This is my first post. I've been reading the posts regarding MHR and it's sad that some people have had bad experiences with them. It's also sad when people ask for opinions on a particular MHR doctor and the first thing some people say are, "Run, don't walk, away from MHR", "it's a hair mill", etc. No one seems to reply to the question being asked. They just bunch all the MHR doctors into one big 'MHR group' and tell people to run for the hills. Well, I just want to tell you about my experience with MHR (I know, someone will hurry up and say that I'm one of the lucky ones).

I had a 1500 graft HT in October 2004 by Dr. Holt at the MHR Detroit office and I am very pleased with the results. In fact, I'm going for my second 1000 graft HT by Dr. Holt in a few weeks.

I had free follow-ups every four months and MHR contacted me on schedule to set them up. The customer service was very good.


Some of the posts that claim that Dr. Holt is new at this are several years old, so he has had quite a bit of experience since then. I hate to see, in my opinion, a good doctor get a reputation just because MHR has gotten a bad rap. Like many of you have said, "Judge the individual doctor. Don't put them all in the same group just because some people are disappointed with their results". That's like getting crappy service at a particular McDonalds and then boycotting all of them.

I'm going to see if I can get some copies of my 'before' pictures from Dr. Holt so I can post them here and also take some 13-14 month post-ops from my first HT.

That's my story. Before anyone gets any ideas:
No, I am not a mole for MHR.
No, I don't work for MHR.
No, I'm not getting paid by anyone to say this.
I'm just a satisfied customer.

I hope everyone, no matter what doctor/company they choose, has as good an experience as I had.

Hi kamin, I haven't had any personal experience with MHR so I won't comment but I was wondering why they didn't do a 2500 in the first place instead of separate 1500 and 1000 jobs?

I'm glad it worked out and that you are satisfied - that's the main thing.

PB

Actually, it was my decision to do 1500. I actually wasn't planning to do another one. However, the price was right and I made the decision to just do it to get a bit more density on top and fill in the corners some more.

I found that the hardest part about getting my first HT was making the commitment to do it. It's easy to say, "I'll think about it and get back to you". I did that a few times. I still remember that day when the consultant asked me to get back with him if I was interested and I just said "Let's schedule it right now. Let's just do it." I was actually scared of the decision I was making, but I'm very happy that I didn't waste any more time (I'm 44).

Now that I know what to expect, making the decision to do this next one was much easier!

Why don't you do more research and save the donor hair MHR is wasting. Multibladed knives and minigrafts. Jesus your expectations are ground level dude. Hold off and do more research before they hurt you.Of course Holt never told you you would need another thats MHR policy. I had a one time procedure by them 2 years ago.Went from a n/w 2.5 to a 5 and freaky looking. I am now a repair patient with neuro-vascular problems. Their resident F-up (DR. Quackdalin) told me there were no complications.Just "Great Results" You were lucky not to get butchered. MHR *is* a hair mill.I'm so glad you are not handicapped from the experience.Do some damned research and you will get some real "results". Otherwise become an MHR consultant and tell everyone thats *old work* lol.

Mahair,

Sorry to hear your experience with your particular MHR doctor sucked (please notice that I said "your" doctor, not MHR in general). I have some questions, which aren't meant to be smart-a$$ed, though they may sound that way.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by my "expectations being ground level". I researched HT's before taking the plunge. I've got a great hairline now, which is what I expected, and I'll be willing to bet that most people would probably be happy with it. It looks great and I'm sure that it will look even better once I get this second procedure done. Maybe I'm a little greedy now since the first HT went so well!

Dr. Holt offered to do more than 1500 grafts. That was my decision. Call it inexperience on my part, maybe a little fear of the unknown, and a budget!

How the h*ll did you go from a Norwood 2.5 to a 5 after a HT? Have you posted photos anywhere? I would be interested to see what happened.

Also, I don't understand what you mean by "get some real results". I can't see how my results could be any better, at least not that I nor anyone else could actually notice. I need to get some before photos from Dr. Holt and take some current photos to post here.

As for MHR being a hair mill, one could also look at this as being a positive trait. I can tell you that the Detroit/Grand Rapids offices are usually booked solid most of the time (at least when I have made my appointments). This would mean that Dr. Holt is doing a lot of HT's and getting more experience.

Again, it sucks that your experience with MHR wasn't good. I hope you can somehow repair the damage. I guess I got lucky with a good doctor.

I went to a n/w 5 because of a brutal procedure by an MHR DR. (William Magdalin). Who was absent for 90% of the procedure. When present he went through my existing hair with a multi-bladed knife. He told me it was a one time procedure with "No complications". I now suffer from neuro-vascular problems and thermoregulation difficulties. Besides that , my hair sucks even though i have had 4 repair sessions in the past two years(DUE TO THE ExCESIVE PERMENENT SHOCK LOSS) and will NEVER look 1/2 as good as I did when I started.And hairloss goes on.I hate MHR and everything they lie about and stand for.I'm just saying you could do better. Thats an understatement.Please do more research.Glad to hear Holt is doing better. As of a year ago he was butchering people too.I guess if you break enough eggs. Unfortunately these are people.Oh yea this is just my opinion.

Kamin:

Everyone on this community is happy for you that you got a good result with MHR, and no one denies that MHR may have some good doctors.

However, the way they market themselves, e.g. their "It's the Hair, Dude!" ad campaign, is, in my humble opinion, sleazy and unethical. It preys upon men's insecurity and promises unrealistic results. The ads are available on their website if anyone wants to check them out and judge for himself.

Marc

Mahair,

Who did you get your repairs with and how many grafts have you had?

Thanks,
GuitarPlayer

Well, this thread is a little old, but as someone that has had a very bad experience with MHR, I can tell you that you are very lucky. It is the general practice of MHR doctors to promise unrealistic results and then blame your expectations when their work falls short. They classify your hairloss as much worse than it actually is and then prove to you the "amazing" results by trying to prove to you that your hairloss was worse than it was before the surgery.

One thing that sticks out the most in my mind as evidence of their joke of medical practice happened the day after the transplant and they removed the stitches... I had an infection in the lopsided donor area cut and the medical assistant (while pulling some very dark hair out painfully from the back of my head along with the stitches) saw the infection and said, "Looks like you are getting an infection back there, you should have that checked-out." Have it checked-out? By whom? A hobo on the next street corner? Their office did the poor surgery and then they try to disassociate with it when any problem arises.

There were many other false promises. "We'll give you the name and numbers of 5 satisfied patients." The sleazy salesman always "forgot" or "got busy" when I asked for them. "You can talk to the doctor before the surgery." They actually made good on this one. I 'could' have talked to the doctor on the DAY of the surgery for about a quarter of an hour, had he not been telling me exactly what he was going to do and not listening to any of my feedback or requests. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised as I could have easily discovered what a butcher he was (Dr. Carlos Puig) by doing a search on his name. He has butchered (and I don't take that word lightly, it's just the only one that actually fits) many people before. Never trust a surgeon that actually performed - and advocated - hair plugs! Trust me, if it's their reputation they actually care about, why would they hire someone like that? And why, exactly, did Dr. Puig leave his own butcher shop in the NE? Could it be too many lawsuits closing in?

Now, I'm glad that you have gotten a satisfactory result with MHR, but there are several of us out there that have not because of their sleazy sales tactics, the promises that they don't follow through with, and their tendency to pray on the inadequacies of the suffers of MPB.

I had a HT with Dr. Holt in GR 8 months ago. Hair is growing in nicely. Is it as good as it would have been with someone else? I don't know. Did I pay to much? Maybe a little. Did he try to sell me on a second HT? Yes. Did he mention this on the first go round? No. Did I get butchered? No. Hair look pretty good (a little thinner then I was told it would be but maybe it will grow in a bit more. scar line in back is not noticed by barbers, i cut it to a #4). I'm somewhat happy about it, it's better then it was before, but in no way did he ruin my life. Just my two cents. If I do do a 2nd HT I'm thinking I'll go to Dr. Wolfe in Ohio.

Well Raise the flag and a big yippee. An MHR Quack that didn't ruin someones life. JUst set them up for a lifetime of surgeries. Once again Yippee.

Kamin,

If I may, permit me to add my two cents here.

First of all, I'm glad that your results with Doctor Holt of MHR pleases you. No-one on this board wishes anyone an ill result on an hair transplant, regardless of who does the work.

And, when it comes right down to it, that is the bottom line.

That said, let's address the issue of MHR as an entity. You used the analogy of McDonald's, stating that if one has a bad experience at one McDonald's restaurant, that does not mean that the rest of them are equally poor.

Fair enough. However, the inverse of that analogy would also hold true. If one visits a McDonald's and receives exceptional service, that does not mean that the rest of the restaurants in the chain also provide the same level of service.

The decision to undergo an HT and to whom to go for the procedure is a complex issue and, even though there is much guidence to be found in fora such as this one, as well as whatever information can be gleaned from the various websites of MHR, Bosley, and the individual surgeons who perform such work, there is still the fact that, to some extent, potential patients are forced to make a decision while at a disadvantage.

Most potential patients are not physicians, so we lack the technical knowledge. Nor do most of us possess the resources to personally investigate thoroughly every HT surgeon and operation out there. To be sure, it behooves us to do as much research as possible--a great deal of research, as a matter of fact--but all we can realistically do is load the odds of making a wise selection of HT physician in our favour. There is no getting a 100% guarantee. (If for no other reason than nothing in medicine is 100% guaranteed.)

So, a potential HT patient is, in a real sense, playing the odds in selecting a surgeon, with the understanding that there are some factors which are going to be beyond one's ability to research.

When I decided to investigate the possibility of whether or not an HT was feasible for me, I had not yet discovered this forum, or any like it. I spent an aggragate of twenty-four hours just performing on-line research (one night for twelve hours straight). I educated myself as much as possible on the most current techniques of hair transplantation. I contacted various surgeons and investigated MHR and Bosley, receiving their promotional literature and videos.

I have no formal medical education, but I do have a few initials after my name; even so, I knew that, to an extent, no matter how I educated myself on the process and the physicians, there were still some blank areas I could not fill in.

Given that, what I decided to do was look for "red flags"--certain signs that would tell me that a particular surgeon or clinic should be eliminated. In the case of MHR--and remember, this was before I read a single post on any forum--it was MHR's promotional video that sent up red flags. It wasn't so much in what was told to the viewer, but what wasn't said. When someone promises you the world and mentions no strings attached, that is a big signal to me that there's something there that isn't meant to be found.

That's why I scratched MHR off my list. Since then, having discovered this forum and others, I find similar sentiments about MHR.

Mahair suffered a singularly tragic result from his experience with MHR (and bear in mind, this is no indictment of the research and thought he put into his decision to use MHR; he fell victim to that "X" part that is difficult, if not impossible, for a potential patient to ferret out) and not only should the terrible results of his work by MHR send up a red flag, the way MHR responded to it sends up a bigger one.

A truly professional entity would be bending over backwards to repair or compensate Mahair for his loss and suffering. Not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it also would rehabilitate MHR's own reputation. MHR, apparently, has no interest in doing either.

The other comments regarding MHR as operating like a "hair mill"--charging the patients higher than the industry standard to pay for its commercial advertising, its "come on" technique of promising that one procedure will do the job as a lure to bring a patient back, and so forth--are reasonably accurate. There is just too much smoke for there not to be a fire.

You got results from an MHR surgeon that are satisfactory for you--and I'm very pleased for you. But I cannot say that your one positive outcome undoes the overwhelming number of indications that MHR, as an entity, is an inferior choice for one seeking an HT.

Holt was in training when I went to MHR in Grand Rapids.

MHR is subpar, and should not be recommended.. PERIOD.

Hair Apparent summed it up.

For any new person to this forum PAY ATTENTION!

Simply being glad that a chain of HT doctors did "Good" work, is not enough. To make it sound OK because a particular doctor performed a quality procedure, does not justify the fact that technique and facilities inherent at Bosley & MHR are outdated. Period. Everyone who actually takes time to really look at how a HT is actually done, can spot some of these "lies". For example, in order to schedule multiple patients each day, you have to use mini and micro grafts. Period. In addition, the reason you choose to do 1500 grafts was probably due to the second mortgage you took out to finance your HT. Cobblestoning, pitting, raised scars, grafty hairlines are all a re-ocurring theme for chains and overall "shit" doctors, simply because the tools and methods they use are antique. I am glad that you are happy. I am glad that several of you have had good experiences, because I know what you have suffered through as a balding man. Just do not look for support among the HT community because your sucess stories are the minority, not the majority. We have to continue to come down hard on these clinics and demand excellence. Let's face it, would you pay more money to a 250 hitter, when you can get a better deal on a hall of famer?

Well it's been a few years now. It's thin up front, or at least it was, I just had Doc Charles thicken up the hairline. HHR wasn't the worst thing ever to happen to me, but I do wish I had gone to Doctor Charles in the first place.

Rebel,

Thanks for coming back to post an update.

I encourage you to start your own thread to share your surgical experience and post before/after pictures. You may even want to create a hair loss weblog.

Are you planning for a second hair transplant with Dr. Charles, or just wishful thinking?

Best wishes,

Falc