This is a very unfortunate case of a patient having two doctors who were unskilled for his two procedures. One procedure was done in Poland and the second in England. This is what everyone fears most.
The good news is that it can be fixed or made much better. The patient saw over 100 examples of Dr. Bolton's donor area post operative and made the decision to go out of his way to have the best doctor possible help restore him. Due to his prior bad experiences the patient was not interested in a hair transplant. He just wanted his scars fixed. He was kind enough to let us use his story to help others who are going through the trauma of a bad result.
Two prior procedures done in Europe
Dr. Bolton removed totally the top scar and transplanted into the bottom scar.
Dr. Bolton even had enough to put into the hair line just to help it look more natural.
The goal of the surgery was just to excise one scar as that is the limit for one procedure. Dr. Bolton not only removed the top scar but was able to transplant hairs into the bottom scar and have enough left over to impact the frontal hair line.
If the patient desired, Dr. Bolton, could have also transplanted a good amount of hair into the frontal hair line but due to the patients prior bad experiences he was not interested.
This is an example below of FUE. It is being hyped as a scarless surgery. It is not.
Unfortunately, due to the obvious scars of some who have had hair transplants this type of surgery is easily marketed as a "scarless" procedure. It is not. It is a very limited procedure and results in more scarring then you would get with Dr. Bolton's Maxharvest Plus procedure.
This is what Dr. Botlon's scar, below, looks like with a shaved head one year later.
This is a patient who went from Norwood 5 to full head of hair in two procedures.
We shaved his head to do his second procedure. The original scar will be removed and thus only one scar will remain after two surgeries. With the hair grown in nobody will ever see the scar.
Compare the two areas. The patient below will be able to yield approximately 7,000 hairs on his second surgery. The same amount as his first. The patient above who had FUE only got approximately 3,000 hairs and will not be able to get that amount again in the same area. Thus rendering his donor area greatly impacted in a negative way in just one procedure.
This is the amount of loss prior to the procedure
One Year later and the patient elects to do one more
His donor area is not impacted and he has options for the future should he ever want to do more.
The yield of a strip when done properly by the right doctor is far superior then FUE and has much less scarring to the donor area.
This is after almost 2 years and two procedures. There is total coverage from front to back with excellent density throughout the transplanted area. This is impossible to get with FUE and it costs much less.
FUE claims that it is non surgical, yet you have to have anesthesia for the duration of the procedure which usually takes twelve hours per day and may be over two days. The maximum duration for Dr. Bolton's procedures are typically 5 hours. The top yield for Dr. Bolton can be 11,000 hairs for the right patient. FUE's top yield over 2 days may be 5,000 hairs. Dr. Bolton's method will leave the donor area pristine. The FUE will have thousands of pitted pockmarks.
FUE also claims you can go back to work the next day. They don't tell you that they have to shave the entire donor area to access the follicles leaving you more noticeable the next day.
They claim the FUE is an advanced method that is superior to a strip procedure. This is not true and the limited amount of examples they provide of men with advanced hair loss should be a warning of its effectiveness.
In fact FUE is more similar to the old plug method in that the removal method is very similar. The difference is in the size of the instrument to pull out the follicles. That is it.
If you doubt any of these claims just ask to see 100 donor areas of a FUE doctors work
and then the finished results a year later. The one procedure results you see Dr. Bolton achieve are impossible to get with FUE.