I don’t know where to begin. Recently, I have been somewhat of a skeptical with BHT (Body Hair Transplantation). As a technician, I have been involved in hundreds of BHT cases and am probably the first technician to ever extract a BHT (in the united states). Most physicians that perform BHT do it as a two step process. 1. The physician scores and punches the graft. 2. The technician or simply slides the graft out.
BHT in my opinion is unpredictable at best. Over the past 5 years, out of all of the cases of BHT with Drs. , Umar, Woods, Bisanga, Jones, and a couple of others have had very few completely successful results if any at all. If there were 100 cases, then 1-2 at best came up with some kind of a result. This failure/success rate brought on a large number of skeptics as well as spawned a large number of snake oil doctors charging an arm and a leg and stating to patients that growth will happen at a certain percentage. This is simply false.
No one… and I don’t care what any doctor says… no one can predict if a BHT will grow or not. There are so many factors involved in its success. Some aggressive proponents say to the patient… well any coverage is better than coverage. A false statement because you cannot predict growth. Consider these questions:
Should BHT be offered as an alternative to scalp hair? NO
Should BHT be abandoned? NO
Should meggassessions be offered to any patient at this time? Absolutely NOT!
Should the patient be informed that BHT has a zero predictability at best? Yes
Should the patient use every medical/surgical traditional method before ever considering BHT? Yes
Should the patient even after full disclosure and exhausted all other resources, still be cautious? Absolutely yes
Has BHT been known to grow for a period of time then die and never come back? Yes… in many patients
Are there any successful patients that their BHT is growing after a year or more? Yes… I can count on one hand.
If a doctor states to the patient, “You WILL see an X% of growth by an X number of years. It grows.” Should the patient be wary? Yes in fact consider leaving that office. Your best interests are not being considered.
Can BHT cause scarring? Yes it can and I personally have seen one horror scarring case. It may have been a fluke but it sure scarred me. And no it was not any doctor I ever worked for.
I don’t apologize for writing this prologue because it was wrote for the ghost reader and other posters as a warning that BHT is still not the Holy Grail. The patient today was a referral from the great Dr. Ron Shapiro. This patient exhausted his donor resources in the 80’s and 90’s. About a year or so ago he heard about BHT. Fortunately for him he came to Dr. Harris… I only say this because even Dr. Harris is a skeptic. The first time I asked him about how he performs BHT he said, “The Jury is not out on BHT Tom.” So when this patient came to Dr. Harris, he was fully informed of its unpredictability and was fully aware that he had a great chance of nothing growing… as well as a very low chance that it might provide some coverage.
Having said this, the patient began serial BHT transplants with low numbers. He only would come in every 3 to 6 months and get 500 BHT grafts placed. Dr. Harris uses the SAFE technique which employs blunt dissection concepts used in all major surgery today. The punch size that Dr. Harris uses is 0.75mm. Especially in BHT, should the smallest punch be used, period. There is too much of a risk for potential scarring so one must start out small.
Well there is a hall of fame for BHT that I have been keeping tabs on. My dear friend DJ, Sofarsogood, and two more patients all are considered to be hall of famers. They are fortunate. Today you have to add one more guy in the BHT hall of fame. Today his pictures will surprise you as it did me.
» YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BEFORE I LET OUT PICTURES!
»
» I don’t know where to begin. Recently, I have been somewhat of a
» skeptical with BHT (Body Hair Transplantation). As a technician, I have
» been involved in hundreds of BHT cases and am probably the first
» technician to ever extract a BHT (in the united states). Most physicians
» that perform BHT do it as a two step process. 1. The physician scores and
» punches the graft. 2. The technician or simply slides the graft out.
»
» BHT in my opinion is unpredictable at best. Over the past 5 years, out of
» all of the cases of BHT with Drs. , Umar, Woods, Bisanga, Jones, and a
» couple of others have had very few completely successful results if any at
» all. If there were 100 cases, then 1-2 at best came up with some kind of a
» result. This failure/success rate brought on a large number of skeptics as
» well as spawned a large number of snake oil doctors charging an arm and a
» leg and stating to patients that growth will happen at a certain
» percentage. This is simply false.
»
» No one… and I don’t care what any doctor says… no one can predict if a
» BHT will grow or not. There are so many factors involved in its success.
» Some aggressive proponents say to the patient… well any coverage is
» better than coverage. A false statement because you cannot predict growth.
» Consider these questions:
»
» 1. Should BHT be offered as an alternative to scalp hair? NO
» 2. Should BHT be abandoned? NO
» 3. Should meggassessions be offered to any patient at this time?
» Absolutely NOT!
» 4. Should the patient be informed that BHT has a zero predictability at
» best? Yes
» 5. Should the patient use every medical/surgical traditional method before
» ever considering BHT? Yes
» 6. Should the patient even after full disclosure and exhausted all other
» resources, still be cautious? Absolutely yes
» 7. Has BHT been known to grow for a period of time then die and never come
» back? Yes… in many patients
» 8. Are there any successful patients that their BHT is growing after a
» year or more? Yes… I can count on one hand.
» 9. If a doctor states to the patient, “You WILL see an X% of growth by an
» X number of years. It grows.” Should the patient be wary? Yes in fact
» consider leaving that office. Your best interests are not being
» considered.
» 10. Can BHT cause scarring? Yes it can and I personally have seen one
» horror scarring case. It may have been a fluke but it sure scarred me. And
» no it was not any doctor I ever worked for.
»
»
» I don’t apologize for writing this prologue because it was wrote for the
» ghost reader and other posters as a warning that BHT is still not the Holy
» Grail. The patient today was a referral from the great Dr. Ron Shapiro.
» This patient exhausted his donor resources in the 80’s and 90’s. About a
» year or so ago he heard about BHT. Fortunately for him he came to Dr.
» Harris… I only say this because even Dr. Harris is a skeptic. The first
» time I asked him about how he performs BHT he said, “The Jury is not out on
» BHT Tom.” So when this patient came to Dr. Harris, he was fully informed of
» its unpredictability and was fully aware that he had a great chance of
» nothing growing… as well as a very low chance that it might provide some
» coverage.
»
» Having said this, the patient began serial BHT transplants with low
» numbers. He only would come in every 3 to 6 months and get 500 BHT grafts
» placed. Dr. Harris uses the SAFE technique which employs blunt dissection
» concepts used in all major surgery today. The punch size that Dr. Harris
» uses is 0.75mm. Especially in BHT, should the smallest punch be used,
» period. There is too much of a risk for potential scarring so one must
» start out small.
»
» Well there is a hall of fame for BHT that I have been keeping tabs on. My
» dear friend DJ, Sofarsogood, and two more patients all are considered to be
» hall of famers. They are fortunate. Today you have to add one more guy in
» the BHT hall of fame. Today his pictures will surprise you as it did me.
I want to show our our surgical tray. This is to confirm that we provide FUE by using Dr. Harris’s SAFE technique. No other FUE or ANY sharp FUE form of any kind is ever employed here at this office.
This next picture shows growth from his first BHT. No head or scalp hair was used in any of his BHT surgeries. Nor was there never a scalp surgery in between.
This shot to me is astonishing. Every hair that is dark black and shorter than the grey hairs is a BHT.
This picture is to compare the before and after scarring. Zero… Again one must understand that small punch technologies must be employed to at the very least start with a lower scar threshold.
I am about 8 mos. post op, Dr. Cole around 2000 BHT to my crown and hairline taken from my legs. I use Minoxidil and Hair Cycle products. Growth started at just under 2 months. At about 6 mos. some of the hair shed (the hairline is easy to monitor). Within a month, the hair came back along with some new growth. The second phase of growth, the caliber or thickness of the hair has increased. At the 7 month period, the new growth on the hairline has a much better cosmetic effect of hiding the old “plug” hairline. Even a slight increase in hair shaft thickness has made a big difference in cosmetic effect for me. At 8 months, my legs look the same as they did before I had any surgery. There are no visible marks, scarring whatsoever. At the time when some of the BHT temporarily shed, someone mentioned in another forum that their’s shed and “never” re-grew. “never” = 1 year? - 2 years? That was discouraging to hear at the time. Personally, I can’t see any reason why BHT wouldn’t grow. Mine is growing very well. I know that there are some medications and possibly shampoos that can inhibit body hair growth. Other than that, I can’t reason why it would just fall out and not return. I think it’s either resting phase, medications or lifestyle.
I have personally not experienced any visible scarring whatsoever due to punch size etc.
.75mm is a tiny opening for 4-5 hair follicles. I have a good grasp of mechanics, and can’t picture how this would work without cutting or compressing grafts, unless the tool has some kind of expanding feature. In my opinion, when you make any target smaller, this increases the chance of misses (damaged grafts). For me at least, with scarring not being any issue at all, I can’t see the benefit in using a punch size any smaller than the one that was selected for me during my previous surgeries.
Friendly Caroline(Below) has been with Dr Harris for 8-9 years. Tina(ABOVE) has been with Dr. Harris 10 years. Interesting story. Tina and Dr. Harris went to Dr. Limmer to train many years back. Dr. Harris was taking over Dr. Merrit’s practice. Dr. Merrit performed minis and micros. However Dr. Merrit knew that times were changing to follicular unit transplantation so he sent them to Dr. Limmer. This was years before the advent of FUE/BHT.
Not pictured is hairtech and friendly Danaery. Friendly Danaery was on vacation but she will be home by tomorrow.
Here is another shot of the grafts I placed two months ago. We just finished lunch. Dr. Harris is doing 1000BHT on him total for two days. He does one side of the chest the first day and the second half the next day. We are almost done… I will get more pictures out today and then again tomarrow for day 2.
OUCH! Tina is giving the a patient a shot. Not to worry though. It is Depo-Medrol mixed with 2% Lidocaine. We give the shot to help decrease the inflammation or swelling.
I don’t agree with everything you said in your prologue.ALL surgical techniques as a form of hair restoration in general are heavily flawed.
No surgical technique is better then the other. Techniques very in the way they traumatise the body but the end results area all to common.
You fail to mention that Bht was invented by Dr Woods to overcompensate for the fact that the past & current surgical procedures where doing more harm to the scalp then good. Bht is for people who have depleted donor hair thanks to strip surgery or scalp reductions. You have to realise that these body hairs where never intended to grow on your scalp, let alone in unhealthy scar tissue. You cannot expect miracles because you are handicapping the procedure from the very beginning.
In saying that, given what the REAL aim of bht is, Dr Woods’s video archive of his patients itself is a hall of fame.
Bht is an experimental technique for all but 3 clinics in the world. The rest of the docs who don’t know what they are doing make bht look like the worst option for restoring your hair/repairing damage. This relatively new procedure is less invasive then strip but is no more flawed then strip surgery itself. Strip surgery has been around for a verrrrrry long time yet there isn’t exactly an abundance of hall of famers from this form of surgery either. Infact, there are more hall of cadavers then there are famers.
Criticizing bht is not constructive. All it does is divert attention away from the fact that there are some serious issues with this industry that need to be addressed.
Back to the issue at hand.
I have been waiting for this since you did your last graphic, informative expose.
(Still wanting & waiting to see the end results of that one)
Thanks for photos & commentary hairtech. There are no elaborate studio photos here. Just CLEAR, RANDOM photos without a hint of deception.
Informative commentary on the procedure, no b.s 2nd hand quotes from the patient, no back patting & every word is quite clearly your own thoughts & not the words spoon-feed to you by your boss.
I would love to see photos of the patient’s donor area in a few months time. I want to see what dots are left behind, if any.
Hairtech, there was a time where I loathed ALL htp docs & their employees. Guys like you, Dr Woods,A & Umar have gained my respect & made me change my point of view. I have to admit, the comments/criticisms I directed to you guys when I first came here were wrong & I apologise.
You are very brave to offer such unpredicted access; I commend you & Dr Harris.
There would be very few clinics in the world that would be so open.
Thanks again
Also, you have awesome hair. If my circumstances where different, that’s how I’d be wearing my hair. Yes, I am jealous.
Since Cole did that density study showing 30 hairs or so per square cm grew the best by far with a much better yield, I have reckoned that would have been the way to go from that point on if one was going to do BHT or use it as a mix with their scalp hair, etc.
The fact that there has been even one guy whose BHT grew for a while then fell out never to come back is chilling. IF this has happened with several men, its saddening news.
No one had ever gotten around to trying (to my knowledge) a low density BHT, wait a year or so, then another, wait another year or so, and another after that. It would be interesting if some really hairy guy tried to see what the upper end of BHT could have attained or if the new hair caused the old to not grow that well, etc. The hair certainly doesnt change its characteristics other than length very much though…
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