Hi Guys,

Firstly let me explain my situation a little, I am a 33 year old male who has been receeding since I was 19, I have always had a high hair line and it hasnt been too bad so ive been able to get away by having hairstyles that hid it well. Unfortunately in the last few years it has got a bit worse and its something that has been playing on my mind for over 10 years now so I decided i had to do something about it. I have had numerous correspondance with different surgeries and have followed blogs on this site carefully, I hope that it has taught me a lot and helped me make a good informed decison of transplant surgeon. Time will tell i suppose but I aam cautiously optimistic.

It's been one week since my transplant in Turkey and I have finally got round to writing the blog.

I travelled to Istanbul on Thursday 14th, on my arrival a private car was waiting to take me to my hotel in Kadakoy which is over the water on the asian side, if you go at rush hour then the traffic is horrendous, it took us two hours!

The next morning at 8am Clemens Webber (Health Travels) who i'd arranged all this with was in the hotel lobby to meet and take me to have the surgery. At this point I was quiet nervous so it was nice to have a english speaking person who i'd exchanged lots of emails and understood my position alongside me.

We had a meeting with the doctor and Musafa (his english speaking assistant) and went through all the usually stuff of family hair history, what I was hoping to achieve, What to expect during surgey etc. The hairline was measured out and drawn by the doctor which in an ideal world would have been perfect but as I've always had a high hairline I felt was it a little too low (I think they were surprised as most people ask for it to be as low as possible) I want this to look as natural as possible and I think if i turned up with Steven Gerards fringe people would question it.

I won't go into too much detail about the surgery as people have already explained what it is like i'll just add my thoughts. The first anethesthetic injections hurt!! but then after a while when your head goes numb they are fine, I must have had fifty injections into my head. The doctor starts the extraction and you can't feel a thing, I had motorised punch which sounds like a wasp and took around two hours, the three assistants were beavering away collecting and counting grafts. You lie on your side for this which gets a bit uncomfortable after a while.

Break for lunch.

Next are the incision where you lie on your back, the injections into the recipient area hurt but when the doctor actually starts you can't feel a thing, they make a weird crunching sound, this lasted around two hours.

Finally the grafts are placed into the holes made by the assistants, over seen by the dotcor, you cant feel anything although the donor anesthetic was starting to wear off and sting but i decided to take the pain and not get anymore as it would hold up the surgery and the injections probably hurt more.

All through the surgery the assistants were checking if I was okay and Musafa would come in and explain anything i needed to know about how it was going.

I was bandaged up and given painkillers, penicillin and instructions about what to do that night then Musafa walked me back to the hotel which was just around the corner. I didnt think I would sleep very well as its was quiet painfull but I managed to prop myself up in bed and got a really good nights sleep.

The next morning i got up and had a light breakfast, fortunately for me I was staying in the Asia City Hotel which had a big battery farm type hair restoration place around the corner called Esthetica whcih meant there were a lot of other people in the hotel and at breakfast walking around looking like they'd had a lobotomy! I think if I was staying at a normal hotel I would have been very self councious! plus if I was a guest on holiday im not sure id be too pleased to have to look at a mans bloody head whilst eating my bacon sandwich, anyway...

Musafa picked me up at 8am and drove me to Dr Demirosy offices (I had my op at the Hospital as he works for them doing special case hair restoration a few times a month) His office and surgery are state of the art, plush and modern and I kind of wished I'd had my transplant there but being in a hospital was equally reassuring.

One of the assistants washed my hair carefully, removed the bandages, I then had pictures taken and sat around talking to Clemens, Musafa and the Doctor for a while. They put the headband on me to stop the swelling, gave me a hat, meds, and instructions. I said my goodbyes to the doctor and Clemens and Musafa dropped me back to the hotel.

To be honest I have felt fine and it hasn't hurt much through the whole experience, just a little uncomfortable. I felt like I was in safe hands and I think the work looks good but i'm sure you guys will be able to look at my pictures and tell me what you think. I made friends with a few guys in the hotel who were going to esthetica and although the prices were really cheap and the work I saw looked good I was told that they had upto 20 surgeries a day, these guys didnt know what doctor they were having, had never heard of this website and some of them werent even aware of the differences between fuc and fue. I can't understand how someone would put themselves into a position like that with somethings so important.

Dr Demirsoy does four operations a week and I always felt that I had the full attention of everyone involved. I was particularly impressed that he came in to view my hair sit and talk to me on his day off (wash day/staurday) when he didnt really need to. I would recommend Clemens Webbers and health travels to anybody else thinking of doing this, since ive been home I have whattaspp him on numreous occasions and he always replys with an hour

Now I am home eight days after surgery, the scabs are off. The only issue I have had was sleeping on the donor which is still sore but i feel that I am recovering well. Its a relief to have finally done this, it really can be a life changing experience, going bald is reallly upsetting and it can effect eveything you do. Fingers crossed mine works out! I promise to keep this blog updated for the next year good or bad.