How does one know how many Grafts have been implanted during surgery.

[arnolder]

Hi,

 

I've a very silly question for you all.

I'm planning to get a HT done and looking for a quality doctor in India.

 

The question is, if the doctor says 2000 grafts have been implanted to my head but in actual he implants only 1500 and charges me for 2000 grafts.

 

How can I know if the grafts are actually what I was told.

 

Thanks.

[latinlotus]

It is impossible to know for sure. However, if you post your immediately post-op pictures, an experienced poster here can tell you whether it is 1500 or 2000 grafts.

[mmhce]

This sounds unethical and fraudelent. However you do pose a good question, which is how can a count be done of transplanted hair after HT?

 

This leads to another question which is how many of the grafts actually survived?

 

You will need to do the count as soon as possible in order to get the most realistic count, because about 10% of the grafts may die, after transplantation.

 

The count should be done with a steroscopic microscope and I believe one can tell the transplanted hair (as distinct from the native atrophic) by the size of the hair shaft diameter and also the "bump" in the scalp at the base of the transplanted hair.

[Reverse the Curse]

at H&W dr hasson had me click a counter every 100 incisions. near the end he made final 149 of 4149 incisions. i could feel the pressure on every cut & my wife was standing right there. at 1 point i was day dreaming & the doc had to tell me again to click counter.

rtc

[Dr. William Lindsey]

At least at our office, as I prepare to make the slits, I tell the patient that this is the only time of the day that they can't talk. I am counting. They are welcome to count along as they will "hear" each slit, even with the sharpest and freshest of blades. But, they are not to tell me any numbers until I have finished an area and written down the number, usually on their scalp near the are just done.

 

At breaks (after I finish say the left frontal hairline with 500 or so slits) I will usually comment "that's 500" and move on. Occasionally a patient will say that they got a few more or less than my number.

 

Then when I get near the target for the case I stop, usually around 50 short; wait 10 minutes and then come back to fill in any spaces that I missed.

 

Finally at the end of the case when I am usually making a few more slits I give my best estimate. Then the tech's cutting documents give a number which should be near the number of slits. I say near as almost certainly a few grafts won't be acceptable for some reason, and the tech may miscount too.

 

But this is a pretty reliable way of "getting what the patient paid for" at our office. Pics can help too, but some grafts inevitably have really short hairs that can be hard to count in the postop pics.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[AMR1]

I guess u trust your doctor's word! You do not really hav any other choice, if they lie about this purly for ???? $$$ to take more per graft then they would get caught somewhere down the line, most doctor's I am sure are honest!

[Leeson]

RTC,

I was thinking to ask Dr. Hasson if he caught the Bulls - Pistons game last night. 97 - 95. In triple overtime! Jones hit the 3 with 2 seconds left in front of 50,000 fans. - But I decided to just keep quiet.