NW 7 Restore or Regret?

[Approach]

Assume you have a mild amount of donor scalp hair, great beard hair, and great body hair.  And, assume you have a very respected surgeon like Dr. Pittella (known for his experience restoring NW 7 patients).  The hair on my crown is all transplanted hair from yrs ago.   Question:   **"Generally speaking," are most NW 7 patients "truly" pleased with the results of their HT surgery?  (For ex, 3 yrs after surgery) Or, are many embarrassed with an unnatural outcome?  For ex, do the body hair and scalp hair mixed together in the crown look weird?  Etc.   **If you interviewed 100 such patients, I wonder what percentage of them would say:  I'm so glad I restored my hair. 

 

Edited February 16 by Approach

[Gatsby]

@Approach your title is exactly where I was at in my mind four years ago. As a Norwood 7 I pulled the trigger and have never looked back. However as a Norwood 7 you are limited to a few surgeons (in my opinion) that you would want to choose from. Dr Pittella is one of  them, if not, the best of them for Norwood 7 patients. However you still need an adequate supply of scalp donor.  If you could post some pictures of your scalp donor we can get a better idea. All the best! 

[hairman22]

NW 7 means you need a big budget or else no point imo.

no Turkish surgeon can repair a Nw 7 bar maybe Pekiner possibly

For a NW7 its Zarev,Pittella or Sethi. Hasson & Wong too a good option.

Lower packages for Eugenix are hit and miss.

[Berba11]

I think if you interviewed 100 NW7 patients who had undergone a HT with someone as good as Pittella in such cases then yes, you’d find the majority were very happy. 
 

But that’s no fluke - it’s down to the planning & calculations of what can be extracted from where, and the surgical skill in executing that plan. 

[Melvin- Admin]

Not only do you need to have sufficient donor, choose the right surgeon. But you need to have the funds. Make no mistake. A Norwood 7 needs above 10k grafts. The top 3 Zarev, Sethi and Pittella charge around $4-6 per graft. That’s easily $50k being conservative. If you’re not willing to invest that, you should probably just shave in my opinion. 

[Britanium]

5 minutes ago, hairman22 said:

NW 7 means you need a big budget or else no point imo.

no Turkish surgeon can repair a Nw 7 bar maybe Pekiner possibly

For a NW7 its Zarev,Pittella or Sethi. Hasson & Wong too a good option.

Lower packages for Eugenix are hit and miss.

As good a choice as Dr Pekiner is, he just doesn't take on cases that are larger than 2-3k grafts, he is pretty selective in his patients. 

[hairman22]

5 minutes ago, Melvin- Admin said:

Not only do you need to have sufficient donor, choose the right surgeon. But you need to have the funds. Make no mistake. A Norwood 7 needs above 10k grafts. The top 3 Zarev, Sethi and Pittella charge around $4-6 per graft. That’s easily $50k being conservative. If you’re not willing to invest that, you should probably just shave in my opinion. 

you need to make lifestyle changes as a Nw7 for savings to get your hair back most likely.

If have great donor thick donor you could maybe get a good result at a lower clinic but Nw7's with thick donor hair & calibre is rare.

These results you see from Turkey etc of good hgh Norwood results are rare so many end up shaving or getting smp

Edited February 16 by hairman22

[Gatsby]

In surgical hair restoration scalp grafts are finite. So if you’re a Norwood 3 then one scalp graft is bronze. If you are a Norwood 7 however, one graft is worth more than a Sth African gold mine. It’s also like a house of cards. The planning and execution have no room for error. You can see why almost all surgeons knock back us Norwood 7’s. 

Edited February 16 by Gatsby
Spelling

[Rose17]

I have talked to Pittella, Sethi, and Zarev.

I believe Pittella is truly on a different level than the other two, who are still top 5 in the world for Norwood 7. Highly recommend you do the zoom with Pittella but defenitely get opinions from Seth and Zarev and others as well to see the difference. 

[hairman22]

5 minutes ago, Rose17 said:

I have talked to Pittella, Sethi, and Zarev.

I believe Pittella is truly on a different level than the other two, who are still top 5 in the world for Norwood 7. Highly recommend you do the zoom with Pittella but defenitely get opinions from Seth and Zarev and others as well to see the difference. 

why would you regard Pittella on a different level to Zarev?

Edited February 17 by hairman22

[Rose17]

6 minutes ago, hairman22 said:

why would you regard Pittella on a different level to Zarev?

I can only speak from my personal situational, but Pittella essentially showed Much more confidence evaluating my donor area than Zarev. When you have one doctor saying you are a borderline candidate, and the other says he can easily get 10-12K grafts from you in 2 days, it’s eye opening. Pittella is very confident in how he explains the approach. Not sure if Zarev is simply just pickier because of demand now. 

[hairman22]

14 minutes ago, Rose17 said:

I can only speak from my personal situational, but Pittella essentially showed Much more confidence evaluating my donor area than Zarev. When you have one doctor saying you are a borderline candidate, and the other says he can easily get 10-12K grafts from you in 2 days, it’s eye opening. Pittella is very confident in how he explains the approach. Not sure if Zarev is simply just pickier because of demand now. 

Zarev doesnt like beard hair but he can get more scalp than anyone else.

Zarev quoted me 2300grafts to thicken my crown & other areas after personal consult

Pittella is certaintly much more aggressive quoted me 4200grafts online consult to lower my hairline & aggressive temple peaks.

Was appealing but i feel Zarev's plan is muxh better long term. No beard grafts will be required for me long term & im happy with my hairline after 2 previous procedures.

Pittella is amazing too but he cant get as much scalp grafts & Zarev's long term planning & attention to detail is incredible. I think Zarev puts more focus into the long term than Pittella

Edited February 17 by hairman22

[Rose17]

17 minutes ago, hairman22 said:

Zarev doesnt like beard hair but he can get more scalp than anyone else.

Zarev quoted me 2300grafts to thicken my crown & other areas after personal consult

Pittella is certaintly much more aggressive quoted me 4200grafts online consult to lower my hairline & aggressive temple peaks.

Was appealing but i feel Zarev's plan is muxh better long term. No beard grafts will be required for me long term & im happy with my hairline after 2 previous procedures.

Pittella is amazing too but he cant get as much scalp grafts & Zarev's long term planning & attention to detail is incredible. I think Zarev puts more focus into the long term than Pittella

Pittella said he can get 7-8K from my scalp in first 2 day surgery.

Sethi said 3-4K.

zarev basically said come in person for consultation but I’ll likely decline you, which is interesting. I don’t think Zarev can take more scalp hairs than Pittella; I think they are both about the same. The punch size thing is overrated.

what did you end up doing?

[Ajamilo]

@Approach

from my perspective when it comes to FUE Pittella and Zarev is the doctors when it comes to Norwood 7. Pittella’s results speaks for it self and also Zarev is just different and he doesn’t rely on donor supply from beard and body. Dr. Sethi is also really good but not in the same level as those two.
Why not go to Brazil and do a live consultation with dr. Pittella?
 

 

 

[hairman22]

3 hours ago, Rose17 said:

Pittella said he can get 7-8K from my scalp in first 2 day surgery.

Sethi said 3-4K.

zarev basically said come in person for consultation but I’ll likely decline you, which is interesting. I don’t think Zarev can take more scalp hairs than Pittella; I think they are both about the same. The punch size thing is overrated.

what did you end up doing?

Zarev can take more scalp than anyone that cannot be disputed. He has taken 18k grafts on a patient for the scalp often uop to 15k.

Numbers no one else can reach. He doesnt like beard hair in general that would be the difference with Pittella

Pittella is amazing too though. Zarev plans long term he wants his patients to have enough dobor resources in most cases from the scalp.

Thats probably why he is thinks you are not a patient. But im sure Pittella will do a great job if you go with him

[Ajamilo]

1 hour ago, hairman22 said:

Zarev can take more scalp than anyone that cannot be disputed. He has taken 18k grafts on a patient for the scalp often uop to 15k.

Numbers no one else can reach. He doesnt like beard hair in general that would be the difference with Pittella

Pittella is amazing too though. Zarev plans long term he wants his patients to have enough dobor resources in most cases from the scalp.

Thats probably why he is thinks you are not a patient. But im sure Pittella will do a great job if you go with him

I think is wrong to just state that Zarev plans long term and not include the other doctors on that. People can get confused on that. Every elite doctors that is mentioned in this thread do plan for the long term for each patients

and also I don’t think is right  to say that Zarev can can take more scalp hair than anyone else.

I am reasonably sure that the best doctors can do the same as Zarev. it is more about preference and that they do not want to over harvest the donor area completely and also take a lot of hairs outside the "donor area"

[zach07]

@Approach fellow NW 7 here. Or as Dr. Pittella thinks, somewhere between 6 and 7. Having done consults with quite a few surgeons, imho, Dr. Pittella is your best option (no offence to Zarev and Eugenix). If you have sufficient beard hair and don't mind parting with them. Dr. Pittella can work absolute wonders, without leaving your scalp donor looking completely barren. My advice is to do a video consult with him and yes, be ready to fork out some serious money. All the best. 

[zach07]

Only reason I am putting Pittella over Zarev and Eugenix is that with Eugenix, there are some mixed stories about the procedures being done mostly by technicians. You can't deny their results though. 

As far as Zarev, still a bit of unknown. Just not as many results out there as Pittella and definitely not as many as Eugenix. Eugenix puts out a ton of results for people to see and with that kind of volume, bad comes with the good. There are bound to be some unsatisfied patients. Law of percentages. 

[Melvin- Admin]

Everyone is going to have their preferences. Regardless, there’s no denying Zarev, Sethi, and Pittella are the three horseman. These three surgeons have incredible results which are undeniable. 

[Rose17]

40 minutes ago, zach07 said:

Only reason I am putting Pittella over Zarev and Eugenix is that with Eugenix, there are some mixed stories about the procedures being done mostly by technicians. You can't deny their results though. 

As far as Zarev, still a bit of unknown. Just not as many results out there as Pittella and definitely not as many as Eugenix. Eugenix puts out a ton of results for people to see and with that kind of volume, bad comes with the good. There are bound to be some unsatisfied patients. Law of percentages. 

I agree with this. I also think Pittella and Sethi take on some of the hardest cases that I’m not quite sure present day Zarev is taking (maybe because he’s more selective now, demand, only 1 surgery per week etc). 

[Rose17]

1 hour ago, zach07 said:

@Approach fellow NW 7 here. Or as Dr. Pittella thinks, somewhere between 6 and 7. Having done consults with quite a few surgeons, imho, Dr. Pittella is your best option (no offence to Zarev and Eugenix). If you have sufficient beard hair and don't mind parting with them. Dr. Pittella can work absolute wonders, without leaving your scalp donor looking completely barren. My advice is to do a video consult with him and yes, be ready to fork out some serious money. All the best. 

Yeah, Pittella explains all the math in the zoom. Simply put, if he takes your case, and you are Norwood 6-7, you can plan to do a total of 10-15K grafts with him when you are all said and done. 

[Rose17]

7 hours ago, Ajamilo said:

@Approach

from my perspective when it comes to FUE Pittella and Zarev is the doctors when it comes to Norwood 7. Pittella’s results speaks for it self and also Zarev is just different and he doesn’t rely on donor supply from beard and body. Dr. Sethi is also really good but not in the same level as those two.
Why not go to Brazil and do a live consultation with dr. Pittella?
 

 

 

Even the $50 zoom with Pittella is great. He analyzes your pics on a computer and draws analysis etc. 

[Al - Moderator]

This seems to have gotten into a Pitella, Zarev, Sethi debate, but the original question was

On 2/16/2024 at 12:22 AM, Approach said:

"Generally speaking," are most NW 7 patients "truly" pleased with the results of their HT surgery?  (For ex, 3 yrs after surgery) Or, are many embarrassed with an unnatural outcome?  For ex, do the body hair and scalp hair mixed together in the crown look weird?  Etc.   **If you interviewed 100 such patients, I wonder what percentage of them would say:  I'm so glad I restored my hair. 

 

I just somewhat gave my answer to this in another of @Approach's threads. I'll link that below. I'll say for myself as a NW 7, 50 something year old who also had FUT transplants many years ago, I am very glad I went through with having beard and chest grafts placed into my scalp. I didn't have any scalp donor left and I had several FUT scars visible with not a whole lot of hair on top either. Did I get a full head of hair? No. But what I did get was enough improvement that I am not embarrassed to be seen anywhere. I'm still looking at further improvement to get to something near a full head of hair, but even at the point it is now and the $68,000 it cost me, I'm glad I did it. See my other answer about using body hair below.

 

 

 

[asterix0]

Lol, saying a doctor is "better" than another because he would take you as a candidate sight unseen, vs one that said they need to see you in person first is absolutely absurd logic. 

[Fox243]

9 hours ago, hairman22 said:

Zarev can take more scalp than anyone that cannot be disputed. He has taken 18k grafts on a patient for the scalp often uop to 15k.

Numbers no one else can reach. He doesnt like beard hair in general that would be the difference with Pittella

Pittella is amazing too though. Zarev plans long term he wants his patients to have enough dobor resources in most cases from the scalp.

Thats probably why he is thinks you are not a patient. But im sure Pittella will do a great job if you go with him

Does he use beard hair for patients who could get a good result with it? My scalp isn’t good but beard is quite good.