How Do I Know I Didn’t Get Cheated on the Grafts I Paid For?

Hello Doc,

I had my first hair transplant 6 months ago in Texas and I received 1613 hair follicles in the frontal region (That’s what my Doctor claims 1500 + courtesy grafts). I lost all the transplanted follicles within first 2 months and I see few hair follicles growing in the sides.

From the day one I had doubt that I didn’t receive the number of follicles I paid for (1500). I felt I received only 1000-1100 grafts, My buddy did count the number of incisions made 2 days after the surgery. I also went to a hair transplant surgeon to get a second opinion but the surgeon refused to do the counting as he felt it was unethical thing to do. However he convinced me that I would have received the number of Grafts I paid for. He also told me the incisions are microscopic and I cannot count it accurately. As the days went by scabs started to form and I did my research by comparing the photos of people who received same number of grafts as me in the frontal region.

After all the research I’m still convinced that I didn’t receive what I paid for and I feel cheated. It took me great pain and sacrifice to get that surgery and I feel its not even worth it. I have decided to wait for few more months to see, how may hair follicles will grow and how far it covers my bald spot.

My question to you is

1) Is it normal to feel what i’m going through
2) Can someone count the number of incision/grafts accurately after the hair transplant ?
3) Lets say if I get a HT from you, How Am I insured that I receive what I paid for ?
4) Do HT surgeons really cheat ? or Am I just being paranoid ?
5) Lastly In case im really cheated , What Can I do ??

I don’t mean disrespect you or the HT surgeons community But I’m very disappointed with my situation. Please answer all my questions and relieve me from this confusion.

Thanks in advance.

I don’t know if it’s “normal” to necessarily worry about getting cheated, but I suppose that depends on your level of trust with the doctor.

On occasion, I have been requested to count the grafts for someone that wasn’t my surgical patient. I had one of my patients feel that he was cheated and took a professional photograph of his head the very next day. He had a large photo printed and placed pins in the wounds that he could see (in the photo, of course) and found that only 50% of the wounds were pinned after the analysis was done. So I managed it by showing him: (a) the count sheets of the 5 individual technicians who did the cutting of the grafts from the strip and we added them up together, (b) I had him come in to watch a surgery on his second day to see if he could identify the wounds in all lighting conditions with good photographs (he could not), and yet he watched us place the grafts to know that the counting process is intricate. He saw that there were two counts that were done simultaneously — one by me audited by an assistant working next to me as the sites were made, and one by the staff cutting up the hairs and grafts from the strip. I invested a great deal of time to address his concerns. I am not sure, to this day, if all of my efforts were successful.

In three people that came to see me to count their hairs and grafts on the 3rd-6th day after surgery, in two of them I found that the counts did not match up. One was off by over half of the amount claimed, one had 90% of what was paid for… and the third was on target.

On another patient, I counted the grafts and the hairs that grew 8+ months after the surgery (the man was relatively bald in the front and top where the grafts were placed) and found that many of the grafts did not grow to the numbers transplanted (about 2000 grafts out of 7600 graft he paid for), and the hairs in each graft had low hair counts. This was done under the assumption that everything on his head in the transplanted area were grafts. I had inside information on this last patient from one of the doctor’s technicians who claimed that this was far more common in that particular doctor’s practice than he could stomach, so he quit working for there.

There is little recourse for the patient if he feels that something improper has occurred, as an investigation would be difficult. I think that most doctors are honest and try to do their best when they deliver a service like a hair transplant or, for that matter, any cosmetic procedure. This, of course as I have said many times before, is a buyer beware issue, and each and every prospective patient should do their research before making a final doctor selection.