought I’d end up in this situation so definitely don’t want to go through it again.

cheers, 

Antbite,

I refrain from making any doctor recommendations due to obvious conflict of interest. Having said that all the doctors happyman mentioned have a strong reputation and should be capable of handling your case.

I will add, not all repair cases have to be long drawn out and expensive. I think yours will be relatively straight forward and most likely one and done.

[RTC]

Speaking as a repair patient myself, @HappyMan2021gave you the best advice. I would absolutely try to extract those grafts (or simply use electrolysis) and begin with a clean slate. Camouflaging is a sub par solution for a number of reasons imo. 

After you have removed the offending grafts you can start from ground zero. But just don't try to do an 'all in one' repair.

[HappyMan2021]

7 hours ago, Antbite said:

I’ve consistently read that Mwamba & Bisanga are great doctors for repair work.

Mwamba is undoubtedly a greatly skilled doctor. But if you only focus on contemporary results, I think all the other mentioned repair docs are better. Also, even when you consider repairs are more challenging than normal HT's, Mwamba's density issues are quite frankly hard to justify. He has had some downright bad density cases lately. There are more examples on Reddit too. 

Also, you have to pay an additional 25% Belgium VAT tax if you see Mwamba in Brussels. This can cost you thousands and thousands of unnecessary dollars. While Bisanga is also in Belgium, for some reason his clinic avoids the VAT tax. 

If I were you - I would only consider Mwamba if 1) You are willing to gamble on density 2) You have deep pockets to justify the VAT tax and other overhead costs 3) You don't have the patience to get on the long waitlists of the other repair doctors. 

As an American repair patient - if you have the patience to wait 1 year for surgery and are also willing to do the in-person consult visit - I honestly think Cooley or Shapiro are the only logical options...

That being said, I also still urge you to consider electrolysis as long as you have a generous donor. 

If you kill all the bad grafts and start from a fresh slate, you will be able to avoid this really sh*tty, overly complicated, long, and costly repair process. 

While it indeed really sucks to kill grafts and feel like you are taking a step backwards, by starting fresh you will have a plethora of good doctors to choose from. Whereas if you go the extraction/repair route, there are only a handful of doctors in the world to truly feel comfortable with, and you could very well likely be paying ten or tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs

[BaldReaper]

you can find countless cases similar to yours in this thread

 

 

[AhmadChaudhry]

3 hours ago, HappyMan2021 said:

Mwamba is undoubtedly a greatly skilled doctor. But if you only focus on contemporary results, I think all the other mentioned repair docs are better. Also, even when you consider repairs are more challenging than normal HT's, Mwamba's density issues are quite frankly hard to justify. He has had some downright bad density cases lately. There are more examples on Reddit too. 

Also, you have to pay an additional 25% Belgium VAT tax if you see Mwamba in Brussels. This can cost you thousands and thousands of unnecessary dollars. While Bisanga is also in Belgium, for some reason his clinic avoids the VAT tax. 

If I were you - I would only consider Mwamba if 1) You are willing to gamble on density 2) You have deep pockets to justify the VAT tax and other overhead costs 3) You don't have the patience to get on the long waitlists of the other repair doctors. 

As an American repair patient - if you have the patience to wait 1 year for surgery and are also willing to do the in-person consult visit - I honestly think Cooley or Shapiro are the only logical options...

That being said, I also still urge you to consider electrolysis as long as you have a generous donor. 

If you kill all the bad grafts and start from a fresh slate, you will be able to avoid this really sh*tty, overly complicated, long, and costly repair process. 

While it indeed really sucks to kill grafts and feel like you are taking a step backwards, by starting fresh you will have a plethora of good doctors to choose from. Whereas if you go the extraction/repair route, there are only a handful of doctors in the world to truly feel comfortable with, and you could very well likely be paying ten or tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs

  If you remove too many grafts through electrolysis, how will you address fibrosis / scarring? As electrolysis mechanism of action through burn destruction of the tissue. This burning, scarring and fibrosis will decrease the vascularity and it will affect the future repair procedure results.   

[HappyMan2021]

48 minutes ago, AhmadChaudhry said:

If you remove too many grafts through electrolysis, how will you address fibrosis / scarring? As electrolysis mechanism of action through burn destruction of the tissue. This burning, scarring and fibrosis will decrease the vascularity and it will affect the future repair procedure results.   

I don't claim to be an expert on this, so I would actually defer to you if you are indeed a professional in this industry (no clue but it sounds like you are?)

Based on OPs picture, he is on the milder side of botched jobs. Looks like he only has a few hundred badly angled grafts. I can't imagine zapping a few hundred would cause issues really. 

[Berba11]

Don't zap them. It's a waste of grafts. Those grafts can easily be extracted and re-implanted. It's true that such cases often require more than one pass to get things looking optimal but it's not always the case. Easier case may only require one surgery or at most, two. Yours doesn't look to be too complicated for an experienced repair specialist.

 

Which clinic did this to you? They should be named and shamed to help others avoid the same fate.

[Antbite]

Thanks for your response everyone.

I am not comfortable exposing the clinic at this stage as they are wanting to do another consult next month. I am definitely not comfortable letting them try and fix up this disaster given my current predicament.

What do you think the chances are of getting a refund?

[Gatsby]

1 hour ago, Antbite said:

Thanks for your response everyone.

I am not comfortable exposing the clinic at this stage as they are wanting to do another consult next month. I am definitely not comfortable letting them try and fix up this disaster given my current predicament.

What do you think the chances are of getting a refund?

Zero to none. This industry is an extremely different one as surgery is elective. If you look at the work they performed you can see they have no patient care and so I very much doubt that they care about your money now that they have it. Same happened to me so it’s time to move on. All the best! 

[Antbite]

Thanks @Gatsby. 
who did you go for the repair?

[AhmadChaudhry]

Every graft is precious and can be recycled any wrongly placed graft very easily. Destruction is easy and repair needs skill & expertise. Here case is not complicated.    

[Antbite]

Thanks @AhmadChaudhry. Do you think my case is not complicated ?