Dr Zarev Vacuum Assisted Tecnique For Graft Extraction

[Omega2327]

I went to Bulgaria last month for my consultation. Went really well and really solidified my confidence in him. My surgery is scheduled for December. I’ll make a thread about it at some point.

 

[WaccWaccWacc]

I went to Bulgaria last month for my consultation. Went really well and really solidified my confidence in him. My surgery is scheduled for December. I’ll make a thread about it at some point.

Heard the exact same thing for a different user here. Seems very meticulous.

 

[Spanishboy97]

Did he told you a number of grafts he'll be using or anything about his tecnique?

I went to Bulgaria last month for my consultation. Went really well and really solidified my confidence in him. My surgery is scheduled for December. I’ll make a thread about it at some point.

 

[fixthis]

I went to Bulgaria last month for my consultation. Went really well and really solidified my confidence in him. My surgery is scheduled for December. I’ll make a thread about it at some point.

That's good to hear, I have been hearing good things about this guy in general. Btw will you have to be on finasteride for the transplant to be effective? That's my only issue because I can't tolerate finasteride but I hear this guy can harvest a huge amount of donor, depending on how good the donor area is.

 

[coolio]

Btw will you have to be on finasteride for the transplant to be effective?

Is Finasteride a medical requirement to make the transplant work? No.

Is it a practical requirement for a good cosmetic result? Yes, usually.

Hair loss never stops on its own. Few people have enough donor hair/characteristics to restore high-Norwood loss.

Looking at a typical Norwood #6, transplants can only cover about half of the lost area (if all the surgeries are good results). Don't let any transplant doctor convince you otherwise. There are hard limits on what can be done regardless of the techniques or tools. They cannot create new hairs and they cannot make your head smaller.

 

[Omega2327]

Did he told you a number of grafts he'll be using or anything about his tecnique?

Yeah according to him, I have ~10.5k grafts available, which will be about enough to cover me if I were to hit a NW6. One new thing I learned about his method was that the donor punches made respond/heal in a contractive way and don’t take excess tissue. It’s kind of hard to explain but when a punch is made, instead of that hole staying the same size and filling with scar tissue, the hole contracts and the surrounding skin is pulled in. Multiple benefits to this, including nearly undetectable scarring because the “hole” is so small as opposed to being a plain white dot the size of the punch. It also results in increased density of the donor area because this done thousands of times makes the the total area of the donor region is a slightly smaller so the remaining hairs are closer together than they would have been with a traditional punch. It’s also why his patients don’t have to wear a bandage as there is very little bleeding with this technique. I probably completely butchered all of that and I won’t pretend like I completely understand the science behind it but it was pretty interesting and helps explain why the donor area looks so incredible after such large sessions.

 

[Spanishboy97]

Yeah according to him, I have ~10.5k grafts available, which will be about enough to cover me if I were to hit a NW6. One new thing I learned about his method was that the donor punches made respond/heal in a contractive way and don’t take excess tissue. It’s kind of hard to explain but when a punch is made, instead of that hole staying the same size and filling with scar tissue, the hole contracts and the surrounding skin is pulled in. Multiple benefits to this, including nearly undetectable scarring because the “hole” is so small as opposed to being a plain white dot the size of the punch. It also results in increased density of the donor area because this done thousands of times makes the the total area of the donor region is a slightly smaller so the remaining hairs are closer together than they would have been with a traditional punch. It’s also why his patients don’t have to wear a bandage as there is very little bleeding with this technique. I probably completely butchered all of that and I won’t pretend like I completely understand the science behind it but it was pretty interesting and helps explain why the donor area looks so incredible after such large sessions.

That's great, I'm happy for you, 10k grafts is a lot, is your donor area considered average or good in a regular situation?

 

[fixthis]

@Omega2327 I already asked this but I'm curious did he say you should be on finasteride? I know one of the posters above said how finasteride is recommended but since Zarev can do a far higher number of grafts with the techique you described above and good donor area, is it possible finasteride can be avoided for a decent outcome?

 

[fixthis]

Absolutely, that's why this is so interesting. Of course, you'd have to get multiple transplants to fill up the balding areas.

I hope so, because I don't tolerate finasteride that well so it's good to hair a hair transplant with him may still be viable. I know normally you're expected to take an anti androgen like finasteride. I just hope some of the other stuff in trial like breezula and follica speed up so we can get some other form of maintenance.

 

[Spanishboy97]

@Omega2327 I already asked this but I'm curious did he say you should be on finasteride? I know one of the posters above said how finasteride is recommended but since Zarev can do a far higher number of grafts with the techique you described above and good donor area, is it possible finasteride can be avoided for a decent outcome?

If it's useful, I remember a insta post he said he recomended Minoxidil. I think that always depend on your pattern. He is been critisize for maybe harvesting out of the safest Nw7 area

 

[Omega2327]

That's great, I'm happy for you, 10k grafts is a lot, is your donor area considered average or good in a regular situation?

Thanks man I’m pumped! I have average density and my hair thickness is a little on the finer side.

 

[Omega2327]

@Omega2327 I already asked this but I'm curious did he say you should be on finasteride? I know one of the posters above said how finasteride is recommended but since Zarev can do a far higher number of grafts with the techique you described above and good donor area, is it possible finasteride can be avoided for a decent outcome?

He recommended topical finasteride and minoxidil. I will not take finasteride period, and minoxidil gave me heart palpitations so I likely won’t take that either. He didn’t try to push either and I understand that taking both would help maximize the result. I may give minoxidil another try, think he said even if I did it for just 7 months after the surgery it may help the overall result.

 

[Omega2327]

If it's useful, I remember a insta post he said he recomended Minoxidil. I think that always depend on your pattern. He is been critisize for maybe harvesting out of the safest Nw7 area

Yes but he is very calculated when he does it. He had me share pictures of my dad, both grandfathers, uncles, etc. No one in my family is beyond a NW6. He also inspected my scalp thoroughly and could pretty much detect exactly where the balding process was active and where it wasn’t. It’s weird because I’m like a NW2-2.5 and I can nearly style my hair to look like I don’t have hair loss at all, but under a micro camera he could see that the balding process is active in the entire NW6 region. I may not actually get there all the way but of course we’re planning for it when it comes to donor management. There are clean breaks in the balding and non balding regions under a micro camera. So the risk that I would go beyond NW6 is extremely low I think and if that was the case, it would likely already be showing itself in the pattern when inspected with a micro camera.

 

[Omega2327]

Absolutely, that's why this is so interesting. Of course, you'd have to get multiple transplants to fill up the balding areas.

Yeah this is my plan. First transplant is 3.5k grafts - 1,300 in the front and 2,200 in the crown. I don’t plan to have my head shaved and he assured me this would not affect the final result at all. I have enough hair that when kept a little longer, I can basically cover up any evidence of the transplant. My strategy is to keep getting transplants every 5-7 years as needed while my hair loss progresses (which has been at a fairly slow rate). I’ll never shave but each time I plan to have enough hair to cover any evidence of a transplant. Not shaving is super important to me and the last thing I want is to walk into work with a shaved reddish head and for my coworkers and friends to start ask a bunch of questions. I don’t want anyone to ever know I received a transplant besides my fiancé.

 

[Omega2327]

Made a thread and included some pics here:

https://www.hairlosstalk.com/intera...sultation-and-december-2021-operation.132413/

 

[fixthis]

He recommended topical finasteride and minoxidil. I will not take finasteride period, and minoxidil gave me heart palpitations so I likely won’t take that either. He didn’t try to push either and I understand that taking both would help maximize the result. I may give minoxidil another try, think he said even if I did it for just 7 months after the surgery it may help the overall result.

So he thinks, that even without those meds your hair transplant should work out and give you a decent hair density? I hope this works out for you. I'm 25 and approaching NW4, I think this guy might be one of my last hopes apart from hair cloning which is further away. Normally I thought that hair transplants aren't viable if you're not on meds but Zarev seems to make it work. I'll be following your thread to see how it goes.

 

[Zon Ama]

I am still wondering why he does not license his technique so other surgeons can use it too.
For me this looks like the next evolutionary step in hair transplants

 

[Omega2327]

I am still wondering why he does not license his technique so other surgeons can use it too.
For me this looks like the next evolutionary step in hair transplants

I do believe he plans to share his technique with other surgeons at some point. Not sure when though.

 

[coolio]

For me this looks like the next evolutionary step in hair transplants

A vacuum removal method is not enough to produce Zarev's results at other clinics. His patient pool and his donor area choices are big factors too.

 

[Megnus]

I still am not able to get a response from him. I sent him some photos, and then he replied and said that he needed better pictures. After that I have heard nothing. Sent him like 3-4 emails over a 4 month period of time.