Oct 31, 2011 04:21 PM
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I think I am the first to put a review of this clinic in Mouthshut, so let me first introduce you to this clinic. This is clinic is run by a doctor called Dr Chandrashekar, who appears quite knowledgeable about his work. Does not communicate easily though, one has to ask many questions to get to the whole answer. But I think that’s a problem with most doctors in India. Initially the clinic ran at a very small place in Chickpet, but after accumulating a good amount of money from his patients, Dr Chandrashekar bought a much bigger place in Vijayanagar, where he practices right now. Now the strange part is that whilst he appears to have a very busy type of practice, and one has to book appointments 2-3 months in advance, when you actually land up at the clinic many a times it is completely empty and thus you wonder all the fuss is about. However my biggest grouse is against the treatment offered there for hair loss problems. I think it is severely lacking in both effectiveness and transparency. See I have been on hair treatment with many dermatologists before and most dermatologists advise only one of the two medicines and sometimes both- namely finasteride tablets(brand name finax, finabald) and minoxidil lotions in strength of 2%, 5% and 10%(brand name mintop, tugain, coverit, morr, mx-5 etc etc etc). The good part of this medication is that it works in 80% cases to control hair fall and give some growth. The bad part is that you have to use these medicines lifelong to keep the results going because when you stop it, all the hair falls off again. The other downside is the side effects. These are known to cause side effects like reduced sperm count, sexual dysfunction, loss of libido, breast enlargements etc. So most doctors advise this medication for few months and then tell you to stop it. So having tried and got fed up of all that over the last few years, I took this doctors appointment and after waiting for 2-3 months to see, I thought I will probably get there something which is not available elsewhere. However to my deep disappointment, he prescribes THE EXACT SAME MEDICINES. What is worse, is that he asks you to continue the medicines for a period of 3-4 years non stop. Further shocker- you have to buy them from his clinic itself and while the medicines outside cost you maybe 1 to 1.5k, in this clinic the same costs around 4.5k. ITS THREE TIMES THE COST FOR THE SAME MEDICINES. Also when I asked him are there any side effects, he just nods his head, as if saying no, but on the patient card and the letter head it is mentioned – “drugs have side effects, contact doctor in case of any side effects” What the hell. Even then I thought lets continue for sometime and see. That sometime continued for nearly 11/2 years. And few days back when I had a repeat consultation with him, I again asked how long do I have to continue medicines and this time with some irritation his answer is “continue it as long as you want hair”. WTF. It was 3-4 years earlier and now it has become lifelong.
So now having spent nearly 20k over the last 11/2 years with cutis clinic, I am nowhere at all. I know if I stop the medication, I will lose all my hair within 2-3 months and I don’t want to keep poisoning my system with these drugs. Today I am very very unhappy with this clinic namely for three reasons.
They prescribe the exact same medicines available in the open market for nearly 3 to 4 times the cost.
Completely lack of transparency, they simply don’t tell you that you have to continue medicines life long. The strategy is to keep the issue unclear and once the patient has got use to the medicines, he has not choice but to continue taking it.
Lack of information. When I asked about side effects, he clearly implied none, but there are side effects of these medicines, which is why they write the disclaimer on their stationary. Why write medicines can have side effects, but don’t bother to tell the patient what are the side effects. I smell a rat here.
All in all, I have wasted my 11/2 years and about 20K with this clinic and for nothing to show at the end. They just want to show off that they have lot of patients. It appears crowded because they will make each patient wait for 1 to 11/2 hrs even after taking appointments. Thus patients are bunched up together and the clinic appears crowded, which is an impressive factor for fools like me. But after few visits you will realize it’s just a show. Beneath all that he is no better than your average dermatologist, something you may have already tried before.
Avoid this place.