Its a jungle out there - be careful

[Dr. Arvind Poswal]

Dear readers,

I did not post for sometime.
I was exploring the social media space to understand what non forum users who search for advise on FB, instagram etc. are getting into.
I understand that many of the readers here are well informed. If you are one of them, please ignore this post.

For others, I will like to share my experiences.

The pandemic has seen a sprouting of untrained, unprofessional, and sometimes plain unqualified people offering so-called hair transplants at very low prices.

A few images and some words of caution :slight_smile:

1. Non-doctors have been advertising, performing, and posting pictures of what they are doing. Please beware of such practices as I see glaring problems even in the post-operative pictures they are so proudly putting on FB etc.

2. In the name of “Direct Hair Transplant” or “Direct Hair Implant”, many practitioners including doctors are trying to skip 2 crucial steps (graft dissection under microscope and graft sorting and storing them in chilled holding solutions).
This can be disastrous. To try to label one’s weakness (not having sufficient time and effort to trim the grafts) into one’s USP is an old trick.
Remember doctors long ago who had abnormally high graft transections passing it off as a wilfull step towards hair multiplication. Something similar/worse is happening here.

3. I have consultations telling me that previous doctors (sometimes those names are mentioned here in passing) stated that only 50% of the transplanted hair grows. Thats blasphemy.

Its chilling to realize that outside of readers of such forums, lay people are being misguided and disfigured, their donors damaged completely beyond repair.

Its a pity that some people are using this pandemic as an opportunity to do illegal surgeries luring ?unsuspecting patients with dirt low prices.

I will post some pictures I saw on FB. If you too encounter similar instances, please be vocal and atleast tell the person that what he/she is doing to the patient in name of Direct hair transplant or cheap hair transplant etc., is wrong. Public admonition by veteran posters will go a long way.

If you find similar instances, please post the pictures and link here so collectively we can help patients.

Regards,
Dr. A

[Dr. Arvind Poswal]

This picture is definitely NOT of my patient but is representative of what some clinics are doing.



This picture shows what can go wrong in a hair transplant. Grafts are hanging out of the recipient slits and not likely to grow.

In case you see your head looking like this at end of your hair transplant, ask your doctor to kindly slide all the grafts into the recipient slit COMPLETELY as they should be if they are to grow.

[Dr. Arvind Poswal]

Donor destruction and harvesting donor hair from outside the donor area is happening way too often.
This basic knowledge of safe donor area is a must.
Not just for doctors but for patient too.

Large punches should, of course, not be used.
The pictures below are of a patient who went somewhere else and then visited us for his corrective HT.
In his pre operative pictures, you can see clearly

1. Grafts were extracted using too large a graft
2. Grafts were extracted from outside the safe donor zone. Quite possibly, as the baldness progresses, the transplanted hair will shed.

Take care. Get the donor areas clearly marked before the start of your procedure and make sure its not outside the SAFE donor area.