Joe Tillman, Jotronic, Spencer Stevenson, Spex

Jotronic and Spex

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Joe Tillman (aka Jotronic) and Spencer Stenson (aka Spexhair) are two hair transplant recipient legends and patient advocates. For the first time ever, they have meet in person.

Jotronic and Spex

Starting close to 15 years ago, Jotronic (aka Joe Tillman) has steadily revolutionized online hair transplant related documentation in terms of thoroughness of photos and videos. His website is called HairTransplantMentor.

Joe has probably single-handedly been responsible for more than half the popularity of the Vancouver, Canada based strip-hair-transplant-technique-only surgical team of Victor Hassson & Jerry Wong.

In 2002, Joe along with another ex-Hasson & Wong patient named Futzyhead both started documenting their results in great detail online in a pioneering dual effort. While before and after hair transplant photos were already available on the internet in 2002, most were vague and of a bad quality. Joe is originally from the US, but now resides in Vancouver, Canada

While Futzyhead stopped posting online around 2005, Joe has continued to maintain a very active online presence to this day. Jotronic works for Hasson & Wong as of the time of writing this blog post, and often goes to conferences and new patient meetups around the US and Western Europe.

Jotronic had two bad hair transplants when he was just 22, and then a number of repair hair transplants with Dr. Wong over the past decade. Nine (!) total hair transplants according to his count, including one scar revision procedure.

Spex (aka Spexhair aka Spencer Stevenson — from the UK) became heavily active online a few years after Jotronic, but has since also produced some exceptional documentation. He seems to have a knack for getting interviews from various newspapers and publications, especially in the UK. Per his website, he currently represents three hair transplant surgeons.

Spex has recently joined forces with Spencer Kobren and expanded The Bald Truth radio show to the UK. Like Jotronic, Spex has also had numerous hair transplants over the years (it seems like six bad ones, followed by a few good repair ones). Maybe ten (!) total hair transplants?

Below is an interesting video where Jotronic and Spex meet for the first time:

Body Hair Transplants, BHT, Ray Woods

Body Hair Transplants to the Head

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One of the most important developments in the hair loss world in the past decade has been the proliferation of surgeons offering body hair to head hair transplants (also known via the acronym BHT). At this point, there are probably at least 50 surgeons around the world who are highly experienced at offering this body hair transplant procedure. And 100s of others are experimenting with this on a small scale.

Ray Woods: Body Hair Transplant Pioneer

Until the year 2000, body hair to head hair transplants were almost unheard off. However, between 1998 and 2000, an Australian doctor by the name of Dr. Ray Woods started experimenting with moving body hair from various locations to the scalps of some of his patients.

For the most part, Dr. Woods took a conservative approach, moving relatively few grafts in each individual session in comparison to the mega-sessions of over 3,000 body hair grafts per session that one sometimes sees nowadays. Typically, Dr. Woods used body hair as an adjunct/enhancer to regular scalp hair to scalp hair transplants. Dr. Woods’ first BHT patient’s video is here:

Dr. Woods’ first body hair to head hair transplant patient video

Because body hairs have different texture, length, and anagen, catagen, and telogen phases in comparison to scalp hair, one has to be careful when transplanting the hair to the scalp. Some surgeons claim that once on the scalp, the body hair often takes on the characteristics of scalp hair. However, the opinion on this is mixed.

As of 2013, it seems like there is a consensus that of all types of body hair, beard and chest hair usually offer the best results when moved to the scalp. Nevertheless, some patients still choose to move arm hair, leg hair, back hair, and even armpit hair. Although beard hair is the strongest, many people are afraid to have a surgeon touch their face due to justified fear of permanent scarring.

Dr. Arvind Poswal: A World Leader in Body Hair Transplants

In recent years, Dr. Arvind Poswal from India has become the world’s most experienced surgeon when it comes to moving body hair to the scalp. Living in a country with over one billion people ( many of whom have ample supplies of body hair) clearly helps his practice grow rapidly. Moreover, Dr. Poswal has displayed great knowledge, innovation and enthusiasm in his internet postings on Hairsite.

Below is a great link to his most recent patient totals and their updates:

Dr. Poswal’s patient totals and updates

In a large portion of the hair transplant cases that Dr. Poswal has presented online, body hair represents at least a small fraction of the total hair moved to the scalp.

Usually, body hair is used as a supplemental resource in a hair transplant. There is no hair transplant surgeon in the world who has presented as many BHT cases online as Dr. Poswal.

At the 2013 ISHRS Conference, Dr. Poswal gave the attendees a very interesting overview of all that is involved in BHTs. Luckily for us, this presentation is now available online.

In the US, Dr. John Cole and Dr. Sanusi Umar are especially experienced in BHT procedures.

Do Body Hair Transplants Work?

In spite of so many surgeons offering BHT procedures, I am not so sure about the long-term satisfaction with these procedures. Although scarring in the body area from which the hair is taken is generally not bad these days, I do not think that every surgeon has a good idea of what types of body hair will give the best long-term results.

Once you have a mega-session BHT, the anagen, catagen and telogen phases of your scalp hair will have a wide range. Some of the  body hair to head hair transplant videos and pictures that I have seen online are amazing, But overall, I would still hold off on getting a BHT unless you are absolutely lacking donor scalp hair and have reached an age and strong enough emotional state where you can risk possible permanent weird length and texture hair on your head.

Also, beard hair tends to grey sooner than scalp hair from what I have noticed. Consequently, after a beard hair transplant to just one part of your scalp at the age of 35, you may end up with a strange situation at age 45 when that one part of your scalp turns grey while the rest remains dark.