HT55---Oh, that was excellent!!!
I completely agree w/everything you said 100%!!!

These damn Armani consults ALWAYS resort to the same tactics; they come over here and dig up some two year old thread, posting that:
"I see this forum STILL is talking trash on Armani. Not much has changed. Tisk...tisk..."

Then when we ask for photo's and justifications for their claims/theories, they CAN'T provide!!!

What a joke!

You guys are EMPLOYEES/REPS for Armani but you can't even post pics of his work, let alone just comment on the forums?!?!??!
WTF!?!?!?!?

It's clear to ANYONE who isn't in a state of total and complete dillusion because of their hair loss, that Armani and his reps are full of $hit!!!!

We would ALL *love* for his claims to be true:

"15K donor on avg, ONE simple "non-surgical" MEGA FUE session and viola you will have your 18 yr. old hair line back!?!?!??"

Who WOULDN'T want this to be true? But it is so clear it's a bunch of BS, when even the own hired reps can't even post comments, let alone pictures of ARMANI'S results, because ARMANI himself won't allow them (?)...

what a JOKE! I feel sorry for any young kid who spends top dollar to go get a Mega Fue Session, wasting all their grafts...

I know that Armanis fue grows as I have seen it with my own eyes. The problem is obviously the yeild percentage.
If they start posting any pictures of grown out results they fear that we will place them side by side to similar numbers from strip .
Once that happens business goes down and the magical fairy dust Shane sprinkle on you will be ineffective.
Their lies and promises will also be exposed ,so its better to stash those pic in a secret vault.
I know Armani wants this megfue to rival his strip ,but its unfair to all the "practice" patients hes using.
Fue in the right hands can be excellent but for what ever reason its not in the right hands in Canada dubai. or LA

What a bloodbath this thread has become for Armani...then again, what thread on an open forum isn't...

Armani's main problem is that he is doing brute force FUE sessions, and he, nor anyone else, has been able to circumvent the inherent flaws in FUE mega's. Until that is resolved no one should really be even holding their breath for "pictures", because the results simply aren't going to be there.

Of course, threads like this help hammer home the obvious.

that guy w/3K FUE didn't EVEN need nearly that many...that is just ridiculous....

To be fair, let me make one comment about the provided pictures.

7 months is too early to evaluate the final outcome of any surgery. A full evaluation should be reserved for approximately 12 months after surgery.

I'd also appreciate physician input on whether or not it's possible for hair starts to grow later with FUE. I would suspect this is possible due to the lack of surrounding tissue on the FUE grafts.

Falc

It looks like they rented out a
room from a Soap Opera Set for that
video---the sexy curtains, posh chairs,...
---'THE HAIRS of OUR LIVES'---
---'THE BALD & THE BEAUTIFUL'---
----'GENERAL HAIR'SPITAL'---

They make strip sound as if it is some outdated, barbaric procedure---
'yez, zeee d'OcR haz to have Artiztry in zee handz....(rubbing his greedy paws together)....Jue caNot juzt ZAP!--PoW--ZAM!! (gesturing to grab hairs with his mits) pull zeE haiR....I am zeeE ArTizt, like Vangouh, or zee PicazoO...I am zeEE arTIst...'

HT55,

Fair enough.

I too have a great concern about graft count over-estimates (see my post on this by clicking here.

For the record, I do believe it's possible to do 4K FUE in 10-12 hours. However, since I believe that not all patients are FUE candidates, in my opinion, performing this large of a session in that amount of time for all patients will require the use of brute force removal on non-candidates which will lead to follicle transection, damage, and ultimately poor hair growth yield.

Falc

Speaking of which, has anyone heard of a patient that Armani has actually turned down, and opted not to work on for a FUE-mega....

Has a crackhead ever turned down a rock

quote:

Originally posted by PLEASE GROW PLEASE:
Has a crackhead ever turned down a rock

AHAHAHAH!!!
good analogy!

OK, ive had a strip HT with a coalition doc, but I read this thread and the "locals" seem very confrontational.

I know the questions need to be answered, but I'd have to say that Alvi came off as more professional in this exchange.

While AA may be pushing the boundaries, im going to guess his product is not nearly as bad or as dangerous as everyone is saying.

I will say that ive got a healing strip scar that appears very wide and seems t have stretched in a short period of time. It is highly disconcernting and had I gone fue, I wouldnt be wearing a hat now. I might have traded overall density for a lack of linear scar, even if FUE yield is 20% less.

Sorry, ive just got to tell it how i see it.

How many months post-op are you -- hopefully you still have plenty of time to heal...? Anyways, nobody is saying someone shouldn't be able to do an FUE-mega where their yield will suck compared to strip and/or they will be overquoted....but they should be informed as to the realiy of the situation. I would not go that route; perhaps you would...nobody is any position to decide what route someone takes...however, EVERYONE should be granted the transparency to make a truly informed decision.

But the Armani machine puts out a tremendous amount of hype and often plain bull&$@(....difficult to not be confrontational when you see people being bamboozled and your very basic questions and inquiries go unanswered time and time and time and time again.

Also far as I can tell, Alvi was treated quite well until he decided to flee the scene with reasoning and timing that is....conspicuous, at best. I agree though that he shouldn't be treated in such a brash manner if he were to have remained an active member in the forum and grace us with his answers to our questions.

To the Emporer, yes we may have been a little hard on him,but that is what this sites all about! Finding truth and sticking together to weed out the false. He may have been more diplomatic,but just look at our diplomacy and ask yourself do you believe everything you hear or read. Thank God we live in a country with freedom of speech and sometimes things in diplomacy can get nasty. This is the nature of the beast! We my friend Emporer are freedom fighters and we want truth!!! If any person comes to this site he will find truth in his brotheren and his brotheren will destroy the traders who perceive the truth for lies. Im thankful for this site and what we believe. I am sorry to hear about your scar and I hear you on going fue in your case. I would want the same also if my scar was to wide. Emporer who did your work? I hope you will tell so that another brotheren of our coaltion can make a wise choice for there future. Its about us not the docs unless they are also interested in us. Without us the docs are out of jobs (Right)

I feel somewhat of an *obligation* to come across harsh when discussing Armani, as it is proportional to his savvy, marketing, and superfluous claims. I feel that he is preying on young men who are in a dire state of dillusion as a result of their hair loss and as such, are willing to believe anything anyone, especially, a *dr.* feeds them. Some of this:

#1 dense packing young 20 yr. olds hair line w/4K+ grafts down to their temples.
#2 telling them they have 15K donor.
#3 advertising FUE as 'non-surgical'
#4 claims of Mega FUE success w/-ZERO- results

Every other *good* doc on this site is completely transparent. If Armani has *such* great results w/his ground breaking MEGA FUE sessions, then where are they? Why doesn't he share them? Surely, he would be *proud* of them and they would boost his business (?)....
----FANCIFUL CLAIMS w/ZERO EVIDENCE----
Everyone who has read any of my posts knows Im a cheer leader for Hasson, and the only reason I became one was seeing all of his AMAZING transparent results: Bobman, Jotronic, Nicnitro, Shuffle, London Lad, Evolution, etc, etc,...

Where are ALL if *any* of Armanis Mega Fue?
As far as his ethics goes, even when he did strip:
what are these young kids going to do if they end up NW5+ and they have HALF of their available donor dense packed down to their eye-brows? They are going to look like circus freaks. They probably will not have enough donor hair left to even get an acceptable look. I feel we have an *obligation* to warn them.

Feller is both a world top doc AND a proponent of FUE, but by all accounts he claims that NOT everyone is a candidate for FUE as it takes a specific type of skin pigmentation (having to do w/collagen or such) to be able to extract FUE at a successful %; he also states that FUE leaves 10x the amount of *trauma* to the donor area as a result of all of the tiny extractions over the entirity of the donor area leaving it w/scarred skin and makes successive procedures less successful. He also states, that even if one is a good FUE candidate the yield is lower than that of strip.

Neither Armani nor any of his reps have ever directly addressed ANY of these claims or issues surrounding FUE; we should be able to expect the same from him that we would from any ethical and skilled surgeon who is TRULY successful at what they are doing. We don't. So, what are we to conclude seeing that someone of the caliber and transparency of Feller shows the pit falls and limitations of FUE; then Armani makes all of these claims w/absolutely ZERO proof (?!?!?)...

Emperor, I don't know your situation but perhaps your scar is just suffering from temporary shock loss and coupled w/redness it *appears* bigger than it is (?). Maybe not, I don't know. If in the event that your not happy w/your scar and it is *completely* unacceptable to you, you could FUE into it. Just a thought.

Well I screwed that up
Emporer Im sorry about your scar but like others have said maybe its just the shockloss or redness making it look wider. If you went to a coaltion doc Im sure hell revise it for you.
You say sorry you have to tell it like you see it.
Well this is what this is all about. Your right the questions need to be answered but SEEING some real results is what we want. You cant call it if if you cant see it.
20% less grafts to avoid the scar is a difficult choice unless your 40 and a nw3 .
Another problem is we have no idea what % is lost without photos .Could be 30 or 40.
This isnt about bashing fue because there are doctors on here that show excellent yeild.
In this thread its more about Adam coming on here and trying to change our mind about Armani without any pictures.
Just 5-10 pictures would erase alot of my concerns yet they refuse to post any on any site.
What does that tell you?

TheEmperor,

When did you have surgery? Did you share your experience and pictures on another thread? If not, I encourage you to do so including any recent pictures of the scar.

Scar stretching can be caused by a number of things and unfortunately, it's one of the risks going into surgery which may or may not be within the doctor's control. However, I encourage you to share your experience and photos on a new thread and also contact your physician who I am sure will stand by you. Be sure also to give the hair transplant a chance to mature (12 months) before making a final evaluation of the results and scar.

If there is anything I can do for you, send me a private message.

Thanks,

Falc

[QUOTE]Emporer who did your work? I hope you will tell so that another brotheren of our coaltion can make a wise choice for there future. QUOTE]

I have decided to wait 12 months before divulging any information. If I post in the doldrums I am more inclined to say something negative. Everything may turn out OK, if all the grafts grow and the scar becomes "pencil thin", but I have serious doubts at this point about the scar, and I have reservations about the growth.

The one thing I cna say thats relative to this thread is that removing all the hype from FUE, and taking its drawbacks into consideration FUE still has great real world advantages in post-op recovery that cannot be understated!

I went from short hair on sides and long on top, to the complete opposite, and I cant buzz the sides because of the scar and shockloss. There really are big gaps of missing hair on my head. Maybe Im one of the very unlucky ones, but I know if I ad gone FUE, I would have been able to buzz down and gone without a hat a couple months ago.

I have no idea if this is common but I can say I went to one of the best doctors. About half or more of the native hair was lost in the procedure as well and in its place i have many tiny dimples. I do not think I will look normal until 9-12 months and that is if all the grafts grow and all shocked hair returns AND the scars turns out to be much thinner than it appears.

Another thing about strip that I have not heard mentioned is that strip makes your bald spot larger as it pulls down on the rim! This was a shocker! I find the baldness was greater imediately following the procedure as the hair is pulled down an amount equal to the width of the strip. FUE would not do this!

Ive revised my thinking on the "many small FUE sessions" to stay ahead of MBP strategy. (Certainly many small strip sessions does not make sense.) It will obviously cost 3 times as much in the long run, but would effectively enable a young man to avoid the extended doldrum periods. If acceptable yield can be confirmed/reproduced, I think this would be a first line approach for young men without extensive loss and without a family history of extreme baldness.

I might add that its not clear to me that yield is substandard. I believe we are comparing apples and oranges. We are comparing the entire pool of strip results to a tiny pool of FUE results. I think the large number of stunning strip transformations is due to the large number of mega procedures done in this manner. Its still not clear to me that graft for graft, FUE yield is necessarily worse. Feller has been showing good FUE yield IMO, so we might assume AA has the technical skill to do it too. Regarding the issue of who is a good candidate, that pool may expand over time as well as doctors get better with removal techniques.

Emperor,

how many months out are you? Im sure it can be a very difficult process to go through for *some*, while others tend to heal quickly; and this is precisely why I have not yet gone through with the procedure yet.

That being said, what do you mean by "little dimples" in the recipient area? I fully respect your reservations for not telling us who the doc was, but can you tell us the REST of the details of your surgery (i.e. NW level, age, grafts moved, how many months post op you are )? Perhaps you have stated this somewhere else but I haven't seen it. You lost a significant amount of native hair after your surgery? Were you a diffused thinner? While it's much easier for me to say this and is probably of little consolation, if you are only 2-5 months post op, then more than likely all of these conditions are temporary and you will be blooming soon and can report back with the good news...

I dont buy the "more scarring" theory. Yes I guess in an absolute sense, there is more scarring, but also there is more tissue present.

After a few mega strip procedures, you may have 60% of your original tissue, of which only 2% of it is scarring.

After an equal emount of FUE grafts, you will have 100% of your original tissue, of which 40% of it contains scarring.

Quite frankly, if the scarring is not visible im not sure it is an issue. (I guess if overharvest a fue patient, you will see the scars, but overharvesting a strip patient you are going to be faced with a bigger problem -- hair too thin to cover a noticeable linear scar.)

The analogy that comes to mind is the Great Wall of China. you can see it from space with the naked eye, yet you can not make out any of the other millions of building that dot the landscape. Even though the wall is not particularly wide, something about the linear continuity that makes it possible to pick out.