Body hair transplants do work?

[35YrsAfter]

Recently, one of his patients posted some very awful results from head hair, but his patients (more like thugs than Shills) attacked him online as did the doctor. It was clearly a terrible result, but he was made out to be the bad guy.

In my opinion and kind of a no-brainer... a doctor must always strive to create the most natural appearing result possible. From a legal standpoint, cosmetic surgery results are considered mostly subjective. The patient says his result is terrible and the doctor claims it looks great. Today there are standards for hairline creation and still there are some doctors who play by their own rules.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office
forhair.com
Cole Hair Transplant
1045 Powers Place
Alpharetta, Georgia 30009
Phone 678-566-1011
email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

[topcat]

I often find myself struggling to stay positive on much of what I see in this industry. At least we can be thankful that Dr. Conrad Murray has not entered the field, at least not yet.

[John P. Cole, MD]

I'm not aware of that many doctors who do body hair. I don't think that most doctors intentionally mislead patients about body hair. Sure there are some who mislead patients, but most don't. Even in the best of hands and with the most ethical physician one must not over sell BHT. I saw a 5000 beard result with 2000 scalp hair grafts to the frontal hairline recently in a repair patient. The patient was thrilled with his results, but in my opinion, the result was quite thin for 7000 grafts added to existing grafts. With some patients, very little makes them happy because it is more than they had before. With others, a more meaningful result is necessary. I think this underscores the limitations of even the best source of body hair restoration. Sometimes, it simply does not grow all that well, but patients can still be happy with a thin result. Other people will be disappointed.

[wylie]

I've had over 5500 beard grafts from Dr. Umar and the results are nothing short of remarkable, furthermore, there is not another doctor in the United States who could have gotten these results with 5500 beard and less than 2000 scalp hairs combined. Not a one. Zip, zero, squadoosh.

Internationally, the only two who come to mind who could have mirrored my repair result are Woods and Arvind, both have the requisite repair experience over the past decade but I don't have the confidence in either to have gotten the artistry of the hairline to match the beard hair behind it like Dr. Umar did for me. Estimating my growth rate of these grafts is always, at best, guesswork, and that goes double for most doctors. They throw out estimates like there is some level of accuracy in their guesses, but they are just that, a guess. Smart money says any doctor performing any hair transplant is not going to lowball their own growth rates. But I suppose most doctors think they can glance at thousands of hairs and estimate a growth rate.

I guess success from these surgeries will ultimately lie not in what anonymous posters on an Internet forum think, or some coterie of doctors all pushing their own brand and/or the brand of their peers (various professional organizations have made many doctors become as cliqueish as high schoolers) but the true and only real measure success will come from those who sat in the chair, waited months or years for results to mature, and pay a percentage of their income every month towards paying off the financial cost of achieving said result.

I can only speak for myself when I say beard hair worked for me.

[wylie]

I'm not aware of that many doctors who do body hair. I don't think that most doctors intentionally mislead patients about body hair. Sure there are some who mislead patients, but most don't. Even in the best of hands and with the most ethical physician one must not over sell BHT. I saw a 5000 beard result with 2000 scalp hair grafts to the frontal hairline recently in a repair patient. The patient was thrilled with his results, but in my opinion, the result was quite thin for 7000 grafts added to existing grafts. With some patients, very little makes them happy because it is more than they had before. With others, a more meaningful result is necessary. I think this underscores the limitations of even the best source of body hair restoration. Sometimes, it simply does not grow all that well, but patients can still be happy with a thin result. Other people will be disappointed.

That result (mine) looks perfectly natural. That is the most important factor in ANY repair, does the result look natural? With little or no scalp to utilize (around 1500, but less than 2000) I got a natural looking head of hair today. Personally, I don't think the pictures I posted do my hair justice, but yea, I'm a bit biased.

And it will continue to improve as another 500 were added 9/9/13, and will further thicken the hairline where the part is.

Stay tuned......

[John P. Cole, MD]

As I stated, many patients are happy with their results. Sometimes these results are quite good and sometimes they are not, but it is always good when a patient is happy with their results. Sometimes patients are not happy with really good results or the best that we can expect given the circumstances. Sub-optimal donor areas are never going to produce the greatest results no matter how consistent the result is with the procedure that was done with the donor area available.

Regarding your estimation about who does the top repair work, I'd say that you have narrowed your playing field far more than what is available. Patient bias is expected, however. Taking such bias to extreme degrees is impertinent and vexing.

[gillenator]

The thing about all of this is that beard hair and BH are mostly used in repair situations and/or in cases where the individual's donor is depleted. Never as a primary donor source.

That being said and understood by most, what is not understood very well is the psyche of the repair patient. One of the things that I have observed over the years is the fact that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". What one repair patient may see as outstanding results, the other is never going to be satisfied. These are obviously at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Many repair patients have lower expectations resulting from the past disappointments in scarring and less than desirable results. They don't want to be sold anything including BH. They just want improvement in order to "move on with their lives". Some are most desperate than others. Some are more realistic and are aware of their limitations after their donor reserves are depleted. Still others are unrealistic and will try anything. Sometimes the scarring can be improved, sometimes not. Some have more available donor, some have next to none unless you go to BH. It's complex and every repair case is different. I always encourage repair patients to consider both sides before defining their goals and expectations.

Some are absolutely thrilled with a more aesthetically pleasing hairline when you or I would never accept it. But then again you and I did not have to live with others staring at our past pluggy hairline for years.

It's a similar psyche to someone who has lived without any hairline for years. Many of them are ecstatic to have a frame again and are happy with that. But if you already have a considerable volume of native hair and suddenly you see the recession and thinning of your hairline, it becomes a crisis and the expectations are high, and sometimes unreasonable.

Give someone who is dying of thirst in the desert a glass of water and he will be forever grateful to you. He may view it as saving his life. Give someone else the same glass of water who just came out of the pool, and they might just throw it back at you.

[John P. Cole, MD]

Well stated, Gilli. One concern I have is underestimating the capacity of others to achieve a similar level of nirvana in the hands of good physicians. While all cannot pull off a repair case, many can.