Lets talk about just how bad and dated Flap surgery is.to warn newbies

[Sofarsogood]

Wow Z.

My heart goes out to you.

I remember seeing that ad when I was HT doc shopping back in the 1990s. Living in West Los Angeles, I was very tempted to schedule a consult. However, the price was steep. Perhaps my lack of funds back then saved me as well as some good advice.

At the time I reached out to my father (a NW6 who wears a hair system) and asked his opinion. He was staunchly against it.

I then consulted my GP (NW1.5) whom I had great respect for and he all but forbid me from having that procedure. He spelled out the risks and drew a diagram for me describing the procedure in great detail. In short, he scared me straight regarding flaps and scalp reductions. I was 23 years old.

I'm not sure what I would have done had I gone through with it and things went south.

I do wonder if they still offer that horrific procedure and if there are any folks who have had this procedure with "success".

Kudos for keeping your composure and not going ballistic.
I truly hope your repair works out well for you.

Sincerely,
sofar
(josh)

 

[hairtech]

Sofar,

How are you?

Anyway I wanted to comment on this thread. Just as Sofar describes as he himself was shopping back in the 1990's a patient today came in to have a repair procedure... unfortunately he underwent large punch extractions back 20 + years ago. Just to give a historical prospective, the patient back in the mid-1980's was around 19 years of age... now 45, noticed that he was beginning to recede in his temporal corners. His father being a norwood 6 scared him. He began to try to find a solution. Since there was not the benefit of a world wide internet, he happened to see an ad one day whilst reading a newspaper. He stated today that he wished he had not. The physician that had the ad was during that time a pioneer in hairloss. The physician explained to him that he needed preventative work along with his current temporal recessions, which was probably very minor.

Anyway, to shorten this read, long story short, his donor was destroyed by wasteful large punch extraction. To the point that he is now a norwood 6, 45 year old, and now chasing a repair just to look normal.

These types of patients trouble me greatly. And unfortunately this situation is fairly common...