hair transplant is less invasive than this, depending though on what you mean by invasive.
That's fair, also you can get a hair transplant without flying across the world
Also, I forget but did you ever translate the gist of this video for us?
I wasn't saying losing money was the more serious risk, I was simply questioning the unstated assumption in your post that it actually works, which would be the first question that needs to be answered in the decision chain. So far, no one on any of the boards has claimed it regrew hair, which, for me, is the only metric that matters when evaluating the protocol. Once that's established (and I'm nearly certain it never will be), then you can start the risk/reward analysis.
Don't do it - you'll be throwing away your money and taking on an unnecessary risk. We'll know in about a year if any of the other promising protocols pay off, and if they don't, we should also have a lot more data on this one.
I'm not sure anyone on any board has had the procedure long enough to know. Maybe it's a big con job! We don't know. There ARE preliminary studies that were positive though, she says that regrowth is anywhere in the 10-30% range for people but I imagine there is huge variance overall depending at the state of your loss. The website/news presents us with:
The authors (Drs. Perez-Meza, Ziering, Sforza, Ball, Krishna and Daniels) performed a single scalp injection of Kerastem’s regenerative cell enriched adipose tissue in 9 healthy hair loss patients, and a total of 6 patients were followed for a period of six months using global photography and macrophotography with the Handyscope and Trichoscale Pro software used to quantify hair growth. The authors reported a 100% patient response rate to the Kerastem Therapy at 6-months and in patients with early stage hair loss, the percentage increase in hair count/density was a mean difference of 17% (p = 0.02). In males with early grade loss, an average 29% increase (p=0.057) in hair count/hair density with a mean difference of 40 hairs per square centimeter was observed.
But again, the sample is small. That's why they are doing an FDA clinical study, and probably why they are pretty honest about it not being a miracle necessarily. We'll all find out together I suppose. Ultimately live is a bunch of risks, I will be very upset if I wasted $5000 USD, but if it stabilizes my hair and even better gives some regrowth it will be well worth it for me personally.
What do you mean exactly?
Can anyone please describe the Kerastem procedure? How long does it take, how painful is it, how many doctors/nurses are involved and what do they do exactly and, most importantly, when can you expect to see some results? I thought this consisted of removing fat from the belly and injecting it into the scalp. Surely it is much less painful and less complicated than a hair transplant...
The procedure puts you under, at least I don't remember anything about it so if I wasn't under then I was so doped up as to not remember much beyond them starting… but
1) Katarina says: "show me your fat!" and tells you where she's going to perform liposuction (I had two about three inches below my belly button equal distance apart kind of flanking my crotch, and then another at the top of my belly button as I think they had to go in multiple places to find fat)
2) They take a blood sample, probably to find any hints as to your overall health and maybe warnings on whether surgery is dangerous
3) You go and shower to be clean for surgery
4) Walk to the surgery auditorium in underwear and a robe, lay down on a table, have "holy sh*t what am I doing" moment
5) yolo
6) Anesthesiologist pumps you full of bliss as the Dr. and Nurse (3 people total) take your mind off of things
7) ???
8) Nurse eventually wakes you up, feeling like you got hit by a bus, head thumping with a torso brace on
9) She asks you what you want to eat, explaining the limitations of the city? I went ultimately with pizza which is the most comforting food I can think of… though she didn't seem to take my desire to eat actual Serbian dishes seriously for some reason. Maybe a lot of people complain?
10) Pass the f*** out again, its pretty easy… in the morning have another talk w/ the Doctor and spend most of the morning in and out of sleeping and watching TV and eventually eating breakfast, then eventually go to the hotel with a bag full of antibiotics, painkiller (didn't really use it after the first few days, not sure how useful it was in the end), and some stuff to help with bruising
On the bruising, YMMV. I never had a hair transplant so I can't compare, but liposuction is certainly not pain-free that's for sure.
Hopefully in 6 months, I'll be less sad.
