The Ironman Procedure

[Arashi]

What do you make of that picture I just posted? Reckon I've missed many extractions from that image?

At first glance, they look like a really good indication. And that's all we need, we don't need an EXACT number, 10% more or less is just great. Do you have pictures to complete the whole donor ?

[gc83uk]

At first glance, they look like a really good indication. And that's all we need, we don't need an EXACT number, 10% more or less is just great. Do you have pictures to complete the whole donor ?

haha no sorry, do you have any idea how long that taken me! It would seem c5000 from that photo had approx 1400 extractions.

Perhaps I'm missing something. I'm not doubting the guys story at all, I just don't understand how I could have missed so many other extracted areas.

[JJJJrS]

These are only 2 pictures. I can understand your points but I came to them by literally taking hundreds of pictures. I could upload them in one big rar file and you can skip through them and verify my analysis if you care, I'm sure you'll come to the conclusion that my analysis is right.

If you decide to upload them, post the link and I can take a look at them eventually and see if I can notice something.

But I'm sure you've noticed, that unless the pictures are zoomed in and very clear, and the hair is kept short, its very difficult to count the hairs and do any type of analysis.

I understand your points of concern, but again, if you sit down a few hours and work through all of the pictures, there's really no denying that it's regrowth. Maybe that's why I'm not interested in IM's pictures, because I *KNOW* regrowth occurs. I'm passed that. At this point I just want to know: are these just failed extractions or not ?

We're all at different levels. At this point, I'm happy to get any pictures that are clear enough to do any analysis on considering how few of them we've seen.

[JJJJrS]

What do you make of that picture I just posted? Reckon I've missed many extractions from that image?

I looked at his original photo and it's tough to tell which points are extraction points. With your and IM's photos, the photos were zoomed in close enough that you could clear see where the extraction points were. Here it's tough distinguishing between the different dots. Is it an extraction point, blood, an existing hair? Sometimes it's tough to tell.

[Arashi]

If you decide to upload them, post the link and I can take a look at them eventually and see if I can notice something.

But I'm sure you've noticed, that unless the pictures are zoomed in and very clear, and the hair is kept short, its very difficult to count the hairs and do any type of analysis.




We're all at different levels. At this point, I'm happy to get any pictures that are clear enough to do any analysis on considering how few of them we've seen.

You know what, if Iron Man hasn't responded in 3 weeks AND if for whatever reason GC83UK's case isn't just perfect (really, I KNOW it is going to be), then I'll not only release all the pictures in one big rar, I'll get a GOOD camera too and shave the donor down again and shoot tons of new pictures. I'm currently wearing my hair at 3 mm only, so it's really not a problem.

[gc83uk]

I looked at his original photo and it's tough to tell which points are extraction points. With your and IM's photos, the photos were zoomed in close enough that you could clear see where the extraction points were. Here it's tough distinguishing between the different dots. Is it an extraction point, blood, an existing hair? Sometimes it's tough to tell.

I was counting extraction points as blood with existing hair, blood without hair and also some strange indentations which showing hardly any blood or no blood. I'm confident I'm within a 10% accuracy.

[JJJJrS]

I was counting extraction points as blood with existing hair, blood without hair and also some strange indentations which showing hardly any blood or no blood. I'm confident I'm within a 10% accuracy.

I'll try to do as detailed a count and post the results here.

[Brock Landers]

c5000 hair count

GC -

Your count seems to make sense. What's more, it seems to actually kind of back up what c5000 was told about having only 80 missed extractions. It really doesn't look like that many were taken out, maybe 1/3 or 1/4 hairs. Maybe he wasn't lied to? I mean if there were really 5000 extractions, literally 1 out of every 2 hairs would be a red dot and that doesn't seem to be the case.

[JJJJrS]

I decided to try and count the number of extractions in c5000 day 0 picture showing the left side and part of the back. I would say this accounts for approximately 1/3 of his donor area.

I counted approx 460 ish, cba recounting, but its about that I think. This doesn't prove much, but c5000 might be interested! I can post the original larger image if needed because on this version some of the hairs look like extractions. Best I could do though!

Here is my analysis:

C5000 Hair Count

I counted around 575 extraction points. I think I was very liberal when counting. If I was unsure, I labelled it as an extraction point more times than not. Also I tried to include practically the whole area in the picture, including a rough estimate for the big globs of blood.

Anyway, here is the original photo for anyone with the extreme patience needed to count these hairs. Just zoom in to 200% on MS Paint and you can see which points I labelled as extraction points if you have my analysis side by side.

Original Photo

Please note that the hair count is completely unscientific. I did not double check it at all. But it's roughly similar to what gc saw, except I think I was more liberal and covered a larger area perhaps. What we did not see are thousands and thousands of extraction points, but anyone is free to check for themselves.

[topcat]

JJJJr I waited about 10 years before I had FUE and it was a very good decision to wait. I’m not interested in testing anything to see if it works and most certainly I’m not interested in someone with very little experience working on my head. If someone believes that is a good idea more power to them I will just watch.

I'm just trying to figure out how you guys are determining hair regeneration without actual numbers and the idea that you suggest of performing the procedure on a very small clearly marked area with counts in both the donor and recipient is something that should have already been performed and shown through pictures before claiming anything but I have not seen that evidence.

[JJJJrS]

I'm just trying to figure out how you guys are determining hair regeneration without actual numbers

Nobody is determining hair regeneration without actual numbers here. I'm not even sure what that means to be honest.

the idea that you suggest of performing the procedure on a very small clearly marked area with counts in both the donor and recipient is something that should have already been performed and shown through pictures before claiming anything but I have not seen that evidence.

It does not have to be very small, because that would increase trauma, but a reasonable area (5-10 cm^2) would be enough.

For the moment, evaluating the donor area should give us a decent enough idea. If hairs are showing up from the donor extraction sites at a high rate, then that is definitely a sign that something is occurring. Unless you believe every single graft that regenerates there is transected like in gc's case, which I personally find almost impossible looking at his recipient pictures.

Unfortunately, in this industry, there's a real lack of studies like that, and that includes both FUE and FUT.

For example, for a patient with a limited donor supply, you would think it would be in their interest to count the hair in the recipient in order to evaluate the yield of the procedure, especially if you're using body hair which is known to have questionable yield. Yet nobody has ever done that to my knowledge. So we have no idea if that case is a success either.

[didi]

Perhaps all these failed extractions are just an imagination

Arashi

Yes its important to know total number of extractions but do you really think you had 4000-5000 holes in the back of your head, do you have any pix? Thats a big number you know..


I was looking at hasci website and they offer 50 test for e570



Rates (Netherlands)



CHOICE Scalp hair

NUMBER OF GRAFTS 50 (test)

RATE € 570



GC said they stopped offering this test but maybe its worth asking, in my opinion it will be the easiest way n the only way to prove HST, and its cheap..

[JJJJrS]

Perhaps all these failed extractions are just an imagination

Arashi

Yes its important to know total number of extractions but do you really think you had 4000-5000 holes in the back of your head, do you have any pix? Thats a big number you know..

I don't think it's imagined. We've had multiple patients bring it up and even Gho's paper talks about suitable and unsuitable grafts. But I don't think it's anywhere near bad enough to render an analysis of the donor area to useless. Not even close.

It would be be completely obvious if c5000 had 3000-6000 extraction points. gc and I both counted the extraction points in a very large section of the donor and anyone is free to verify our results. But I didn't see anything remotely near that amount. If anything it seems to match up pretty well with 1.5-2k extractions.

In IM's case there was absolutely no chance at all that he had more than, 1:1 successful to unsuccessful drill ratio, or more than 2800 extraction points. His case also looked very clearly like 1.4k grafts. So it totally confuses me why there was so much drama over this.

[didi]

Does hasci keeps records of failed/unfailed extractions for each patient?We need to ask them what is typical average ratio and worst cases.....


GCs next procedure is 3 weeks away and now he know what to ask and look for


its important to keep mind opn about this..thats the biggest issue with IM, he is so biased towards hst and gets aggressive if you question anything about procedure...

we all want it to work and it looks good so far but some important issues have been raised suchs as: we dont know exact graft breakdown, does he really get 2.5 on average as patiens are reporting thin results..then we have failed extractions issue..

[c5000]

Hey guys

I've just had a quick scan and it seems gaz has been estimating the number of extractions I've had. Thanks very much mate, I really appreciate this and I REALLY hope you're RIGHT and I'm WRONG, I don't mind admitting if I'm wrong, but I was telling it exactly as it happened with my procedure.

Today is my last day at work, so I'll try and see if I can collect photos of my entire extracted donor and do a count myself.

I'm off work for a few weeks so I'll have a few weeks to dedicate to photos etc.


But I need to stress again, EVERY case is DIFFERENT, so Gaz may well go there in 3 weeks and get very FEW failed extractions, as he has straight hair.

Someone with curly hair could then go there and have problems...

The main thing is that we try to get everyone to document the number of drills made to the number of successful grafts taken.

Thanks a lot again for your hard work Gaz, if your count is right, I'll be REALLY REALLY happy!