Is my surgeon acting shady?

[milogarrett]

good evening! Let's say that I had a surgery in the end of 2022. After that I had a few calls that ticked me off.

• 1st call - Next day after the procedure doctor asked me not to publish any report yet.
• 2nd call was when I noticed how large the gaps in donor zone was. Eventually it healed, but  it took 4 months. I'm afraid that there was overharvesting in some areas. + my donor hair was extracted not only from DHT resistant zone, but close to the neck too.
• 3rd call was in month 6, when I started to get the feeling that my result will be poor. Doctor asked me to give it time, but it is been ~10 months, and results are not satisfying. When I adress that problem, doctor specifically evades any explanation in text and talks through the calls or voicemail. He says that results may come late, but from what I've seen, medium is 7-8 months.
• 4th call was when doctor repeated his ask to not to discuss my case with anyone except himself.

Is my surgeon acting shady b/c he knows that he did subpar work? Would love to hear unbiased thoughts: if you were in my shoes, would you consider it conspicious?

Edited November 17, 2023 by milogarrett

[LaserCaps]

It takes 3-4 months for the new hair to come in.  Vellus-like at first.  It'll then take the ensuing 8 months to mature the results.  

The next day the doctor will typically call to check up on you, make sure you slept well, and to learn if you experienced something during the night.  Never heard of a doctor asking you not to share your opinion with others. 

Post photos of your donor.  There are plenty of people in this platform that can share their opinion with you.  There's a lot of communal experience. 

At 6 months all will be out but it'll truly take a full year, (and sometimes even longer), to achieve a matured result.  Remember, the quality of the hair will be the same as what you currently enjoy in the donor, the area from which the hair was harvested.  For the doctor to ask you to give it time - is not unreasonable.  (What I like is the fact you've kept an open line of communication with the doctor.  I would take photos and share them with the clinic.  The worse thing that can happen a year later is for the doctor to blame you for the poor result, "you never came to any of your scheduled post up visits." 

Negative reviews are not good for a clinic.  If he already suspects that eventually that's exactly what you intend to do - I'm not surprised he's asking you to keep it quiet.

[jjalay]

Can you post some pictures?

[milogarrett]

1 hour ago, LaserCaps said:

It takes 3-4 months for the new hair to come in.  Vellus-like at first.  It'll then take the ensuing 8 months to mature the results.  

The next day the doctor will typically call to check up on you, make sure you slept well, and to learn if you experienced something during the night.  Never heard of a doctor asking you not to share your opinion with others. 

Post photos of your donor.  There are plenty of people in this platform that can share their opinion with you.  There's a lot of communal experience. 

At 6 months all will be out but it'll truly take a full year, (and sometimes even longer), to achieve a matured result.  Remember, the quality of the hair will be the same as what you currently enjoy in the donor, the area from which the hair was harvested.  For the doctor to ask you to give it time - is not unreasonable.  (What I like is the fact you've kept an open line of communication with the doctor.  I would take photos and share them with the clinic.  The worse thing that can happen a year later is for the doctor to blame you for the poor result, "you never came to any of your scheduled post up visits." 

Negative reviews are not good for a clinic.  If he already suspects that eventually that's exactly what you intend to do - I'm not surprised he's asking you to keep it quiet.

That's what I'm talking about! It felt so strange and unusual it immediately tick me off. I didn't made it up. For some reason he was asking me to not to post my journey on forum. And though English is not my native language, there was no misunderstanding of his words (I'm sure that he will say exactly this if it will get to public discussion).

Doctor could blame it on a many factors, like my aggressive hair loss, or that I slightly tipped my head in one point right after the surgery. Or that I skipped postop visits. To me it is the same song called "It's you, not me". The clinic didn't write me first, by the way: I did write them myself in month 1, 5, 6, 10.

I will search photos in history. Now my donor is quite long, so there is no butchered look. Just afraid that there's little left for the future.

Edited November 17, 2023 by milogarrett

[milogarrett]

Still, would you be alarmed to this? I get the feeling that surgeon specifically evades text discussion, because he fears that I will screen our dialogue and his potential BS will be called when shown online.

[HappyMan2021]

to me it seems obvious he doesn't want you to publicize a poor result. If you had a great result he would want you to be promoting your result everywhere. 

Unless the doctor is paying you money to keep you silent or you plan on having surgery with him again or maintaining some other sort of other close, personal relationship, you literally owe the doctor nothing. 

[Melvin- Admin]

At 10 months, you should know what the results will look like. Has he offered up any solution? I don’t think trying to work this out before going public is shady. But if he’s asking you to not post and offering no solutions, that’s a problem. 

[Berba11]

You're free to publish your results without repercussion or consequence. Is it shady for him to ask not to start an online journal? Yes, a bit. If I were doing good work in a particular field and a customer wanted to share it with the world, I'd be delighted.

If you can post your pre op, immediate post op and current progress it'll help us see what's going on and advise on how much if any improvement on your situation you're likely to get + you'll get knowledgable feedback on your case more generally. 

[baddecisions]

He definitely is.