I Don't Know If Every1 Has Seen This Article So Here...

[nameless]

Pilofocus is already available through Dr. Wesley, albeit on a trial basis. Unfortunately, it likely won't be a technique that will supplant FUE anytime soon as it is not nearly fast enough to extract the same number of follicular units in the same time period as FUE given the limitations of the piloscopic instruments (removing the follicles from below is extremely time consuming and cumbersome with current instruments). Although he has been improving the instrumentation and technique, as of last year, he admitted himself that he was still a long ways off before his technique would compete with FUE in both time and cost (SOURCE: I interviewed Dr. Wesley last year for a website I had up for a year before taking down given my time constraints to keep at growing it). It should also be noted that Dr. Wesley was not the first to attempt piloscopy. It had been attempted before with other surgeons, including Dr. Robert Jones in Canada, before being summarily abandoned given the crude piloscopic instruments available and the time-consuming nature of the technique. Better instruments lead to better and faster techniques but let's be real: removing follicles from underneath is always going to be far more time consuming than removing them from the top of the scalp. If you only want 1000 follicular units transplanted in one session, then pilofocus will be a viable alternative. If you want 3000 or more, be prepared for multiple sessions and significant costs associated with the additional time.

That is not to say that it won't be beneficial to the hairloss community in the short run. Hair multiplication treatments, like Dr. Tsuji's, will require small biopsies to be removed in order to multiply the different cells. Piloscopy would be ideal for that purpose as it would't leave a punctuate scar and requires far less follicles to be removed.

As for the claims of donor regeneration. Dr. Wesley has not made any claims about donor regeneration beyond what existing studies have already demonstrated: a certain percentage of follicles that are bisected do regrow but regrown follicles are thinner and don't always cycle through their various phases.

* Your concerns about the time it takes to do the procedure are the most reasonable negative conjecture that could be said at this point in time, before we have actual results. I'm sure you're right that it takes longer to perform Pilofocus than a standard hair transplant. But I would also imagine Dr. Wesley is trying to reduce the amount of time it takes to perform the procedure.

* Also, are you saying that you interviewed Dr. Wesley last year? Were you ever a poster named Kirklandism at a different site? I ask because I found a post by Hellouser who imported a post from a poster named Kirlandism at a different site. Here it is:


hellouserSenior Member

I just saw this comment on BTT from a member named Kirklandism:

I had an opportunity to chat with Dr. Wesley on October 1 and here are some of the highlights of the interview:

- best case scenario, piloscopy begins to roll out in 2 years. It will be a controlled release, meaning that Dr. Wesley will start training a couple of trusted doctors, get their feedback on the instrumentation and technique, make adjustments if required, then continue to add doctors to the training sessions until such a time that he feels that most of the current hurdles have been overcome.
- I can assume that these hurdles are primarily with the instrumentation. He is creating new instruments that will improve upon the technique. The engineering involved is complicated, there are many variables at play in doing piloscopy and each iteration of engineering the instruments overcome each variable.
- there is no guarantee of donor regeneration with this technique but given that existing studies show that when transecting a follicle, some growth from the donor site does occur, there is a reasonable assumption that, with this technique, there will be some regeneration. They quality of that regeneration was not discussed but again, given the existing studies, we can presume that the donor hairs will be thinner and finer than the original ones.
- piloscopy is likely a game-changer in the hair transplant field just like FUE was. Some doctors have already attempted taking grafts from underneath the scalp using endoscopic techniques but the method was too time consuming and too awkward. With new instrumentation, the technique should be viable for extracting large numbers of grafts in a single session. However, it will take time since it requires new instrumentation to pull it off. Both a significant amount of time and money has been expended towards creating these new instruments.
Two more years... dear god, might as well just give up and hope for Replicel instead.

#22hellouser, Oct 5, 2015

 

[the smoking baby]

Yes, that was Hellouser's paraphrasing of my interview with Dr. Wesley from October 2015.

My impression of piloscopy after that interview was that it would never compete with FUT/FUE in terms of cost and time (and time is money for these surgeons). However, Dr. Wesley really believed that it could act as an alternative method for those who don't want scarring in the donor site.

At the time of the interview, he was continuing to work with a team of engineers to refine the instrumentation and had not yet trained any other doctors on his method. He wanted to improve the instruments, improve the technique and reduce the time required to extract a reasonable number of units before training other doctors. I don't know where he stands at this point in time with his efforts.

I had also interviewed Dr. Jones in Canada for my site and that is why I know he had also attempted piloscopy many years ago. However, his assessment was that, even if the instruments were refined enough to improve the speed of extraction, it would not close the gap enough on the FUT/FUE techniques to bring the costs in line with both. You also have to remember that FUE is a technique that is improving in both time and cost as more doctors apply it. Therefore, even as piloscopy improves, so does FUE - the innovation gap would either close insignificantly, stay the same or widen more.

I would just make one more point: I believe that the reason Dr. Wesley continues to work on piloscopy is not so much that he thinks he can compete with FUT/FUE but that rather, he has invested a tremendous amount of time and money (he disclosed to me the amount he had personally invested but I did not include that information on the website) and that he can't really turn back now. There will be a place for piloscopy in the future but not as a viable replacement for FUE.

 

[Follisket]

It's like, I can get that you've been bald a long time and feel let down and ignored by the medical field, but even guys like Roberto and Fred can still see the error in thinking that because there was no cure 20 years ago means that the same will always be true.

20 years? Uh, there hasn't been a cure ever. For all the thousands of years of human civilization, hair loss treatments have been nothing but a vicious cycle of false hopes and disappointments.

That's not to say a cure is impossible, Not at all - and that's the worst part about it. It's coming but it would take a heckuvalot more scientists, research and investments to get it out in time for our generation to benefit from it.

I mean I'd understand you guys relying on things working out for us if we were actually doing things differently than the past generations. But we're not - we're literally just moving from disappointment to disappointment, latching our hopes on to the next promising treatment.

Every single miserable baldie that ever existed lived and died that way.

 

[inham123]

How are dusteride, Finasteride, Minoxidil and hair transplants "disappointments"? Even wigs/toupees have improved significantly in the last 30 years. Hair transplants are getting more popular and actors and famous people are becoming more open about using hair loss treatment, doing hair transplants and wearing wigs.

Hair transplants have improved considerably in the last 20 years, even in the last 10 years there have been a lot of improvements in the quality of both FUE and FUT.

Histogen and Replicel might also be cures if they're permanent and effective.

Can we just wait till late 2018 for clinical trial results and news from TissUse, Tsuji, Christiano/Jahoda, L'Oreal Paris, HairClone and **others** for hair cloning and Histogen and Replicel for the other treatments? Replicel at least in theory should just create (semi-)permanent new hairs. Histogen has shown results (I'm still very skeptical) and we can combine both treatments in the future.

With good news on those treatments you can start doing FUE transplants too until the others are available.

Some of you guys sound like Hilary Clinton supporters..

 

[That Guy]

20 years? Uh, there hasn't been a cure ever. For all the thousands of years of human civilization, hair loss treatments have been nothing but a vicious cycle of false hopes and disappointments.

That's not to say a cure is impossible, Not at all - and that's the worst part about it. It's coming but it would take a heckuvalot more scientists, research and investments to get it out in time for our generation to benefit from it.

I mean I'd understand you guys relying on things working out for us if we were actually doing things differently than the past generations. But we're not - we're literally just moving from disappointment to disappointment, latching our hopes on to the next promising treatment.

Every single miserable baldie that ever existed lived and died that way.

*facepalm*

How are dusteride, Finasteride, Minoxidil and hair transplants "disappointments"? Even wigs/toupees have improved significantly in the last 30 years. Hair transplants are getting more popular and actors and famous people are becoming more open about using hair loss treatment, doing hair transplants and wearing wigs.

Hair transplants have improved considerably in the last 20 years, even in the last 10 years there have been a lot of improvements in the quality of both FUE and FUT.

Histogen and Replicel might also be cures if they're permanent and effective.

Can we just wait till late 2018 for clinical trial results and news from TissUse, Tsuji, Christiano/Jahoda, L'Oreal Paris, HairClone and **others** for hair cloning and Histogen and Replicel for the other treatments? Replicel at least in theory should just create (semi-)permanent new hairs. Histogen has shown results (I'm still very skeptical) and we can combine both treatments in the future.

With good news on those treatments you can start doing FUE transplants too until the others are available.

Some of you guys sound like Hilary Clinton supporters..

Propecia and Rogaine are literal financial disappointments, lifelong treatments that don't work for many or cause terrible side effects for some.

Good wigs and toupees are prohibitively expensive and are subject to intense social stigma.

Transplants are prohibitively expensive, are subject to intense social stigma and rarely achieve high density and/or NW1 results.

It's like when contacts first came out. Sweet, I don't have to wear glasses anymore!

Now I just put this shard of glass in my eye!

 

[Captain Rex]

*facepalm*



Propecia and Rogaine are literal financial disappointments, lifelong treatments that don't work for many or cause terrible side effects for some.

Good wigs and toupees are prohibitively expensive and are subject to intense social stigma.

Transplants are prohibitively expensive, are subject to intense social stigma and rarely achieve high density and/or NW1 results.

It's like when contacts first came out. Sweet, I don't have to wear glasses anymore!

Now I just put this shard of glass in my eye!

well said
and that's why we need a new treatment asap.
molecules or drugs won't cure this disease, it has to be cell therapy or hair multiplication

 

[nameless]

Yes, that was Hellouser's paraphrasing of my interview with Dr. Wesley from October 2015.

Some comments:

* In your post about Pilofocus on January 21, 2017 you said you interviewed Dr. Wesley last year (2016) but it appears you actually interviewed Dr. Wesley on October 1st 2015, which means you interviewed Dr. Wesley the year before last year rather than last year. It also means you interviewed Dr. Wesley about 1 year and 4 months ago.

* Also, in October 2015 you indicated that the "Best case scenario" is piloscopy begins to roll out in 2 years. That interview was done in October 2015. Do you have any substantial reason to believe that Dr. Wesley is not on schedule for his best case scenario release?

* I read somewhere that Dr. Wesley invested a significant amount of his own money into Pilofocus and I can imagine that is driving him to get his treatment to market. Are you indicating this implies something negative about the treatment? Why would that necessarily be a negative thing? Couldn't it be a good thing because it means that Dr. Wesley will leave no stone unturned to get the job done right?

* One statement from the October 2015 summary is, "The quality of that regeneration was not discussed but again, given the existing studies, we can presume that the donor hairs will be thinner and finer than the original ones." - I'm going to respectfully disregard this statement because the Pilofocus technology is so vastly different from standard hair transplants that I think it was an error on your part to make this "presumption". Also I think that the Pilofocus technology facilitates quality donor regeneration to a much greater degree than standard hair transplants.

* I think Dr. Jones is a great doctor but I think that Dr. Jones's take on what Pilofocus could possibly achieve is interesting for academic history more than for where Pilofocus might actually end up. No doubt the first person who tried to fly gave up and assumed human flight would never be achieved.

* Of course I agree that Pilofocus will always be a more involved procedure than Fut/Fue, but how much so is the question. It all depends on the improvements in instrumentation/technique that Dr. Wesley and the engineers involved come up with. I do understand that engineering ways to reduce the time the procedure takes is quite a challenge. I'm sure Dr. Wesley and the engineers involved will come up with innovative ideas to reduce the problem, but whether or not they will reduce the problem sufficiently remains to be seen.

 

[the smoking baby]

Yes, the interview took place in October of 2015. Over one year ago.

"The quality of that regeneration was not discussed but again, given the existing studies, we can presume that the donor hairs will be thinner and finer than the original ones." This is what Hellouser said in paraphrasing the transcription of my interview. I did not presume anything. I asked Dr. Wesley about the claims that piloscopy could achieve donor regeneration. Here is exactly what he said in response:

Question: Another buzz on the hairloss forums is that (piloscopy) can overcome the donor regeneration issue. Is there any truth to that?
Dr. Wesley: I don’t know. What we’ve done primarily has been done on cadavers and cadavers don’t regenerate hair. Regeneration has already been demonstrated in follicle transection studies. There are certainly reasons to believe that there can be (regeneration) because essentially what we’re doing is transecting at a depth that is at the doctor’s preference. When you’re coming up from below and you’re taking the grafts, you can choose, as the operator, the depth at which the hair follicle is transected. You can be an operator who specializes in hair transplant survival if you take it from the most superficial plane. Or you can be the doctor that has the optimal regeneration of the donor area if you take it from a slightly deeper plane. Based on the work that has already been done, just in simple transection studies, there’s no reason to believe that it shouldn’t work. It isn’t something that I’ve demonstrated myself.

 

[nameless]

Yes, the interview took place in October of 2015. Over one year ago.

"The quality of that regeneration was not discussed but again, given the existing studies, we can presume that the donor hairs will be thinner and finer than the original ones." This is what Hellouser said in paraphrasing the transcription of my interview. I did not presume anything. I asked Dr. Wesley about the claims that piloscopy could achieve donor regeneration. Here is exactly what he said in response:

Question: Another buzz on the hairloss forums is that (piloscopy) can overcome the donor regeneration issue. Is there any truth to that?
Dr. Wesley: I don’t know. What we’ve done primarily has been done on cadavers and cadavers don’t regenerate hair. Regeneration has already been demonstrated in follicle transection studies. There are certainly reasons to believe that there can be (regeneration) because essentially what we’re doing is transecting at a depth that is at the doctor’s preference. When you’re coming up from below and you’re taking the grafts, you can choose, as the operator, the depth at which the hair follicle is transected. You can be an operator who specializes in hair transplant survival if you take it from the most superficial plane. Or you can be the doctor that has the optimal regeneration of the donor area if you take it from a slightly deeper plane. Based on the work that has already been done, just in simple transection studies, there’s no reason to believe that it shouldn’t work. It isn’t something that I’ve demonstrated myself.

OK. But this interview was 1 year and 4 months ago. And I don't see where Dr. Wesley's response (in your interview from 2015) indicates anything negative about the potential for donor regeneration. I think that of course he's being intentionally cautious when he says, "there’s no reason to believe that it shouldn’t work". And even though that statement is cautious it does contain a degree of optimism and hope.

 

[the smoking baby]

At what point in any of my posts on this topic have I indicated that Dr. Wesley had a negative view of donor regeneration? He indicated that donor regeneration was possible based on existing studies.

 

[resu]

The weaker version of CB (aka Breezula) for acne will be out next year, I think that's the closest treatment that will released. Would be great if it had any significant effect on hair loss, kind of like taking 0.25 mg of finasteride has an effect close to the full 1mg which has close to the full effect of taking 5 mg.

 

[thomps1523]

It is by far more a "moon shot" that there will ever be a topical or oral medication that will be a solution to hairloss.

What science is there to indicate that it is even possible to regrow a full head of hair this way? We don't even know how minoxidil really works and even it is not a complete solution.

If such a product is to ever exist, hair multiplication is likely a requisite technology to even do it. At that point, there is no point in developing drugs.

The methods that Organ Tech, TissUse, etc. are proposing are really no more complicated than existing stem cell therapies and far less invasive or complex than surgeries that are performed, with high success rates, every day. TissUse's method could be a done by a single doctor, according to them. If a doctor were to even charge 1,000 a patient, it's a license to print money with an unending supply of customers. The complexity of Tsuji's method comes not from the cell aspect of it, but because of what he's proposing in terms of automation and the like.

Jahoda solved a culturing problem back when in his earlier hair experiments by flipping the dish upside down. Most of the stuff surrounding this, isn't as sci-fi as people think it is.

We don't need more AR blockers, we already have them and they don't solve the problem for everyone anyway. What we need is for more people to put stem cells that have been shown to regenerate human hair (and other things) into human trials.

Thankfully, many scientists and doctors are starting to see the potential and move forward with what is, in some cases, decades old research.

What is the difference between tissUse's method vs Kyocera's?

 

[nameless]

At what point in any of my posts on this topic have I indicated that Dr. Wesley had a negative view of donor regeneration? He indicated that donor regeneration was possible based on existing studies.

Your recent postings the past few days about Pilofocus feel generally negative and specifically it feels like you're being negative about the potential for quality donor regeneration in regards to Pilofocus. For example, you said the following in italics:

"As for the claim of regeneration, if he's just pointing to old studies that transected hairs regenerate, that means his technique doesn't regenerate better than any other that transects hairs (which, btw, don't regenerate to full diameter follicles, just poor quality follicles that are unfit for transplant)."

"we can presume that the donor hairs will be thinner and finer than the original ones."

You did not post Dr. Wesley's 2015 statements (to you) about the potential for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus in a vacuum. You posted that information after making negative comments regarding the potential for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus. By quality donor regeneration I mean that both the part of the hair that remains in the donor area and the part that is implanted into the recipient area retain their original width and length.

I reasonably assumed you posted Dr. Wesley's 2015 response (to you) to support your negative position regarding the prospects for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus. I obviously did not view the statements by Dr. Wesley negatively, but since you posted that statement in the context of a discussion wherein you take a negative view of the potential for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus I assumed you were presenting that information to support your negative view for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus.

 

[inham123]

*facepalm*



Propecia and Rogaine are literal financial disappointments, lifelong treatments that don't work for many or cause terrible side effects for some.

Good wigs and toupees are prohibitively expensive and are subject to intense social stigma.

Transplants are prohibitively expensive, are subject to intense social stigma and rarely achieve high density and/or NW1 results.

It's like when contacts first came out. Sweet, I don't have to wear glasses anymore!

Now I just put this shard of glass in my eye!

Finasteride costs me 90 euro a year taking 0.5mg every other day. Minoxidil is 120 euro a year for me. I haven't felt any side effects at all except maybe some tingling balls the first 10 days I was using it (and that probably was just placebo effect). I've been using it for a few years now.

Where I live toupees and wigs aren't that expensive and the reason toupees have intense social stigma is because cheap ones (see Steven Seagal) look like sh*t and move around (which isn't an issue with modern wigs).

I agree transplants are on the expensive side, but you can get them cheaper by flying to Turkey and Erdogan is probably one of the best FUE doctors. Where I live (in the Netherlands) a lot of famous people like actors, singers, soccer players and darts players have the procedure and quite a few of them are open about them and discuss them on talk shows, for example Dutch celebrity Gerard Joling both advertises for Dr. Gho (LOL) and he did a few programmes on it. A bunch of well-known Dutch soccer players and coaches also have talked about it on talk shows and a famous Belgian actor had the procedure done in a Turkish clinic.

I had my first one doing my masters's degree in my mid-20's and I was very open I did the procedure, people didn't believe I did the procedure as this was after a few weeks after I did the procedure but they did begin to see the hair grow after a few months (I kept it trimmed until month 8), because I did a high density transplant over a small area (as a Norwood 3.5) no one believed me when I said I did a transplant. I did a lot of research and I figured I needed to have a touch-up as it was 65 grafts/cm2 but it looks really good, I plannd this touch up as part of a newer transplant to cover more area. I'll probably get that second transplant and then wait it out a bit for news on new treatments (as long as they come on the market before 2026 I should be 100% fine even if Finasteride stops working and Dusteride doesn't work for me).

I have paid 3000 euro for a 1500 graft procedure in Turkey (including flight and hotel) and I will be going back just before summer for another 1500 graft, 3000 euro procedure with Erdogan. Erdogan does tend to want to do a high graft count procedure but his results are excellent if you ask him to use less.

But yeah the density isn't 100% there, it doesn't bother me that much and I could get SMP done (which is also a recent innovation which I forgot to list) and I could ask for placing more grafts to thicken it up (Erdogan claims he can do 90 grafts/cm2 but he wanted me to keep to the plan and stay conservative, haven't asked him about his results at this thickness but he did say he has a bunch of photos although he does it only rarely). You can also use concealer powerder to thicken it up a bit.

Anyway I'm really excited for the next 2 years as a lot of information on new treatments will arrive which I can then incorporate in my master plan in regards to regaining a thick nw0 hair line. I think 6000 grafts should be enough to get a 80-90% density nw1 result but I'm still concerned about future loss as I know Finasteride and Minoxidil can just stop working after a while in some rare cases (even though I've only been 3 years on them and that I should be good for maintaining at least for the 7 years and seeing some small regressions in the years after). So I don't want to waste my donor just yet by going super thick.

Honestly if you're Norwood 5 or 6 and you have the money I'd just go ahead and get a transplant done because you've already lost tons and low density + SMP + concealer should look just fine. Norwood 4 is a question mark. Seems to be more of a money issue at higher stages of baldness. Well and of course if your donor is sh*t then you're fucked too.

The stigma comes from sh*t results. Honestly 99% of the public thinks hair transplants are plugs or have a huge scar on the back of the head. If we have clinical trial results for cloning (or maybe Replicel/Histogen)a few years from now and some news media pick it up as a functional cure for baldness no one would believe how advanced the field has become as cloning follicles and implanting them in humans is at the scientific foreground of organ regeneration and the injectables like Replicel and Histogen are too. Honestly people aren't expecting a baldness cure at all. It would be a major scientific breakthrough.

 

[the smoking baby]

Got a link for this claim? Or is this another "Phase III" statement?

As for Piloscopy, if it is true that it won't be available for two years, and that it won't be able to effectively compete with FUE's density, Wesley should cut his losses right now; if he thinks that there are people who will opt for it because it's scarless even though it can't achieve the same density, he's almost certainly mistaken. Scaring is not a big issue with FUE and just isn't a major concern for most hair transplant patients - the scars are very small and undetectable unless you buzz your head. As for the claim of regeneration, if he's just pointing to old studies that transected hairs regenerate, that means his technique doesn't regenerate better than any other that transects hairs (which, btw, don't regenerate to full diameter follicles, just poor quality follicles that are unfit for transplant).

Man, I wish some of you guys would take the time to read a post through before making unfounded claims. The current issue with piloscopy is not density. In its current iteration, it cannot compete with FUT/FUE in terms of time/costs. Currently, it would take a great deal longer to remove the same number of follicular units from underneath (piloscopy) as it does above (FUT/FUE). Will it ever be sophisticated enough to compete with FUE/FUT on those terms? I don't know that answer but I am personally skeptical that it will. I hope I am proven wrong.

As Dr. Wesley stated in October of 2015, he himself had not demonstrated donor regeneration because he had been refining his technique on cadavers. One poster on TBT claims to have had piloscopy performed by Dr. Wesley since that time (albeit in a small trial size). If anyone wants updates on Dr. Wesley's status re: piloscopy, why don't you contact him like I did and get the information first hand rather than speculating?

 

[inham123]

Nor a lot of bald(ing) people know what is possible with what we have now. Hell people don't even know that Finasteride exists where I live because it isn't advertised and people don't know about Propecia either. Oh and I also forgot to mention body hair transplants. When I talked about it with a bald uncle you could see the horror in his face as he did quite a bit of hair in 1997 when he was already balding.

It really is a money issue to get an acceptable result at least. if you're under Norwood 4 you can get a great result with very reasonable donor reserves. With Norwood 4 you're kinda gambling your reserves and with Norwood 5 and 6 you'll have to be a bit creative and get SMP, maybe do body hair and use concealer.

 

[abcdefg]

I think everyone here has their own situation which means different hopes. I would much rather get an SM or topical/internal drug then have to go through any invasive procedure given how expensive that will always be. Just a big hassle too. If I have hair on my head id rather keep that then lose it all and have to try some grand procedure for 50 grand to get it all back.
If we cant prevent male pattern baldness how are we going to grow/multiply hairs from scratch? I just see prevention as the step before the moon shot cure. I still think the holy grail is many decades away and most of these companies are going to fail trying to achieve this. Just my opinion. I have watched more then a decade go by and nothing changed so my opinion gets more pessimistic on medicine it seems as i get older

 

[the smoking baby]

As Dr. Wesley stated in October of 2015,

Your recent postings the past few days about Pilofocus feel generally negative and specifically it feels like you're being negative about the potential for quality donor regeneration in regards to Pilofocus. For example, you said the following in italics:

"As for the claim of regeneration, if he's just pointing to old studies that transected hairs regenerate, that means his technique doesn't regenerate better than any other that transects hairs (which, btw, don't regenerate to full diameter follicles, just poor quality follicles that are unfit for transplant)."

"we can presume that the donor hairs will be thinner and finer than the original ones."

You did not post Dr. Wesley's 2015 statements (to you) about the potential for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus in a vacuum. You posted that information after making negative comments regarding the potential for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus. By quality donor regeneration I mean that both the part of the hair that remains in the donor area and the part that is implanted into the recipient area retain their original width and length.

I reasonably assumed you posted Dr. Wesley's 2015 response (to you) to support your negative position regarding the prospects for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus. I obviously did not view the statements by Dr. Wesley negatively, but since you posted that statement in the context of a discussion wherein you take a negative view of the potential for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus I assumed you were presenting that information to support your negative view for quality donor regeneration with Pilofocus.

Is this directed at me? Your first quote in italics is not even from my post. The second quote is a quote from Hellouser paraphrasing from my transcription. Neither of these quotes are mine.

 

[That Guy]

Finasteride costs me 90 euro a year taking 0.5mg every other day. Minoxidil is 120 euro a year for me. I haven't felt any side effects at all except maybe some tingling balls the first 10 days I was using it (and that probably was just placebo effect). I've been using it for a few years now....

Your experience is not universally applicable.

Just because where you live X is affordable does not mean it is everywhere or even most places.

Where I live, your 90 Euro would not buy me 3 months of generic finasteride. It pisses me off when I see some European going on about "it's only X number of Euro or Pounds". Cool, your money is worth almost 2x what mine is; you can politely shove that Euro, my friend.

Here's Hasson & Wong's price calculator based on # of grafts. For a NW2 or 3 to get a transplant, you're looking at anywhere from 5-10,000$ CAD. This is, as far as I can tell, pretty much standard pricing.

Trust me, I know, it's not like most people who can afford to even survive in Vancouver have a spare 10k floatin' around to fix their NW3. In Alberta, the food bank is seeing all-time high numbers of customers and unemployment is the highest it has been in 20 years, with the current governments doing precisely dick to fix this problem. Cost of living only goes up and wages stay the same.

"Just fund it!" I hear you say? Yeah well, again, most people out here are lucky to be working and paying their bills at all. People aren't going to just stop living their lives, having families, lucky if they'll pay off student loans in the next century, and can't just live at home forever so they can have hair.

Wigs, toupees, etc. also cost thousands initially and reapplications aren't cheap either.

and the fact remains that they're all half-assed solutions at best and all of them have potential to be infeasible or inaccessible options for some patients.

Bottom line: Yes, I agree that everyone should at least do what they can with conventional treatments.

but this mentality that "Because overall shitty options work for me and my money is worth more than I realize, these options aren't lame at all and don't need successors" is ridiculous.

 

[abcdefg]

There is more room to run with topical/internal treatments. I would like to see AR blockers/antagonists explored a little more for male pattern baldness since they are actively working on that for prostate cancer. Better ways or other angles to stop or attack androgens. Some way to make hairs insensitive to androgens without destroying systemic levels. There has to be a better way then propecia/dutasteride
I guess there is CB but I dont have 6 years to wait for that