Month: January 2023

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Dishonest Doctors Are Still Out There

I am 23 years old and I want to tell you my story. I was worried sick as I saw my hairline starting to climb. I went to a doctor in Toronto who said that I was going to go bald and needed to take swift action to prevent it. After listening to him, I went into a panic, took out most of the money I saved to go to graduate school and got transplanted with 2700 grafts. The doctor lowered my hairline also (about 1/4 inch) as well and transplanted the entire front, top and back of my head. I did some comparative shopping when I was investigating who to see about my problem and found that the price he was charging me was very competitive at slightly under $4/graft Canadian ($10,000 in cash). After the transplant was done, I found my hair falling out faster than before. The doctor told me that the new hair will replace far more than I lost and that I was lucky to get to him before the the hair had fallen out. It is now 10 months since my surgery and I am worse off now than before the surgery. I have less hair and a hairline that is nothing like the pictures the doctor showed me when I was shopping. I am very depressed, so much so that I feel that what I did to myself has created a monster. I needed to tell someone about this, but I am not sure what I am asking of you. What would you advise your son to do if he screwed up like this?

This is a tragic story, one that is hopefully not common today. To be blunt, you got taken advantage of. To do 2700 grafts on a 23 year old with little or no balding and only a receding hairline is not only malpractice, but (in my opinion) it is criminal. You got scammed and fleeced. The doctor who preyed upon you took advantage of his position, breached the Hippocratic Oath and probably violated the law.

I speak over and over again on the importance of commanding this process. You need to meet patients directly, one on one, and see the results for yourself. You need to examine the practice of the doctor you are intending to do the surgery to find out about his/her ethics. Their patients will tell you what you want to know. I can remember an unethical, scummy medical facility from many years ago that gave out a list of patients to call for references. I knew that these doctors were crooks, so when I got the list, I called down the list of patients. What each and every person on the list told me was that they would never recommend their doctor, that they were deformed by that doctor and that they felt cheated, raped, and ripped off. What I also learned from the patient victim that gave me the list is that he never called the patients on that list, because he assumed that these people were 500 good references for the doctor — clearly not the case.

What you should have learned here is that you must protect yourself from the unethical doctors out there. I would certainly notify the governmental agency that controls the doctor’s license. In America, you can file suit and clean up if this was the criminal process that it sounds like. Elective cosmetic surgery is a Buyer Beware business. There are good doctors out there who do practice ethical medicine. So for our audience of readers, I hope that you learn from this young man’s mistake — learn that it is your job to research your doctor before you buy.

I feel empathy for you. If you would like to talk with me, please set up a conference with me at 800-NEW-HAIR.

For more information, please see:

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Dishonest Doctors and FUE

I have published an article recently in the Hair Transplant Forum International (an industry newsletter, see below) that warns of doctors who perform Follicular Unit Extraction and produce a Follicular Holocaust, killing off many of the hair follicles and then charging the patient as if all of the follicles were actually transplanted. This process is unfortunately more the rule rather than the exception, because doctors just do not count what they actually deliver. This is a double ‘insult’ to the patient who pays for 100% of what the doctor says he is transferring and actually receiving something in the order of 25-50% of that quantity. The second part of the insult is the loss of the hair which may be irretrievably lost from the patient’s limited donor supply for life. So, the surgeons who engage in this process are cheating the patient and at the same time destroying valuable donor hair.

I have just participated in a Regional Workshop for the International Society for Hair Restoration Surgeons where I was one of the faculty, teaching the FUE technique on patient volunteers to some 25 doctors from around the world. A few of the better known self promoted doctors were invited to attend, but they did not take up the invitation. Most of the doctors who attended the course came with an open mind to learn state of the art FUE technology from more experienced physicians who have been doing FUE successfully for years. I learned that the reports of dishonesty that I reported in the article I wrote continue to be a real problem. I received confirmation of what I discussed in the article, which appears to be widespread, over much of the world. I applaud doctors who take formal approved courses to learn or enhance their skills for new technologies by spending the time and the money to come from Korea, Japan, Western and Eastern Europe, North America and the Middle East, but I continue to be disgusted by physicians who would rather develop experience by experimenting on patients and damaging/cheating fellow human beings. I admire the courageous balding people who want to get the benefits of new technologies, but when dishonest doctors promote their expertise with no real basis, they behave like hucksters, only distinguishing themselves from other crooks selling products or services by having an M.D. after their name and a ‘doctor’ for a title. Clearly, for the FUE buyer, the buyer must beware!

Here is the editorial I wrote addressing problems of ethics in hair transplantation surgery, which was published a few months ago in the Hair Transplant Forum International, January/February 2006, Volume 16, Number 1:

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Disease appears after hair transplant (photo)

This man had a hair transplant a few weeks before these bald spots appeared on his head. More and more of them appeared. To make the diagnosis, a biopsy needs to be done. It is likely a scarring alopecia, but it could be a variety of scalp/hair diseases triggered by the hair transplant. I have seen men who never had alopecia areata, then get a hair transplant, and alopecia areata appears from days to weeks after the transplant. A surgeon must have a keen eye and perform a good trichoscopic examination on the head of all of his patients before the surgery. As a surgeon, I don’t like surprises, and I am sure that you, as a patient, wouldn’t like them either.

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Discussion between two men on Reddit about finasteride

Below is the conversation I had with another reddit user in this post regarding finasteride. I would greatly appreciate your feedback regarding what he said. Is it true?

Me: I’m 7 months with no noticeable improvements. It may take up to 2 years for improvements, but we’ll see

Him: Thats not true the peak at 2 years mark , but thats only if u saw any improvment by 6 month mark

Me: At year 2, almost 20% more saw regrowth according to the FDA-supported study. So yeah…it may take 2 years to notice improvement. Never heard of the 6 month statement. How do you know that?

Him: Lol trust me the brother. I have no reason to let you down. If u got nothing by now. You are not gona get any after. I mean if you are stable be happy.

Me: The research contradicts you

Him: U clearly didnt understand

Me: Please explain then and where you got that info from. I want to learn

Him: There a huge missleading about the fda reaserch. They mention that the the peak of the result were on 2 years mark. But those ppl kept improving since day one up to 2 years. Its not like after 1 year the regrowth start to accure. After 1 hair cycle u should see some results if u respond with regrowth.

My opinion is:

  1. finasteride may reverse hair loss (rare)
  2. finasteride may slow hair loss down (common)
  3. finasteride may stop hair loss (common but you don’t know this unless you stop the drug)


2020-04-03 12:40:12Discussion between two men on Reddit about finasteride

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Discouraged about hair loss and can’t get a date

It is discouraging. What’s interesting about human attraction and looks is, the most important factors are those you cannot change. Your height. Your hair. Your facial characteristics. Can’t get a date! Turns out being fit working out and being muscular doesn’t actually matter. Dressing nice matters but can’t compensate a lack of something genetically determined. I’m so bummed out how important the genetics code is to be successful in this area

Quality women often focus on what is inside your head not what is on top. Women who are superficial look for a package that may not be what they want when the wrapping is off.


2019-03-26 18:17:33Discouraged about hair loss and can’t get a date

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Disasterous Hair Transplant Horror Stories!

I saw two patients recently that are worthy of discussion here…

Patient #1:
He had a typical result from the hair transplant surgeries of the 70s, 80s and early 90s. He had hair transplant plugs in the early 90s which gave him a doll-like hairline in the frontal area. I have worked with him over a 10 year period with four surgeries to remove and thin out the 3 inch wide plugs, redistributing the hair from the plugs to other adjacent areas in an attempt to make them less detectable. He is about 80% closer to his goal over what he had when he first came to see me and now wears a crew cut, but he is still frustrated over the remaining plugs which still bother him when he looks into the mirror every morning. I will continue to work with him, thinning out more plugs until he is satisfied that he looks normal. He shared what it has been like over the past many years, as too much of his life focus revolved around his head and his freaky pluggy look. Fortunately he and I put together a Master Plan 10 years ago to get him back to a normal appearance, and even now, after a decade of my working on him, the process will continue.

Patient #2:
This man has a far worse story. This young man (in his 30s) has had hair transplant work by many doctors over 10 years. Unlike patient #1, he never had a Master Plan and always sought out the best doctor who promised him a quick fix and he believed what the doctors told him. In the midst of the process, he even had a brow lift to raise a hairline that was too low, leaving him scarred in the hairline area. A series of transplants to fix the hair loss from the brow lift in the frontal area failed, compounding the problem further. The donor strips that were taken in the back of his head were all taken in different areas of the scalp and they all stretched and widened substantially. It seemed that the doctors just kept on removing donor hair from different areas to avoid the wide scars previous doctors created.

This man paid tens of thousands of dollars and each successive surgery seemed to leave him worse off. The recent transplants apparently did not work and he asked me if there was something wrong with his skin and recipient areas. I asked him if he called the doctors who did the failed procedures and he said he did call them over and over again, but they never returned his calls. Now he is massively scarred in the back of his head with at least three wide scars each measuring over 1/2+ inch in width. He received body hair transplants into the scar, but the difference was marginal. Each “fix” addressed one problem in isolation of the other problems, resulting (at times) with him being left worse off in the total scheme of things. I don’t know what he will do, but I suggested that he consider working with just one doctor, and building a Master Plan to deal with his problems. One option might be balloon expansion of his scalp to remove the scars in the back of his head by stretching the normal scalp in the crown of his head. The use of balloons to stretch the scalp will take at least 8 weeks of constant inflation of the balloon. If he wanted us to do it in California, he would either have to move to California for the period that the balloon expansion was being done or find a local doctor willing to do the incremental expansion of the balloon in his home town. We have done similar patients with outstanding results, but the commitment of time is substantial. What I gave him was a Master Plan to get him back to a manageable state. Anything short of such a radical approach will just victimized him again and again by some of the doctors who see $$$ in each successive procedure that they can offer him. Too much of his life is being centered around his scalp and the various poor choices he made.

Conclusion:
I often end with the statement: “Let the Buyer Beware,” which is so appropriate in this situation. Doctors are not immune to being scummy. I unfortunately see horror stories like this almost every week, and I post these as a way to educate you (the consumer) so that you can make informed decisions and avoid being taken advantage of.

How do I end a post like this positively? Well, today’s hair transplants in the hands of good and honest doctors are spectacular. At last night’s Open House event in our LA office, Steve Hartman (CBS Sports announcer and radio show host) who is himself a hair transplant patient, told me that not only was his procedure undetectable, but that he and many of the patients who were there looked like they never lost a hair on their head. Those horror stories I wrote about above rarely happen today. There are rotten applies in every barrel, but there are many really great doctors also in that barrel. You just have to do your research before you jump.

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Disappointed with My Hair Transplant from 8 Months Ago

Hello. I had an FUT procedure done at [name removed] about 8 months ago. I see visible, what look like holes on my recipient area from overhead lighting, almost like scarring. Obviously, I wasn’t expecting this as I had heard that new techniques show no visible recipient scarring or mini holes. Will this EVER heal in time, because now i am freaking out about it. If so, how long does this take to go away?

In addition, my hair is darker on the sides than the top so the recipient hair does not match in color. Will this change in time? My doctor tells me the sun will change it and it will eventually grow in lighter at the roots but I don’t know if I trust anything they say anymore.

I wish I had never done this and don’t know where to go from here. Any answers and direction would be very helpful because I am freaked out now.

Generally by 8 to 12 months most of your hair transplants should have grown and you should not have the visible holes or scarring that you are describing. As you do, then this is probably permanent. Sometimes certain patients are more prone to scarring than others, but that is not what you seem to be describing and it is very, very, very rare in the recipient area. With respect to hair color, your hair color should generally match the hair on the back and sides of your head.

Obviously it is very difficult and practically impossible to give personalized advice this way. If I viewed the recipient site ‘holes’ you are talking about, what you call ‘holes’, I may call something else. If you like to have a formal consult, I would be happy to review your case. Please call my office at 800-NEW-HAIR to arrange this or send photos to the address on the contact page (reference this posting, please). You pictures and your correspondence with us will be maintained confidential (it is also the law that protects privacy).

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I am disappointed in the 5400 grafts I had 9 months ago, thoughts?

That is a lot of grafts for the balding area. At nine months, I would expect to see 90 percent of the growth already out. I doubt that many more grafts will come in but waiting a full year is a good idea. If you are still concerned at one year, go back and see your doctor and discuss your expectations and your doctor’s expectations for what was done. With 5,400 grafts, the team of technicians must be very efficient and fast, not leaving the grafts open to the hair for more than a few seconds in placing them or they will die and you will get dead grafts placed.

5500 grafts

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Disappearing Neck Hair (photo)

Note that in this photo, the neck hair in this man has already started to disappear. This is a genetic trait that is different from general Male Patterned Genetic Balding. For this reason, I never transplant the neck hair into the recipient area because this hair, in some men, is not permanent hair. Note the transition between the neck hair and the scalp hair at are about the occipital notch (base of the skull).


2019-07-30 09:28:40Disappearing Neck Hair (photo)