BB,
“I agree, Joe. I don’t think you are lying, and I have no reason to think you are. However it is clear you have not been following the latest developments of HM. E.g., Aderans’ two-cell technique with the 3-D matrix, Intercytex’s deals with Bosley, Intercytex’s Phase I results, etc.”
Thank you, truly. Thing is, I agreed about this. I absolutely, emphatically stated that I am not following HM very much, very little in fact. That is one reason why some claims as to my “fear” of HM are just wild to me. How can I be afraid of something I don’t even know much about?
“This doesn’t makes sense, Joe. Research and development takes years – and HT surgery is really f**king expensive, the MOST expensive aesthetic surgery. Saving your money and avoiding strip surgery makes sense if all available information indicates HM will be available in 5 years.”
You may not have understood me. My statement was more along the lines of “don’t count your chickens till they hatch.”
"Financially it is counter productive to
» recommend that a patient at least consider meds.
Not true. If everyone didn’t take any meds then most would have very severe balding. Thus the results would be so aesthetically abhorrent that very, very few, perhaps only the most desperate, would get HTs. Who’d pay tens of thousands just to get the “Joe Biden” look? The HT industry needs meds in the same way the wig industry needs glue."
Well, from your point of view, you are correct. You see, I/we haven’t looked at it like that. We look at it from the point of view that represents, what we think, is good for the patient. I take my personal experience as a guide. Had I been on meds, one could say that I wouldn’t even be here now because my loss would not have progressed from a NW2 to a NW6/7. I see it like this. If, as you say (hypothetically), no one took meds and all the results were “horrid” because of continued loss they would only be so based on today’s standards. If meds were not around then the bar would have never been raised to where it is now. Sessions would be smaller but I suspect the refinement would have still improved. Hairlines would be more conservative, density would be lower, etc. but overall still better (note this statement is not to represent the industry as a whole, just the better clinics). One thing that I tell patients with regards to meds is this: “Meds are important because even though you may be a great guy, we really don’t want to see you again”, meaning, stay on the meds to prevent the need for more surgery as much as possible. We also explain our pricing this way. Get more in one session because it is cheaper in the long run because of the sliding scale. The average cost per graft drops. It’s still not cheap butit helps. Another way to look at it is this. If, as some have said, meds are good for increasing revenue by making patients look better, how does it explain gallery results that are say eight months, one year or even two years out? Hair loss usually does not progress so fast as to make a 4000 graft hair transplant look like a Biden train wreck in this period of time and this is when you see most results in a HT clinic gallery. One rarely ever sees results five and ten years out.
“Huh?? Of course HM would not prevent existing hair from becoming falling out. But that’s irrelevant. You would just get an additional surgery to inject more DP cells into the thinning area. And these new hairs from HM are genetically resistant to balding. No meds needed.”
BB, keep the context of my answer in mind. As I just pointed out to TheGreek, this most likely will not be mere pennies per injection. I could be wrong because there is the argument that a supply of patients that could theoretically far outweigh that of surgery would drive the price down quickly but no one really knows what something like this will cost so if meds are not used and people just want to trot down to their local clinic for more DP injections it may or may not be that easy. I don’t know, because we’re dealing with the future here and no matter how much I do not know I do know that this is up in the air as of today. It could be dirt cheap or some greedy capitalists may want to take advantage of our vanity. Who knows?
