in this months edition on the UK's MENS HEALTH there was an intersting article on the dr. fleming and mayer hair flap (
http://www.bevhills.com) which really grabbed my attention and made me want to get it done.
claiming to give good results and all the rest of it. i understand the bias the magazine would have had towrds the practice but was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or experience with it??
it seems perhaps a little too easy and the results a little too good to be honest but would be nice to hear from anyone.
thanks.
I've been researching the fleming Mayer Flap for about 10 years, during this time I had 3 "less risky", "more natural", hair transplant procedures by one of the top surgeons in the country. I am still unhappy with my results and have strip scars, etc. I notice anytime you mention Hair flaps in any of these forums they will jump all over you and use terms like, "barbaric", "Butchers", "Frankenstein", "massive scarring", "unnatural", "wrong" hair direction. Instead of listening to some of these self appointed experts on here that seem to be experts on the flap, and claim they personally know people that have had bad results from Dr. Fleming/Mayer, why not actually take it upon yourself to get information from them, go for a consultation and decide for yourself if it's worth having done. I will tell you some of what I've learned about it(Fleming/Mayer flap).
1. They will not operate on you if you are too young and/or have not established a long term balding pattern to avoid the long term unnatural results that the some of these forum users say that you will probably have. They are carefull to make sure that they take the flap from a "safe" area that will be reluctant to bald later in life.
2. They have refined the procedure in recent years so that the hair grows THROUGH AND IN FRONT OF THE SCAR. So these people that claim there is this big ugly scar "in front of" the flap haven't researched it very well.
3. "Tissue Expansion" This is a procedure that they use to increase the size of the hair bearing flap before they rotate it , which is a HUGE advance over older flap procedures. This gives better coverage and makes long term issues a lot less risky. It also keeps the scars from stretching like the strip scars from transplantation may do.
4. From what I've seen and learned, the best results along front hairline seems to be people that brush their hair straight back and/or have course, wavy or curly hair. In my opinion those people just seem to have the best looking results. I happen to have those characteristics.
5. They admittedly tell you that you will probaly want to get some grafts spread across the front hairline to soften the abrupt thickness of the flap although some people are happy without doing this. Take a look at the side of your head,, is it unnaturally thick compared to the top. Probably not, and that will be how thick your hair will be at the hairline, NOT UNNATURALLY THICK, just unnaturally thick compared to the unusually thin hair transplants that I wish I had never got.
Also, as far as the directional issues of the flap hairline, it is a fact that hair can be trained to style in any manner you choose, within reason I guess.
Go to their website and send them an email and they will send you a DVD or Video and a book giving all the details including answering a lot of the concerns that people on these forums throw at you.
http://www.bevhills.com
As for myself, I am at least going to have a consultation with them before I spend another dollar on transplants. The biggest issue for me is the tissue expansion which takes 10-12 weeks with the side of your scalp becoming increasingly distorted in size the last couple of weeks. They tell you to grow your hair out 3 inches on the sides and back so it won't be weird looking, but in my profession it would not look to good for me to grow my hair out that long, so I am waiting for when I could afford to go spend a few weeks out there while having it done. I get the impression from them that the tissue expansion is what makes the flap procedure "light years" ahead of where it was just a few years ago. I believe a lot of the criticisms on the net are based on obsolete data.
I will say this, if you have a virgin scalp, you are lucky and you could opt for the FUE and not have to worry about strip scars or flap scars,etc. But even still, you may never be happy with the density or the lack of uniformity of the density compared to your remaining hair or you may end up having the look of a guy that "has had a great transplant" instead of a guy that people can't tell you've had anything done.
