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  1. November 3rd 2023 Hair Transplant Journey

    My name is Daniel and I’m A 27 year old living in Chicago, USA. I first heard about Aestepool Clinic (Istanbul, Turkey) back in July of 2023 through my cousin. He himself had a transplant done at this clinic back in October of 2022. Over a year later, his results are fantastic and he had nothing but good things to say about his experience.
    In July 2023, I traveled to Poland to visit family and I got a chance to meet my cousin there for a talk regarding a possible hair transplant for myself. I’ve been struggling and dealing with hair loss since I was 19 years old. I was nearing the point where I was either going to commit to going bald or maybe get a hair transplant. I was 50/50 for a very long time. I held on to whatever hair I could. I had the talk with my cousin and he gave me a full rundown of what I could expect with a hair transplant. He made me feel much more comfortable and answered any and all questions I had. It was then where he reached out to Damian (a representative of Aestepool Clinic) to see if I can set up a consult with Dr. Ahmed Altan.
    It was my lucky day because not only did they agree to a consult, Dr Altan happened to be in Krakow, Poland the exact same day I was flying out back to America. I went for an in-person consult before my flight and this is where my journey officially started. There I met Damian and Dr. Alton and they were extremely people friendly and professional. They took pictures of my hair, explained everything in great detail, and answered any questions I had.
    It was after that where they paired me up with another one of their representatives named Dominika. We communicated frequently through WhatsApp for the next few months, all the way up until my hair transplant day (and even after as well). I had decided my transplant would be on November 3rd, 2023.
    My flight from Chicago to Istanbul was about 10 and a half hours. At the airport, I was met by the Clinic’s personal driver. He would become my personal driver throughout my stay at Istanbul. He would drive me to and from the airport/hotel/clinic. He was very professional and getting his client from point A to point B safely and efficiently was always his #1 priority. 
    It was finally the transplant day and I was met in the morning by Dr. Ahmed and Dominika. They made me feel welcome the moment I walked into the clinic. They went over what to expect and they had me start the transplant process with the rest of their team.
    Throughout the entire day at the clinic, I felt welcomed, safe, and reassured that everything was going to be okay. From my point of view, every worker there genially looked like they loved their job and made a great team. After my transplant was complete, they ecstatically agreed to take a selfie with me (which I’ll post with this thread). I was given instructions and medications to take back to the hotel with me.
    The following day, I was welcomed once again by the team and here I had my first hair wash done at the clinic. After this, they had a surprise birthday cake waiting in one of their conference rooms for their driver’s birthday, and they even invited me in for pictures and a slice of cake.
    On my long flight back to Chicago, I couldn’t help but stop thinking about my entire experience in Istanbul and at Aestepool Clinic. Going there has already changed my life, and soon enough, I know I won’t be able to stop showing off my new set of hair to all my friends and family.
    My entire experience with Aestepool Clinic was a 10/10 and I will definitely be recommending them to any friends/family/and even strangers that may be dealing with hair loss issues themselves. 

    Thank you again!
    -Daniel
    • Album created by Daniel Dabros
    • Updated
    • 1 image
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  2. HLC, Ankara // March 2023 // 4,108 grafts FUE (Pre-fin, Pre-op, post-op, and 1 week pictures continued + an extensive journal of my experiences)

    Warning – long post! 
    Evening all! I’ve decided to create something of a detailed post about my decision to get some god damn hair back, and my subsequent experience with HLC in Ankara, to add to the plethora of individual experiences already available on the usual forums. I guess that every bit of experience and insight can be useful when it comes to helping people not only decide which clinics they would like to consider when starting their hair transplant journey, but also to inform people of what they can expect to potentially experience when undergoing this kind of procedure, regardless of which clinic they choose. I’ll be providing as much detail as my memory can serve me to portray a more rounded picture of my visit, and on top of that, I’ll be updating my progress and experiences over the coming months, with pictures to accompany whenever necessary.

    I spent weeks of trawling through HRN & Reddit to find the most demonstrably high quality & reassuring of the Turkish and British clinics. I did my initial research by writing down a list of all the clinic names that I came across, with the aim of doing thorough research into the experiences and reviews of the clients from each of these clinics, searching through endless comments/threads to look for primary experiences only ( specifically for when it came to looking for positive comments, I didn’t care for things like “Oh, I heard that this particular clinic does ________ method”, or “I heard from someone that someone else had a particularly good experience at _________ clinic”). I wanted as reliable, tangible evidence as possible, from primary sources only, which were in no way edited or vetted by the clinics themselves. This led me to steer away from choosing clinics closer to my home in London (clinics are mainly on Harley Street), as whilst the comfort of having such a local contact point during the aftercare phase would have been reassuring, there were simply not enough hard, reliable reviews/pictures of the finished works and experiences from these clinics. Their work could have been great, and possibly better value for money, but what I wanted was a better guarantee that I would be as happy as possible with the results in the eventuality of a successful surgery. This was important to me.

    So yes, after much research, enquiries, and consultations, I was left with offers from HLC and Dr Pekiner, arguably the two most reputable clinics in Turkey. I made a table of all the aspects of the procedure that each clinic had laid out in their correspondence. This included suggested number of grafts, hairline density, price, additions etc. I put them side by side, so that I could compare the two easily. I combined this with pictures that I found on Reddit posts (and later the Hair Restoration Network). Essentially, the two clinics are almost identical in their level of professionalism, their thorough questioning, and attitude with regard to how to treat my hair. The only difference I noticed was that Pekiner was somewhat cheaper, suggested fewer grafts overall, suggested lower density for my hairline, and used a different method to that of HLC. I could have gone for either or, but it was something about the pictures of HLC’s successful work, plus the idea that I could get more grafts without it being a complete disaster, that made me opt for them over Pekiner. Both clinics told me that a full head of hair would require two separate visits at least 6 months apart, and they also requested that I take Finasteride for 6 months before I could be considered as a candidate for the initial surgery, and I decided to try it.

    Finasteride – oral, 1mg per day
    I will keep this bit as informative yet to-the-point as possible. I took the daily recommended dosage of oral Finasteride after doing many bits of research on what it is and what it does (insert videos and Dr Fox link here). The difference that I noticed after a just a few months was remarkable, and also noticeable by others. No more waking up with head hairs on the pillow and chest/beard hairs all over the mattress. I was retaining my hair, and it felt amazing. That’s the thing with tablets, it affects your entire body, rather than just locally. I will supply pictures of what my hair looked like before the finasteride and after 6 months of taking it. Now, in terms of side effects, personally I am always a fan of trying something first, seeing the positive and/or negative ways that it affects me, and adjusting myself accordingly. I didn’t just want to take a daily drug without research, and neither did I want to just reject it outright because of some anecdote I heard somewhere on the internet. Whilst there is risk everywhere in taking any drug, I felt that it would be highly unlikely that there would be any side-effects that weren’t reversible after stopping taking them. I have been taking them every day since November 2021, and I have not experienced a single negative side-affect that has impacted my life in any way. Being as real with you as possible, [warning: genitalia content ahead] my libido has not been affected, I can still maintain an erection, and my climaxing is neither noticeably premature nor delayed. In terms of any other side effects, I am unaware of them as of yet, and if there are any, I will tackle them as and when they come. For now, I intend to take Finasteride for the rest of my life. This is just my personal experience with Finasteride. I am in no way suggesting that you take Finasteride, and I am not suggesting that your experience will be the same as mine, should you choose to take them. I encourage you to do your thorough research so that you can feel comfortable with your eventual decision, and to research any effects of Finasteride on other bodily functions that you may be concerned about, whilst being very careful about which information you take as gospel in your decision-making, including this post!
     
    Heading to HLC
    I was lucky enough to have my Dad decide to accompany me to Ankara for support, which I asked HLC about, and for an extra ~£18 per night, they obliged me. Honestly when I think about it, I feel pretty fortunate to have had some support (for which I will explain a little later). HLC actually prefer you to take Pound Sterling, Euros or Dollars to pay for the treatment, as I believe those currencies are much more stable than the Turkish Lira. You may, of course, pay on card, but there is a significant surcharge for this kind of transaction which I believe is about 10%, and so I decided to take Pound Sterling in cash. It’s something for you to think about, anyway. But with the ~£750 deposit secured and the ~£130 package [driver, accommodation, food and medication] saved up, I booked in August 2022 for early January 2023. This was later changed by me to 27th March, as I feared my new financial situation at the time would leave me short of cash for the journey. This turned out to be the best choice in the end. They claim that they can only book dates 6 months in advance maximum, so if you want to book, for example, to have the procedure on February 1st 2024, you will have to wait until 1st August 2023 to make the booking. As for the minimum amount of time you need to book, I am not sure. If they have a space for you, for example, the following week due to a cancelation, they could potentially offer it to you at a discounted rate, the amount of which would be decided by the clinic. You can receive a refund if you decide to completely cancel your procedure for whatever reason, however if you decide to cancel any time later than 14 days before your procedure, you won’t be able to claim a full refund on your deposit. Instead, you can merely postpone your surgery to a later date and use the deposit to secure that date. The deposit ends up going towards the total amount for your surgery.

    So, me and my Dad arrive at Ankara on the 26th March, and as planned, the driver is waiting for us. Pleasant lad, pleasant drive. The drive from the airport to Ankara is about 30-40 minutes. Ankara is a very intriguing city to look at as a Westerner (especially if the furthest east you have ever travelled is Croatia!). I was fascinated at mish-mash of landscapes, architecture and even pavement styles that were all within minutes of one another. To me it felt like a hundred different types of places mixed in to one place, if that makes sense? (possibly not). Anyway, we arrived at HLC, which is made up of the clinic itself, and the hotel & canteen directly next to it. From the moment we get there, the staff are incredibly friendly and willing to help. There was a slight bit of confusion at the start when they forgot to supply a double room to accommodate both me and my Dad. This meant that me and my Dad had to share a bed in a single room for the first night, which was pretty hilarious but we’re both pretty conservative sleepers, so there was no fighting for bed space/duvet or anything like that. However, the Patient Coordinator Ebru (who I will speak about later) was very apologetic and offered to move us to a larger room with two beds for the night of remaining three nights. HLC offer one repeated style of breakfast and then various lunches daily as part of the surgery package that you can pay for https://imgur.com/a/KmbvftX . They were more than happy to let my Dad have the breakfasts & lunches at no extra cost. Nice touch. We snooped around town in the evening to find a nice restaurant to eat at, and we ended up at a restaurant called Bohem, whose pizzas I highly recommend!

    Getting Prepped
    On the first day of the surgery, I met the patient coordinator Ebru in the clinic, and also the team of technicians. Ebru greets the clients, makes them feel at home, keeps them in the loop about the different stages of their procedure, shows them where to go, and is there to answer questions & translate in the event that it’s needed. Ebru is very smiley and is constantly rushing back and forth trying to organise everyone that is both in her immediate company & also contacting her via email/Whatsapp, yet she is always happy to stop and help you if you have any queries and does so without making you feel like you are interrupting some important business. She is also a sugary treat enthusiast, and makes sure everyone is kept occupied in the waiting room by topping up numerous plates with various Turkish biscuits and cakes that she enjoys, most of which I became extremely partial to. Shout out to Pop Keks, if you like your sweets, these are the absolute business. Here's a small array of the various lovely treats you can get around the local area  https://imgur.com/a/SM4nKfU . I spent a small amount of time chatting with other patients in the waiting room about their planned procedures before I was called into another room.

    Once I had my photos taken, initial blood tests taken and my canular implanted, they shaved my head and several doctors took a while to establish the most appropriate hairline for me, and when I was happy with their plan, they established a more accurate number of grafts that they intended to implant. Mine was 4,100, which I was very happy with as I made it very clear in the email that I wanted no more than 4,200 for my first visit (this was initially suggested as the maximum in my initial email correspondence with the clinic a year prior). They were very receptive to my suggestions of how I wanted my hairline shaped/how hi gh it should be/how sharp the temples should be, and we all worked together (my Dad included) to come up with an ideal looking hairline. I like how they all collectively took it very seriously; you can tell that they want your hair to be as much of a masterpiece as possible, not just accepting whatever the customer wants right off the bat. It felt like a right bit of teamwork. I know that’s pretty much parr for the course, but it certainly made me feel like this place was worth it.

    Within less than an hour, I was in the operating theatre with one Dr Umut and around 3 or 4 technicians. Sidenote: from here until the end of my trip, the much finer details of my time in Ankara may not be remembered with 100% certainty, as it was from this moment that I spent most of my time with large amounts of anaesthetic in my system, and very little sleep to boot. But hey, all I can do is my best, right? But I will tell you now that it was the following 12 hours, at least for me, that made me truly realise importance of having the best possible painkilling methods on standby for the rest of my visit.
     
    The Procedure
    The sessions were completed in ~2 hour stints, with ~15 minute breaks between each session, starting mid-morning and finishing late afternoon/early evening. Dr Umut and his technicians were an extremely competent team who had clearly been doing this at a high level for many years, that much was obvious. They started on Monday morning with extracting the grafts from the back of my head. My best guess is that Dr Umut was doing all the work on my head whilst the technicians handled the other equipment and the grafts as they were coming out, like an efficient conveyor belt. This meant that I needed to lie face down in a clinical massage table with a face hole. Anaesthetic was applied to my catheter, and they began. The first thing I noticed was the quite jarring yet somewhat amusing sensation of what felt like my head being picked at with a safety pin, over and over (don’t worry, this is not the pain that required the eventual painkillers). I felt about 30 of these before suddenly I was out cold. I thought I had just fallen asleep, but there is no way that even a whole week of sleep deprivation could have led me to a slumber deep enough that it would have blocked out this sensation, haha. But that wasn’t even the painful part; it was coming round about 15 minutes from the end of the morning’s procedure with my face being pressed through the hole from the force of whichever staff member was leaning on me. Not so much that it was sheer agony, but enough to make me realise that, if I weren’t under any anaesthetic, I would usually ask if I could take a break from the discomfort. I guess this appeared to unfortunately be an inevitable part of the procedure, so that the doctor could most accurately approach each graft from the correct angle. They obviously can’t just approach from a seated position next to you. Whist I was still in a daze from the anaesthetic, I could not deny that my face was in an extreme level of discomfort from the pressure of the face hole rim on my cheeks, chin, but mainly, my forehead. I must have been experiencing that pressure for nearly 2 hours whilst out. I decided to eventually tell the staff that my face was very uncomfortable, and they supplied me with a soft blanket to soften the area where my face was, and Dr Umut told me that he would be nearly done. When he finally finished, we took our 15 minute break, and I took a moment to see the indentation and redness of my face. Not pleasant, but that’s what you gotta go through if you want this procedure, there’s no way around it, I don’t think. It may affect some people more than others, but for myself, it was not a pleasant experience. But hey man, I just kept in mind that this whole process was all in the name of turning me into the beautiful and elegant princess I was always supposed to be. Suffer for the art, trust the process.

    By the end of the day, having ‘slept’ through most of the 2-hour stints, I had a donor area with quite a few holes, and a nice square of implanted grafts in my scalp, about half completed. It looked just how I imagined it would, only with surprising lack of excessive blood or pain. The techs bandaged me up and gave me some steroid and gastro-focused tablets to take. I then had a quick chat with Dr Umut. He gave me some Ibuprofen tablets (Suprafen) and spoke to me about the importance of sleeping not on your side, but on your back, with your head elevated above heart level. After a quick chat and laugh with the other patients and Ebru in the post op/waiting room, my dad and I retired to the hotel for the evening to eat pizza and watch the footy before heading to bed.

    The worst headache I have experienced in my life
    I’ve suffered from headaches throughout my adult life. Many of them (well, most of them) are self-inflicted through my enjoyment of a bit of a party now and again, so I’m not expecting any sympathy there. It goes with the territory, and whilst I’m not happy when I am experiencing them, they are like badges of honour, like medals for bravery. Plus, whenever I have them really bad, they are usually concentrated in one area of the head (back of the neck, behind the left eye, behind the right ear, etc.), I usually just take some painkilling combination and happily float through the day. However, the moment I decided to go to bed in the semi-upright position that was recommended to me, I realised that there would be no sleeping any time soon, for as the last of the anaesthetic finally wore off, a tiny dull ache behind my eyes slowly crept in. Unfortunately for me, this pain didn’t subside, but spread around my head, and it slowly evolved into one of the most intense headaches I can ever remember having. It was the entirety of my head and neck. I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself, and I attempted to take some walks around the room. No use, it got worse and worse until I was pretty much unable to speak normally or sit/stand with any sort of comfort or relief, and I was getting extremely irritable at the slightest inconveniences which must not have been pleasant. Bless my poor Dad, neither of us knew what to do. We agreed to ask reception at about 11pm to see if there was anyone around who could assist me somehow. Dad came back from reception with the receptionist and one of the nurses on night shift. They saw my state and knew something wasn’t right, and the nurse decided to see to it that I was looked after by taking us to the clinic for the evening to try some different methods. We made extensive use of Google translate for our communication, and they even turned the lights out in the hotel corridor and offered to physically guide me, as I was super sensitive to any light and couldn’t really open my eyes.

    We got to the clinic and she took me into a room with a hospital style bed in a reclined position. I got onto the bed, and after some brief questioning, she connected my canular to a drip, to which she added a painkilling solution. She made sure that she would be present and gave me a button to press if me or my dad had any more concerns and needed her. I tried to just lay there and get some sleep with a neck pillow around me, sat with about 4 pillows behind me, my Dad sat next to me, half keeping vigilant of me and half dozing off. But it was no use, it was just an all-consuming pain that didn’t even remotely cease. I just sorta sat there shaking my head in passive resignation at my situation. After all, what else could I do? I’d already been trying to sleep and taken the Suprafen and whatever the night nurse had administered, and so far, nothing had changed. After an hour, the nurse came back and asked how I was feeling, and I was totally honest with her and said that I didn’t feel much different than before. I asked politely if there was anything stronger that I would be allowed. From what my dad remembers, she obliged and came back with a large tube of clear liquid and applied it directly to my canular. After this, I know that I managed to catch at least a couple of hours of light sleep. I woke up at about 3am, feeling the slightest bit better and generally more able. I could muster a light joke with the night nurse and my dad, but that was about it. I was just thankful the worst of it might have actually finally been over. I was assisted back to my hotel room, and I thanked the staff for their time.

    My intention is not to scare anyone, but simply to relay may experience so that people can best prepare in the eventuality that something similar starts to happen to them if they go through the procedure. I still wonder now what the overall causes may have been; general swelling reaction from the invasive traumatic procedure, a more pronounced and obvious inflammation that precedes my usual headaches, a bad reaction to a foreign object piercing my skin, the constant pressure from my face being pressed into the table hole, a negative reaction to the initial administering of anaesthesia… a combination of all of them? None of them?! We’ll never know, but all I will say to you is this: do not ever hesitate to enquire about at least preparing yourself with the most potent, highest dosage of painkillers that you are medically allowed to take, just in case. If there is a medically and clinically sound way of warding off any pain that you may have to go through unnecessarily, don’t grin and bear it, there’s no point. I’d hate for someone to have to experience the same sensations that I experience, particularly if it was always avoidable. I’m not saying you should dose up on large amounts of codeine or morphine at the slightest ache. Just don’t needlessly suffer. Speak to the clinic and be as honest as possible, they get everything that they administer approved by a doctor, and they are ALWAYS looking to make sure you have the most comfortable experience possible, within reason.
     
    The Following Day
    I woke up from a very broken sleep feeling about 50% better. Dad even noticed my face was looking a lot brighter. We went for breakfast, and I spoke to many of the other patients that I had become acquainted with. Some had heard about my experiences from the night before, and I explained in better detail what went on. None of them had experienced anything similar overnight. Some had slight headaches, yes, but nothing that required attention, thankfully. One of my fellow patients that we got friendly with gave me a melatonin tablet for the following night, just in case (if you’re reading this mate, thanks a lot!). It was also very physically obvious that I had reacted severely to the procedure as the day went on, as we all noticed that my forehead and eye area began to swell right up, I looked like Lakitu’s cloud or something. Wasn’t painful, just very tight around the top half of my head, and very puffy/soft around my under eyes. I got a huge amount of discolouration too, like I had two black eyes. Incredibly attractive, I know. But I didn’t care. For me, the head pain no longer being there made me feel like a million quid. The second day was very much a slight repeat of the first day: breakfast, followed by surgery with breaks and snacks and a few chats with fellow patients. Only this time, I was told I no longer needed to put my face in the face hole, and that I could rest my head on its side for the remaining extractions. Bliss!

    So, despite initially being told I needed three days for the operation, they actually managed to complete the process in two days. In the end, the total number of grafts used was 4,108. I know it was only the first day, but I could tell that the placement of the grafts was painstakingly done. It was very neat and the density seemed to be very thick in comparison to other examples I have seen. When everything was over, I asked about any other type of oral painkiller that I could take during the night, in the event that I experienced the pain again. They managed to sign off on some tablets called Arveles (Dexketoprofen). I got to spend the rest of my day just chilling in my hotel room, feeling five times better than the night before, and my Dad and I ordered some food from one of the local restaurants whilst watching some more footy. Once again, I started to feel a headache creeping in. I took one of my Arvales tablets as a precautionary measure. I can’t quite remember how long after I took the tablet it was, but whilst we were watching Welcome To Wrexham, the headache suddenly stopped dead in its tracks, and the pain was reduced to an ever so slight ache at the back of my head that could easily have been the surface of my donor area recovering, rather than something deeper. I felt so relieved. Sleep looked like it could finally be on the cards for me that evening.

    However, the next big struggle (which is still a bit of a struggle even today), was trying to get myself some sleep as a devout side-sleeper. I have never been able to sleep lying on my back horizontally, let alone sat upright with a neck pillow. The fact that I couldn’t rest the side of my head on a soft surface meant that I was pretty much wide awake for the next 6 hours, trying to somehow bore/tire myself out enough to just conk out. This, I’m afraid, is something I have no advice for. I knew from the forums that sleep would be very difficult for a good few days after the surgery, but there is no known safe method for side-sleepers of ensuring that you get some good sleep for the days following the procedure, unless you just somehow learn to be happy with sleeping on your back. I think it was partially my fault, to be honest, as I was possibly a tad overcautious about applying pressure to my donor area. I didn’t want to disturb it at all, so I dared not lay my head back, plus I sat virtually bolt upright in bed against the wall, so that I didn’t slip into a horizontal position, and perhaps even roll onto my side in my sleep. This adds the extra pain of sitting on your arse all night, causing a deep ache in your buttocks/legs. The kind of position that causes bed sores in long term hospital patients. Not pleasant. But I didn’t want to take any chances on messing anything up after all this.

    The Last Full Day
    After meeting with Dr Umut for one last time to receive my aftercare package & medicine routine. I asked some final questions of him. For anyone who is curious, these were his answers to my questions:

    ‘Yes, we can send you your photos that we took, your receipt and medical documents via WeTransfer’

    ‘No, you will not need to wear any more bandages from now on’

    ‘No, you cannot wear any wooly/beanie hat, or helmet, until at least 4 weeks after surgery. You may only wear a loose fitting baseball cap or hood, but very infrequently’

    ‘No, you cannot exercise/lift at the gym before a minimum of 4 weeks. But you may gently run/cycle after 2 weeks’

    ‘Yes, you can now start drinking some alcohol, but do not get drunk’

    ‘No, you cannot shower yet, this is only after 3 days, and even then, it can only be tepid water, gently trickled over the recipient area, with no scrubbing and no drying with a towel’

    ‘You must only use shampoo after seven days, we recommend Sebamed 5.5pH shampoo. This can only be gently added to the scalp and then rinsed with tepid water on low pressure, no rubbing or scrubbing’

    ‘’Only gently massage the scabs off after 10 days, using the Sebamed shampoo”

    “Yes, you can go to bed normally after 2/3 days (I obviously decided to be more cautious than this based on how my head was feeling)”

    ‘Yes, only take the Avarles when you feel you are in too much pain.’

    ‘Yes, have a cold water massage twice a day to deal with your swelling’

    He also asked me if I could send to the clinic the one month, three month and six month progress pictures, which I was happy to do. I shook hands with Dr Umut, we bid each other farewell, along with Ebru and any other staff that I recognised, and that was the end of my dealings with the clinic. I now had a day to kill with my Dad before our flight the next day. We took a little trip around the area, just to see what options we had for dinner later (and also to see if there was anywhere to grab a pint!). I snapped a photo of the clinic https://imgur.com/a/CmLZchz . When we noticed the building work that they were doing, I joked to my dad that I heard the plan was to remove the back part of the clinic and place it on top of the current clinic, so that it looks brand new. I’m glad he chuckled.
    At this point my headache was nothing more than mild, and I knew that I could keep it at bay with the tablets I had been given. All in all, I am super impressed with how the clinic makes sure that you and your peace of mind are held as the number 1 priority for the duration of your stay, without having to compromise their protocols. They take good care in their work, both in the clinic and in the hotel. The only extra thing I believe could be improved of the service is, of course, the comfort of the massage table in terms of the face. I would be interested to see if anyone else has experienced this kind of thing in their procedures, and if it is perhaps something that is common enough to make clients (and clinics themselves) aware of, so that it can be avoided whenever possible.
     
    Recovering at home
    Since I have been back at home recovering, I have been applying the spray solution to my recipient area every two hours whilst I am awake, and Bepanthen to the donor area every 3-4 hours. I’ve been taking all the tablets at the intervals suggested. There are a couple of experiences and sensations that I think could be of note: firstly, sleeping has been very difficult and occasionally a very frustrating affair. Attempting to compromise your preferred sleeping position in order to get some sleep and not disturb your scalp can be really tricky. All I’ll say is… just hang in there, buddies! My personal choice was to only choose to get a maximum of two hours sleep on the first night, so that I would be just completely exhausted, and therefor catch mini-naps throughout the following days with my head resting sideways on a neck pillow (when my body literally forces me to rest). This way, you can avoid sleeping for the whole night on your donor area if you are feeling protective of it. This is why I booked off a whole 3 weeks of work for the whole process as because of the sleeping pattern and anaesthetic, I knew I would be completely spaced out and useless to the world for 3 weeks, so I could afford to try out my own routine. After 3 days, I felt comfortable to finally recline my pillows a little and rest the back of my head on the pillow, and despite it not being my favoured sleeping position, my lack of sleep meant that I got a full 7 hours which was just unbelievable.
    Secondly, the swelling & discolouration didn’t go down for about 4-5 days after the procedure. This can feel really strange, and even after the facial swelling subsides, there is what feels like a thick layer under the skin encasing my skull that renders it quite numb on the top, but still sensitive at the donor area. Just be as careful as possible with any pressure you end up applying to it. I scared myself on the 2nd day by waking up on my side with my right hand supporting the side of my head. I had to actually peal my hand off the side of my head, and the result was 3 massive ridges in the side of my donor area where my fingers had compressed the squidgy layer overnight. I thought I had completely ruined everything, but it restored after a day. Phew! Just so you know, you will mess up every now and again, but as long as you are mindful of it, you should be just fine. If you can try and keep from donking your head, or scratching it and when it itches, you will be allowing the grafts to heal in a way that will achieve the most desired results.
    Remember, you will ache, and you will itch, especially at your donor area. Medicate only when necessary, but seriously, when it is necessary, just do it! I am currently in the period of being allowed to gently trickle tepid water down my recipient area in order to wash it. No massaging yet, no scrubbing, no shampoo. Just the water, and then letting it drip dry. It’s important to maintain a level of moisture in the first week or so.

    Final Thoughts
    I hope this has been an informative read for anyone considering a hair transplant, and specifically one from HLC. If you have any questions at all about my experiences, please feel free to ask and I will answer them all. I just want everyone to know that just because I made certain decisions and actions that felt appropriate for me, that does not mean that I think that they would be the best plans of action for everyone else. You have to look after your own peace of mind, but all I can do is express my experiences and how they affected me. I would, however, always ask people to have a real, genuine think about the pros and cons of taking various medications to help with the various parts of the process. Don’t just rush into a decision without thinking. Do the research and weigh up properly what would be in YOUR best interests. You know you. Good luck!
    Massive thank you to everyone at HLC for the extremely positive experience, I will provide updates as and when I feel it necessary!

    THE END. WELL DONE YOU.
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  3. hello guys im new here and i need opinions pls (4k graft)

    hello guys so im 24 yo and im 10 days post op
    what do you think !
    i also noticed more scabs on right side than left does that means that i will have more growth on it than the other or did they fill more graft on it ...!! thanks
     
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  4. Dr Emrah Cinik Hair Transplant 3700 Grafts

    • Album created by Mike Doub
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    • 1 album review
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    • 1 album review
  5. Medical Hair Transplant and Aesthetics FUE Results

    Before and after photos of my results after FUE procedure with Medical Hair Transplant and Aesthetics. Very happy with my 1 year results. It have a been a very positive and life changing experience. I am very thankful to the MHTA staff for the wonderful work they did. I would highly recommend them to family and friends. Money well spent. 
    • Album created by G Hair
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    • 1 album review
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    • 1 album review
  6. Hairline design

    A selection of cases performed by Dr. Feriduni
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  7. Restoring the Front with Straight, Black Hair: Carlos K. Wesley, MD (2300 FUE grafts)

    #BeforeAndAfterMondays This 29 year old  man underwent a follicular unit extraction  session with Dr. Carlos K. Wesley in which a total of 2300 grafts  were placed.
     
    His hair follicles were incubated in autologous (his own) http://drcarloswesley.com/innovations/  throughout the duration of the procedure.  This, combined with an ATP-containing storage solution   has been shown to enhance survival of transplanted hairs .
     
    Rather than a larger FUE punch used by a robotic approach, Dr. Wesley used a smaller caliber hand-held motorized punch to performed the donor harvest.  This approach better enabled the capture of donor hair roots that are slightly curved beneath the skin surface.  Upon completion of the harvest, the patient’s donor area was treated with PRP and ACell in order to not only minimize scar tissue formation, but also encourage partial regeneration of donor hair follicles.
     
    The patient returned 18 months   after his procedure and images of the patient can be seen below.   
     
    This link illustrates the timing of hair growth after surgery.  Similar  patient hair transformations with Dr. Wesley and his team may also be viewed.




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  8. Dr Bansal & Dr Sethi | International Boxer, 5060 Grafts (Scalp+Beard) | 9.5 months post op

    Best result of International Boxer in 9.5 months post op using our DHT technique, Total 5060 grafts used (Scalp + Beard), Patient age : 28yrs, Dr Arika Bansal & Dr Pradeep Sethi - Eugenix Hair Sciences.
    A 28 year old international boxer, wanted to regain his hairline and had multiple consultations earlier with many centres. No one was offering him a complete job in one go. When we met him and understood the need, we were certain that we can cover the bald area with great look change and graded density on the crown. Close to 5000 odd grafts were planted and the hair started off in couple of months and by 5 months he started feeling great and by 9 months he was extremely happy.
    Patient details:
    No. of Grafts used: 5060 grafts
    Donor : Scalp(3250) + Beard(1810)
    Results : 9.5 Months post op
    Grade : Grade 5A







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  9. Mr Riyad | 5070 Grafts | 5 month post op

    Best Results in 5 Month post op using our DHT technique, Total 5070 Grafts used (Scalp + Beard), Patient age : 41yrs, Dr Arika Bansal & Dr Pradeep Sethi - Eugeni Hair Sciences.
    A 41 years old horse rider came to us for hair restoration. He got a procedure done from us. We have used our trademarked DHT technique and his hair started growing within two months of period.  Within 5 months he got a very good appreciable and look change result and according to us still 30% hair are yet to grow and the hair to be thicker. He is also going to do 2nd sitting from us for complete head coverage.
     
    No. of Grafts used: 5070
    Donor : Scalp + Beard
    Grafted Area : Front & Mid Scalp
    Results : 5 Month post op
    Grade : Grade VA/VI
     
     
     
     
     





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  10. Hair Transplant For Women

    Female Hair Transplant
    If you’re a woman experiencing thinning hair, you’re not alone. More than 20 million women in the U.S. alone are affected by hair loss. Medication options and surgical procedures can replace lost hair or slow the process of losing your hair. For permanent results, however, consider hair transplant surgery for women.
    In Manhattan, you’ll find the top surgeons at Linkov Hair Surgery Linkov Hair Surgery. Call today to learn about the transplant for women cost, hair transplants on Black females, hair transplants for women seniors and women’s hair transplant to counteract a medical condition.

    What is a Women’s Hair Transplant?
    A women’s hair transplant is very similar to a men’s hair transplant. It’s done by surgically moving hair follicles from one part of your head to another. If you’re hoping for natural-looking results, a hair transplant for women must be performed by a surgeon who understands hair loss and performs hair transplants regularly. For a top surgeon in New York City who specializes in hair loss replacement, visit Dr. Gary Linkov at Linkov Hair Surgery.

    When people think of a hair transplant, women usually don’t come to mind as often as men do, but both men and women can experience hair loss that makes them self-conscious about their appearance. Hair loss in women can happen at any age. For women, noticeable hair loss can be deeply distressing, severely impacting the quality of your life.

    Read more:   https://www.linkovhair.com/hair-transplants/hair-transplant-for-women/

    Linkov Hair Surgery
    150 E 56th St, #1A
    New York, NY 10022
    (212) 970-9404

    Web Address:   https://www.linkovhair.com/
    e-mail:   info@linkovhair.com

    Our location on the map:   https://maps.app.goo.gl/2R2j5uqpt6te3xN3A
    https://plus.codes/87G8Q25J+VC New York

    Nearby Locations:
    Upper East Side | Lenox Hill | Hell's Kitchen | Midtown Manhattan | Murray Hill 
    10021, 10028, 10044, 10065, 10075, 10128 | 10019 | 10022, 10017 | 10016
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  11. HT - Greece, 4201 Grafts

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  12. HLC, Ankara // March 2023 // 4,108 grafts FUE (Pre-fin, Pre-op, post-op, and 1 week pictures + an extensive journal of my experiences)

    Warning – long post! 
    Evening all! I’ve decided to create something of a detailed post about my decision to get some god damn hair back, and my subsequent experience with HLC in Ankara, to add to the plethora of individual experiences already available on the usual forums. I guess that every bit of experience and insight can be useful when it comes to helping people not only decide which clinics they would like to consider when starting their hair transplant journey, but also to inform people of what they can expect to potentially experience when undergoing this kind of procedure, regardless of which clinic they choose. I’ll be providing as much detail as my memory can serve me to portray a more rounded picture of my visit, and on top of that, I’ll be updating my progress and experiences over the coming months, with pictures to accompany whenever necessary.

    I spent weeks of trawling through this subreddit to find the most demonstrably high quality & reassuring of the Turkish and British clinics. I did my initial research by writing down a list of all the clinic names that I came across, with the aim of doing thorough research into the experiences and reviews of the clients from each of these clinics, searching through endless comments/threads to look for primary experiences only ( specifically for when it came to looking for positive comments, I didn’t care for things like “Oh, I heard that this particular clinic does ________ method”, or “I heard from someone that someone else had a particularly good experience at _________ clinic”). I wanted as reliable, tangible evidence as possible, from primary sources only, which were in no way edited or vetted by the clinics themselves. This led me to steer away from choosing clinics closer to my home in London (clinics are mainly on Harley Street), as whilst the comfort of having such a local contact point during the aftercare phase would have been reassuring, there were simply not enough hard, reliable reviews/pictures of the finished works and experiences from these clinics. Their work could have been great, and possibly better value for money, but what I wanted was a better guarantee that I would be as happy as possible with the results in the eventuality of a successful surgery. This was important to me.

    So yes, after much research, enquiries, and consultations, I was left with offers from HLC and Dr Pekiner, arguably the two most reputable clinics in Turkey. I made a table of all the aspects of the procedure that each clinic had laid out in their correspondence. This included suggested number of grafts, hairline density, price, additions etc. I put them side by side, so that I could compare the two easily. I combined this with pictures that I found on Reddit posts (and later the Hair Restoration Network). Essentially, the two clinics are almost identical in their level of professionalism, their thorough questioning, and attitude with regard to how to treat my hair. The only difference I noticed was that Pekiner was somewhat cheaper, suggested fewer grafts overall, suggested lower density for my hairline, and used a different method to that of HLC. I could have gone for either or, but it was something about the pictures of HLC’s successful work, plus the idea that I could get more grafts without it being a complete disaster, that made me opt for them over Pekiner. Both clinics told me that a full head of hair would require two separate visits at least 6 months apart, and they also requested that I take Finasteride for 6 months before I could be considered as a candidate for the initial surgery, and I decided to try it.

    Finasteride – oral, 1mg per day
    I will keep this bit as informative yet to-the-point as possible. I took the daily recommended dosage of oral Finasteride after doing many bits of research on what it is and what it does (insert videos and Dr Fox link here). The difference that I noticed after a just a few months was remarkable, and also noticeable by others. No more waking up with head hairs on the pillow and chest/beard hairs all over the mattress. I was retaining my hair, and it felt amazing. That’s the thing with tablets, it affects your entire body, rather than just locally. I will supply pictures of what my hair looked like before the finasteride and after 6 months of taking it. Now, in terms of side effects, personally I am always a fan of trying something first, seeing the positive and/or negative ways that it affects me, and adjusting myself accordingly. I didn’t just want to take a daily drug without research, and neither did I want to just reject it outright because of some anecdote I heard somewhere on the internet. Whilst there is risk everywhere in taking any drug, I felt that it would be highly unlikely that there would be any side-effects that weren’t reversible after stopping taking them. I have been taking them every day since November 2021, and I have not experienced a single negative side-affect that has impacted my life in any way. Being as real with you as possible, [warning: genitalia content ahead] my libido has not been affected, I can still maintain an erection, and my climaxing is neither noticeably premature nor delayed. In terms of any other side effects, I am unaware of them as of yet, and if there are any, I will tackle them as and when they come. For now, I intend to take Finasteride for the rest of my life. This is just my personal experience with Finasteride. I am in no way suggesting that you take Finasteride, and I am not suggesting that your experience will be the same as mine, should you choose to take them. I encourage you to do your thorough research so that you can feel comfortable with your eventual decision, and to research any effects of Finasteride on other bodily functions that you may be concerned about, whilst being very careful about which information you take as gospel in your decision-making, including this post!
     
    Heading to HLC
    I was lucky enough to have my Dad decide to accompany me to Ankara for support, which I asked HLC about, and for an extra ~£18 per night, they obliged me. Honestly when I think about it, I feel pretty fortunate to have had some support (for which I will explain a little later). HLC actually prefer you to take Pound Sterling, Euros or Dollars to pay for the treatment, as I believe those currencies are much more stable than the Turkish Lira. You may, of course, pay on card, but there is a significant surcharge for this kind of transaction which I believe is about 10%, and so I decided to take Pound Sterling in cash. It’s something for you to think about, anyway. But with the ~£750 deposit secured and the ~£130 package [driver, accommodation, food and medication] saved up, I booked in August 2022 for early January 2023. This was later changed by me to 27th March, as I feared my new financial situation at the time would leave me short of cash for the journey. This turned out to be the best choice in the end. They claim that they can only book dates 6 months in advance maximum, so if you want to book, for example, to have the procedure on February 1st 2024, you will have to wait until 1st August 2023 to make the booking. As for the minimum amount of time you need to book, I am not sure. If they have a space for you, for example, the following week due to a cancelation, they could potentially offer it to you at a discounted rate, the amount of which would be decided by the clinic. You can receive a refund if you decide to completely cancel your procedure for whatever reason, however if you decide to cancel any time later than 14 days before your procedure, you won’t be able to claim a full refund on your deposit. Instead, you can merely postpone your surgery to a later date and use the deposit to secure that date. The deposit ends up going towards the total amount for your surgery.

    So, me and my Dad arrive at Ankara on the 26th March, and as planned, the driver is waiting for us. Pleasant lad, pleasant drive. The drive from the airport to Ankara is about 30-40 minutes. Ankara is a very intriguing city to look at as a Westerner (especially if the furthest east you have ever travelled is Croatia!). I was fascinated at mish-mash of landscapes, architecture and even pavement styles that were all within minutes of one another. To me it felt like a hundred different types of places mixed in to one place, if that makes sense? (possibly not). Anyway, we arrived at HLC, which is made up of the clinic itself, and the hotel & canteen directly next to it. From the moment we get there, the staff are incredibly friendly and willing to help. There was a slight bit of confusion at the start when they forgot to supply a double room to accommodate both me and my Dad. This meant that me and my Dad had to share a bed in a single room for the first night, which was pretty hilarious but we’re both pretty conservative sleepers, so there was no fighting for bed space/duvet or anything like that. However, the Patient Coordinator Ebru (who I will speak about later) was very apologetic and offered to move us to a larger room with two beds for the night of remaining three nights. HLC offer  one repeated style of breakfast and then various lunches daily as part of the surgery package that you can pay for . They were more than happy to let my Dad have the breakfasts & lunches at no extra cost. Nice touch. We snooped around town in the evening to find a nice restaurant to eat at, and we ended up at a restaurant called Bohem, whose pizzas I highly recommend!

    Getting Prepped
    On the first day of the surgery, I met the patient coordinator Ebru in the clinic, and also the team of technicians. Ebru greets the clients, makes them feel at home, keeps them in the loop about the different stages of their procedure, shows them where to go, and is there to answer questions & translate in the event that it’s needed. Ebru is very smiley and is constantly rushing back and forth trying to organise everyone that is both in her immediate company & also contacting her via email/Whatsapp, yet she is always happy to stop and help you if you have any queries and does so without making you feel like you are interrupting some important business. She is also a sugary treat enthusiast, and makes sure everyone is kept occupied in the waiting room by topping up numerous plates with various Turkish biscuits and cakes that she enjoys, most of which I became extremely partial to. Shout out to Pop Keks, if you like your sweets, these are the absolute business. Here's a small array of the various lovely treats you can get around the local area . I spent a small amount of time chatting with other patients in the waiting room about their planned procedures before I was called into another room.

    Once I had my photos taken, initial blood tests taken and my canular implanted, they shaved my head and several doctors took a while to establish the most appropriate hairline for me, and when I was happy with their plan, they established a more accurate number of grafts that they intended to implant. Mine was 4,100, which I was very happy with as I made it very clear in the email that I wanted no more than 4,200 for my first visit (this was initially suggested as the maximum in my initial email correspondence with the clinic a year prior). They were very receptive to my suggestions of how I wanted my hairline shaped/how high it should be/how sharp the temples should be, and we all worked together (my Dad included) to come up with an ideal looking hairline. I like how they all collectively took it very seriously; you can tell that they want your hair to be as much of a masterpiece as possible, not just accepting whatever the customer wants right off the bat. It felt like a right bit of teamwork. I know that’s pretty much parr for the course, but it certainly made me feel like this place was worth it.

    Within less than an hour, I was in the operating theatre with one Dr Umut and around 3 or 4 technicians. Sidenote: from here until the end of my trip, the much finer details of my time in Ankara may not be remembered with 100% certainty, as it was from this moment that I spent most of my time with large amounts of anaesthetic in my system, and very little sleep to boot. But hey, all I can do is my best, right? But I will tell you now that it was the following 12 hours, at least for me, that made me truly realise importance of having the best possible painkilling methods on standby for the rest of my visit.
     
    The Procedure
    The sessions were completed in ~2 hour stints, with ~15 minute breaks between each session, starting mid-morning and finishing late afternoon/early evening. Dr Umut and his technicians were an extremely competent team who had clearly been doing this at a high level for many years, that much was obvious. They started on Monday morning with extracting the grafts from the back of my head. My best guess is that Dr Umut was doing all the work on my head whilst the technicians handled the other equipment and the grafts as they were coming out, like an efficient conveyor belt. This meant that I needed to lie face down in a clinical massage table with a face hole. Anaesthetic was applied to my catheter, and they began. The first thing I noticed was the quite jarring yet somewhat amusing sensation of what felt like my head being picked at with a safety pin, over and over (don’t worry, this is not the pain that required the eventual painkillers). I felt about 30 of these before suddenly I was out cold. I thought I had just fallen asleep, but there is no way that even a whole week of sleep deprivation could have led me to a slumber deep enough that it would have blocked out this sensation, haha. But that wasn’t even the painful part; it was coming round about 15 minutes from the end of the morning’s procedure with my face being pressed through the hole from the force of whichever staff member was leaning on me. Not so much that it was sheer agony, but enough to make me realise that, if I weren’t under any anaesthetic, I would usually ask if I could take a break from the discomfort. I guess this appeared to unfortunately be an inevitable part of the procedure, so that the doctor could most accurately approach each graft from the correct angle. They obviously can’t just approach from a seated position next to you. Whist I was still in a daze from the anaesthetic, I could not deny that my face was in an extreme level of discomfort from the pressure of the face hole rim on my cheeks, chin, but mainly, my forehead. I must have been experiencing that pressure for nearly 2 hours whilst out. I decided to eventually tell the staff that my face was very uncomfortable, and they supplied me with a soft blanket to soften the area where my face was, and Dr Umut told me that he would be nearly done. When he finally finished, we took our 15 minute break, and I took a moment to see the indentation and redness of my face. Not pleasant, but that’s what you gotta go through if you want this procedure, there’s no way around it, I don’t think. It may affect some people more than others, but for myself, it was not a pleasant experience. But hey man, I just kept in mind that this whole process was all in the name of turning me into the beautiful and elegant princess I was always supposed to be. Suffer for the art, trust the process.

    By the end of the day, having ‘slept’ through most of the 2-hour stints, I had a donor area with quite a few holes, and a nice square of implanted grafts in my scalp, about half completed. It looked just how I imagined it would, only with surprising lack of excessive blood or pain. The techs bandaged me up and gave me some steroid and gastro-focused tablets to take. I then had a quick chat with Dr Umut. He gave me some Ibuprofen tablets (Suprafen) and spoke to me about the importance of sleeping not on your side, but on your back, with your head elevated above heart level. After a quick chat and laugh with the other patients and Ebru in the post op/waiting room, my dad and I retired to the hotel for the evening to eat pizza and watch the footy before heading to bed.

    The worst headache I have experienced in my life
    I’ve suffered from headaches throughout my adult life. Many of them (well, most of them) are self-inflicted through my enjoyment of a bit of a party now and again, so I’m not expecting any sympathy there. It goes with the territory, and whilst I’m not happy when I am experiencing them, they are like badges of honour, like medals for bravery. Plus, whenever I have them really bad, they are usually concentrated in one area of the head (back of the neck, behind the left eye, behind the right ear, etc.), I usually just take some painkilling combination and happily float through the day. However, the moment I decided to go to bed in the semi-upright position that was recommended to me, I realised that there would be no sleeping any time soon, for as the last of the anaesthetic finally wore off, a tiny dull ache behind my eyes slowly crept in. Unfortunately for me, this pain didn’t subside, but spread around my head, and it slowly evolved into one of the most intense headaches I can ever remember having. It was the entirety of my head and neck. I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself, and I attempted to take some walks around the room. No use, it got worse and worse until I was pretty much unable to speak normally or sit/stand with any sort of comfort or relief, and I was getting extremely irritable at the slightest inconveniences which must not have been pleasant. Bless my poor Dad, neither of us knew what to do. We agreed to ask reception at about 11pm to see if there was anyone around who could assist me somehow. Dad came back from reception with the receptionist and one of the nurses on night shift. They saw my state and knew something wasn’t right, and the nurse decided to see to it that I was looked after by taking us to the clinic for the evening to try some different methods. We made extensive use of Google translate for our communication, and they even turned the lights out in the hotel corridor and offered to physically guide me, as I was super sensitive to any light and couldn’t really open my eyes.

    We got to the clinic and she took me into a room with a hospital style bed in a reclined position. I got onto the bed, and after some brief questioning, she connected my canular to a drip, to which she added a painkilling solution. She made sure that she would be present and gave me a button to press if me or my dad had any more concerns and needed her. I tried to just lay there and get some sleep with a neck pillow around me, sat with about 4 pillows behind me, my Dad sat next to me, half keeping vigilant of me and half dozing off. But it was no use, it was just an all-consuming pain that didn’t even remotely cease. I just sorta sat there shaking my head in passive resignation at my situation. After all, what else could I do? I’d already been trying to sleep and taken the Suprafen and whatever the night nurse had administered, and so far, nothing had changed. After an hour, the nurse came back and asked how I was feeling, and I was totally honest with her and said that I didn’t feel much different than before. I asked politely if there was anything stronger that I would be allowed. From what my dad remembers, she obliged and came back with a large tube of clear liquid and applied it directly to my canular. After this, I know that I managed to catch at least a couple of hours of light sleep. I woke up at about 3am, feeling the slightest bit better and generally more able. I could muster a light joke with the night nurse and my dad, but that was about it. I was just thankful the worst of it might have actually finally been over. I was assisted back to my hotel room, and I thanked the staff for their time.

    My intention is not to scare anyone, but simply to relay may experience so that people can best prepare in the eventuality that something similar starts to happen to them if they go through the procedure. I still wonder now what the overall causes may have been; general swelling reaction from the invasive traumatic procedure, a more pronounced and obvious inflammation that precedes my usual headaches, a bad reaction to a foreign object piercing my skin, the constant pressure from my face being pressed into the table hole, a negative reaction to the initial administering of anaesthesia… a combination of all of them? None of them?! We’ll never know, but all I will say to you is this: do not ever hesitate to enquire about at least preparing yourself with the most potent, highest dosage of painkillers that you are medically allowed to take, just in case. If there is a medically and clinically sound way of warding off any pain that you may have to go through unnecessarily, don’t grin and bear it, there’s no point. I’d hate for someone to have to experience the same sensations that I experience, particularly if it was always avoidable. I’m not saying you should dose up on large amounts of codeine or morphine at the slightest ache. Just don’t needlessly suffer. Speak to the clinic and be as honest as possible, they get everything that they administer approved by a doctor, and they are ALWAYS looking to make sure you have the most comfortable experience possible, within reason.
     
    The Following Day
    I woke up from a very broken sleep feeling about 50% better. Dad even noticed my face was looking a lot brighter. We went for breakfast, and I spoke to many of the other patients that I had become acquainted with. Some had heard about my experiences from the night before, and I explained in better detail what went on. None of them had experienced anything similar overnight. Some had slight headaches, yes, but nothing that required attention, thankfully. One of my fellow patients that we got friendly with gave me a melatonin tablet for the following night, just in case (if you’re reading this mate, thanks a lot!). It was also very physically obvious that I had reacted severely to the procedure as the day went on, as we all noticed that my forehead and eye area began to swell right up, I looked like Lakitu’s cloud or something. Wasn’t painful, just very tight around the top half of my head, and very puffy/soft around my under eyes. I got a huge amount of discolouration too, like I had two black eyes. Incredibly attractive, I know. But I didn’t care. For me, the head pain no longer being there made me feel like a million quid. The second day was very much a slight repeat of the first day: breakfast, followed by surgery with breaks and snacks and a few chats with fellow patients. Only this time, I was told I no longer needed to put my face in the face hole, and that I could rest my head on its side for the remaining extractions. Bliss!

    So, despite initially being told I needed three days for the operation, they actually managed to complete the process in two days. In the end, the total number of grafts used was 4,108. I know it was only the first day, but I could tell that the placement of the grafts was painstakingly done. It was very neat and the density seemed to be very thick in comparison to other examples I have seen. When everything was over, I asked about any other type of oral painkiller that I could take during the night, in the event that I experienced the pain again. They managed to sign off on some tablets called Arveles (Dexketoprofen). I got to spend the rest of my day just chilling in my hotel room, feeling five times better than the night before, and my Dad and I ordered some food from one of the local restaurants whilst watching some more footy. Once again, I started to feel a headache creeping in. I took one of my Arvales tablets as a precautionary measure. I can’t quite remember how long after I took the tablet it was, but whilst we were watching Welcome To Wrexham, the headache suddenly stopped dead in its tracks, and the pain was reduced to an ever so slight ache at the back of my head that could easily have been the surface of my donor area recovering, rather than something deeper. I felt so relieved. Sleep looked like it could finally be on the cards for me that evening.

    However, the next big struggle (which is still a bit of a struggle even today), was trying to get myself some sleep as a devout side-sleeper. I have never been able to sleep lying on my back horizontally, let alone sat upright with a neck pillow. The fact that I couldn’t rest the side of my head on a soft surface meant that I was pretty much wide awake for the next 6 hours, trying to somehow bore/tire myself out enough to just conk out. This, I’m afraid, is something I have no advice for. I knew from the forums that sleep would be very difficult for a good few days after the surgery, but there is no known safe method for side-sleepers of ensuring that you get some good sleep for the days following the procedure, unless you just somehow learn to be happy with sleeping on your back. I think it was partially my fault, to be honest, as I was possibly a tad overcautious about applying pressure to my donor area. I didn’t want to disturb it at all, so I dared not lay my head back, plus I sat virtually bolt upright in bed against the wall, so that I didn’t slip into a horizontal position, and perhaps even roll onto my side in my sleep. This adds the extra pain of sitting on your arse all night, causing a deep ache in your buttocks/legs. The kind of position that causes bed sores in long term hospital patients. Not pleasant. But I didn’t want to take any chances on messing anything up after all this.

    The Last Full Day
    After meeting with Dr Umut for one last time to receive my aftercare package & medicine routine. I asked some final questions of him. For anyone who is curious, these were his answers to my questions:

    ‘Yes, we can send you your photos that we took, your receipt and medical documents via WeTransfer’

    ‘No, you will not need to wear any more bandages from now on’

    ‘No, you cannot wear any wooly/beanie hat, or helmet, until at least 4 weeks after surgery. You may only wear a loose fitting baseball cap or hood, but very infrequently’

    ‘No, you cannot exercise/lift at the gym before a minimum of 4 weeks. But you may gently run/cycle after 2 weeks’

    ‘Yes, you can now start drinking some alcohol, but do not get drunk’

    ‘No, you cannot shower yet, this is only after 3 days, and even then, it can only be tepid water, gently trickled over the recipient area, with no scrubbing and no drying with a towel’

    ‘You must only use shampoo after seven days, we recommend Sebamed 5.5pH shampoo. This can only be gently added to the scalp and then rinsed with tepid water on low pressure, no rubbing or scrubbing’

    ‘’Only gently massage the scabs off after 10 days, using the Sebamed shampoo”

    “Yes, you can go to bed normally after 2/3 days (I obviously decided to be more cautious than this based on how my head was feeling)”

    ‘Yes, only take the Avarles when you feel you are in too much pain.’

    ‘Yes, have a cold water massage twice a day to deal with your swelling’

    He also asked me if I could send to the clinic the one month, three month and six month progress pictures, which I was happy to do. I shook hands with Dr Umut, we bid each other farewell, along with Ebru and any other staff that I recognised, and that was the end of my dealings with the clinic. I now had a day to kill with my Dad before our flight the next day. We took a little trip around the area, just to see what options we had for dinner later (and also to see if there was anywhere to grab a pint!). I snapped a photo of the clinic . When we noticed the building work that they were doing, I joked to my dad that I heard the plan was to remove the back part of the clinic and place it on top of the current clinic, so that it looks brand new. I’m glad he chuckled.
    At this point my headache was nothing more than mild, and I knew that I could keep it at bay with the tablets I had been given. All in all, I am super impressed with how the clinic makes sure that you and your peace of mind are held as the number 1 priority for the duration of your stay, without having to compromise their protocols. They take good care in their work, both in the clinic and in the hotel. The only extra thing I believe could be improved of the service is, of course, the comfort of the massage table in terms of the face. I would be interested to see if anyone else has experienced this kind of thing in their procedures, and if it is perhaps something that is common enough to make clients (and clinics themselves) aware of, so that it can be avoided whenever possible.
     
    Recovering at home
    Since I have been back at home recovering, I have been applying the spray solution to my recipient area every two hours whilst I am awake, and Bepanthen to the donor area every 3-4 hours. I’ve been taking all the tablets at the intervals suggested. There are a couple of experiences and sensations that I think could be of note: firstly, sleeping has been very difficult and occasionally a very frustrating affair. Attempting to compromise your preferred sleeping position in order to get some sleep and not disturb your scalp can be really tricky. All I’ll say is… just hang in there, buddies! My personal choice was to only choose to get a maximum of two hours sleep on the first night, so that I would be just completely exhausted, and therefor catch mini-naps throughout the following days with my head resting sideways on a neck pillow (when my body literally forces me to rest). This way, you can avoid sleeping for the whole night on your donor area if you are feeling protective of it. This is why I booked off a whole 3 weeks of work for the whole process as because of the sleeping pattern and anaesthetic, I knew I would be completely spaced out and useless to the world for 3 weeks, so I could afford to try out my own routine. After 3 days, I felt comfortable to finally recline my pillows a little and rest the back of my head on the pillow, and despite it not being my favoured sleeping position, my lack of sleep meant that I got a full 7 hours which was just unbelievable.
    Secondly, the swelling & discolouration didn’t go down for about 4-5 days after the procedure. This can feel really strange, and even after the facial swelling subsides, there is what feels like a thick layer under the skin encasing my skull that renders it quite numb on the top, but still sensitive at the donor area. Just be as careful as possible with any pressure you end up applying to it. I scared myself on the 2nd day by waking up on my side with my right hand supporting the side of my head. I had to actually peal my hand off the side of my head, and the result was 3 massive ridges in the side of my donor area where my fingers had compressed the squidgy layer overnight. I thought I had completely ruined everything, but it restored after a day. Phew! Just so you know, you will mess up every now and again, but as long as you are mindful of it, you should be just fine. If you can try and keep from donking your head, or scratching it and when it itches, you will be allowing the grafts to heal in a way that will achieve the most desired results.
    Remember, you will ache, and you will itch, especially at your donor area. Medicate only when necessary, but seriously, when it is necessary, just do it! I am currently in the period of being allowed to gently trickle tepid water down my recipient area in order to wash it. No massaging yet, no scrubbing, no shampoo. Just the water, and then letting it drip dry. It’s important to maintain a level of moisture in the first week or so.

    Final Thoughts
    I hope this has been an informative read for anyone considering a hair transplant, and specifically one from HLC. If you have any questions at all about my experiences, please feel free to ask and I will answer them all. I just want everyone to know that just because I made certain decisions and actions that felt appropriate for me, that does not mean that I think that they would be the best plans of action for everyone else. You have to look after your own peace of mind, but all I can do is express my experiences and how they affected me. I would, however, always ask people to have a real, genuine think about the pros and cons of taking various medications to help with the various parts of the process. Don’t just rush into a decision without thinking. Do the research and weigh up properly what would be in YOUR best interests. You know you. Good luck!
    Massive thank you to everyone at HLC for the extremely positive experience, I will provide updates as and when I feel it necessary!

    THE END. WELL DONE YOU.
    • 0 images
  13. HLC, Ankara // March 2023 // 4,108 grafts FUE (Pre-fin, Pre-op, post-op, and 1 week pictures + an extensive journal of my experiences)

    Warning – long post! 
    Evening all! I’ve decided to create something of a detailed post about my decision to get some god damn hair back, and my subsequent experience with HLC in Ankara, to add to the plethora of individual experiences already available on the usual forums. I guess that every bit of experience and insight can be useful when it comes to helping people not only decide which clinics they would like to consider when starting their hair transplant journey, but also to inform people of what they can expect to potentially experience when undergoing this kind of procedure, regardless of which clinic they choose. I’ll be providing as much detail as my memory can serve me to portray a more rounded picture of my visit, and on top of that, I’ll be updating my progress and experiences over the coming months, with pictures to accompany whenever necessary.

    I spent weeks of trawling through this subreddit to find the most demonstrably high quality & reassuring of the Turkish and British clinics. I did my initial research by writing down a list of all the clinic names that I came across, with the aim of doing thorough research into the experiences and reviews of the clients from each of these clinics, searching through endless comments/threads to look for primary experiences only ( specifically for when it came to looking for positive comments, I didn’t care for things like “Oh, I heard that this particular clinic does ________ method”, or “I heard from someone that someone else had a particularly good experience at _________ clinic”). I wanted as reliable, tangible evidence as possible, from primary sources only, which were in no way edited or vetted by the clinics themselves. This led me to steer away from choosing clinics closer to my home in London (clinics are mainly on Harley Street), as whilst the comfort of having such a local contact point during the aftercare phase would have been reassuring, there were simply not enough hard, reliable reviews/pictures of the finished works and experiences from these clinics. Their work could have been great, and possibly better value for money, but what I wanted was a better guarantee that I would be as happy as possible with the results in the eventuality of a successful surgery. This was important to me.

    So yes, after much research, enquiries, and consultations, I was left with offers from HLC and Dr Pekiner, arguably the two most reputable clinics in Turkey. I made a table of all the aspects of the procedure that each clinic had laid out in their correspondence. This included suggested number of grafts, hairline density, price, additions etc. I put them side by side, so that I could compare the two easily. I combined this with pictures that I found on Reddit posts (and later the Hair Restoration Network). Essentially, the two clinics are almost identical in their level of professionalism, their thorough questioning, and attitude with regard to how to treat my hair. The only difference I noticed was that Pekiner was somewhat cheaper, suggested fewer grafts overall, suggested lower density for my hairline, and used a different method to that of HLC. I could have gone for either or, but it was something about the pictures of HLC’s successful work, plus the idea that I could get more grafts without it being a complete disaster, that made me opt for them over Pekiner. Both clinics told me that a full head of hair would require two separate visits at least 6 months apart, and they also requested that I take Finasteride for 6 months before I could be considered as a candidate for the initial surgery, and I decided to try it.

    Finasteride – oral, 1mg per day
    I will keep this bit as informative yet to-the-point as possible. I took the daily recommended dosage of oral Finasteride after doing many bits of research on what it is and what it does (insert videos and Dr Fox link here). The difference that I noticed after a just a few months was remarkable, and also noticeable by others. No more waking up with head hairs on the pillow and chest/beard hairs all over the mattress. I was retaining my hair, and it felt amazing. That’s the thing with tablets, it affects your entire body, rather than just locally. I will supply pictures of what my hair looked like before the finasteride and after 6 months of taking it. Now, in terms of side effects, personally I am always a fan of trying something first, seeing the positive and/or negative ways that it affects me, and adjusting myself accordingly. I didn’t just want to take a daily drug without research, and neither did I want to just reject it outright because of some anecdote I heard somewhere on the internet. Whilst there is risk everywhere in taking any drug, I felt that it would be highly unlikely that there would be any side-effects that weren’t reversible after stopping taking them. I have been taking them every day since November 2021, and I have not experienced a single negative side-affect that has impacted my life in any way. Being as real with you as possible, [warning: genitalia content ahead] my libido has not been affected, I can still maintain an erection, and my climaxing is neither noticeably premature nor delayed. In terms of any other side effects, I am unaware of them as of yet, and if there are any, I will tackle them as and when they come. For now, I intend to take Finasteride for the rest of my life. This is just my personal experience with Finasteride. I am in no way suggesting that you take Finasteride, and I am not suggesting that your experience will be the same as mine, should you choose to take them. I encourage you to do your thorough research so that you can feel comfortable with your eventual decision, and to research any effects of Finasteride on other bodily functions that you may be concerned about, whilst being very careful about which information you take as gospel in your decision-making, including this post!
     
    Heading to HLC
    I was lucky enough to have my Dad decide to accompany me to Ankara for support, which I asked HLC about, and for an extra ~£18 per night, they obliged me. Honestly when I think about it, I feel pretty fortunate to have had some support (for which I will explain a little later). HLC actually prefer you to take Pound Sterling, Euros or Dollars to pay for the treatment, as I believe those currencies are much more stable than the Turkish Lira. You may, of course, pay on card, but there is a significant surcharge for this kind of transaction which I believe is about 10%, and so I decided to take Pound Sterling in cash. It’s something for you to think about, anyway. But with the ~£750 deposit secured and the ~£130 package [driver, accommodation, food and medication] saved up, I booked in August 2022 for early January 2023. This was later changed by me to 27th March, as I feared my new financial situation at the time would leave me short of cash for the journey. This turned out to be the best choice in the end. They claim that they can only book dates 6 months in advance maximum, so if you want to book, for example, to have the procedure on February 1st 2024, you will have to wait until 1st August 2023 to make the booking. As for the minimum amount of time you need to book, I am not sure. If they have a space for you, for example, the following week due to a cancelation, they could potentially offer it to you at a discounted rate, the amount of which would be decided by the clinic. You can receive a refund if you decide to completely cancel your procedure for whatever reason, however if you decide to cancel any time later than 14 days before your procedure, you won’t be able to claim a full refund on your deposit. Instead, you can merely postpone your surgery to a later date and use the deposit to secure that date. The deposit ends up going towards the total amount for your surgery.

    So, me and my Dad arrive at Ankara on the 26th March, and as planned, the driver is waiting for us. Pleasant lad, pleasant drive. The drive from the airport to Ankara is about 30-40 minutes. Ankara is a very intriguing city to look at as a Westerner (especially if the furthest east you have ever travelled is Croatia!). I was fascinated at mish-mash of landscapes, architecture and even pavement styles that were all within minutes of one another. To me it felt like a hundred different types of places mixed in to one place, if that makes sense? (possibly not). Anyway, we arrived at HLC, which is made up of the clinic itself, and the hotel & canteen directly next to it. From the moment we get there, the staff are incredibly friendly and willing to help. There was a slight bit of confusion at the start when they forgot to supply a double room to accommodate both me and my Dad. This meant that me and my Dad had to share a bed in a single room for the first night, which was pretty hilarious but we’re both pretty conservative sleepers, so there was no fighting for bed space/duvet or anything like that. However, the Patient Coordinator Ebru (who I will speak about later) was very apologetic and offered to move us to a larger room with two beds for the night of remaining three nights. HLC offer one repeated style of breakfast and then various lunches daily as part of the surgery package that you can pay for (pictured). They were more than happy to let my Dad have the breakfasts & lunches at no extra cost. Nice touch. We snooped around town in the evening to find a nice restaurant to eat at, and we ended up at a restaurant called Bohem, whose pizzas I highly recommend!

    Getting Prepped
    On the first day of the surgery, I met the patient coordinator Ebru in the clinic, and also the team of technicians. Ebru greets the clients, makes them feel at home, keeps them in the loop about the different stages of their procedure, shows them where to go, and is there to answer questions & translate in the event that it’s needed. Ebru is very smiley and is constantly rushing back and forth trying to organise everyone that is both in her immediate company & also contacting her via email/Whatsapp, yet she is always happy to stop and help you if you have any queries and does so without making you feel like you are interrupting some important business. She is also a sugary treat enthusiast, and makes sure everyone is kept occupied in the waiting room by topping up numerous plates with various Turkish biscuits and cakes that she enjoys, most of which I became extremely partial to. Shout out to Pop Keks, if you like your sweets, these are the absolute business. (In the pictures there's a small array of the various lovely treats you can get around the local area). I spent a small amount of time chatting with other patients in the waiting room about their planned procedures before I was called into another room.

    Once I had my photos taken, initial blood tests taken and my canular implanted, they shaved my head and several doctors took a while to establish the most appropriate hairline for me, and when I was happy with their plan, they established a more accurate number of grafts that they intended to implant. Mine was 4,100, which I was very happy with as I made it very clear in the email that I wanted no more than 4,200 for my first visit (this was initially suggested as the maximum in my initial email correspondence with the clinic a year prior). They were very receptive to my suggestions of how I wanted my hairline shaped/how high it should be/how sharp the temples should be, and we all worked together (my Dad included) to come up with an ideal looking hairline. I like how they all collectively took it very seriously; you can tell that they want your hair to be as much of a masterpiece as possible, not just accepting whatever the customer wants right off the bat. It felt like a right bit of teamwork. I know that’s pretty much parr for the course, but it certainly made me feel like this place was worth it.

    Within less than an hour, I was in the operating theatre with one Dr Umut and around 3 or 4 technicians. Sidenote: from here until the end of my trip, the much finer details of my time in Ankara may not be remembered with 100% certainty, as it was from this moment that I spent most of my time with large amounts of anaesthetic in my system, and very little sleep to boot. But hey, all I can do is my best, right? But I will tell you now that it was the following 12 hours, at least for me, that made me truly realise importance of having the best possible painkilling methods on standby for the rest of my visit.
     
    The Procedure
    The sessions were completed in ~2 hour stints, with ~15 minute breaks between each session, starting mid-morning and finishing late afternoon/early evening. Dr Umut and his technicians were an extremely competent team who had clearly been doing this at a high level for many years, that much was obvious. They started on Monday morning with extracting the grafts from the back of my head. My best guess is that Dr Umut was doing all the work on my head whilst the technicians handled the other equipment and the grafts as they were coming out, like an efficient conveyor belt. This meant that I needed to lie face down in a clinical massage table with a face hole. Anaesthetic was applied to my catheter, and they began. The first thing I noticed was the quite jarring yet somewhat amusing sensation of what felt like my head being picked at with a safety pin, over and over (don’t worry, this is not the pain that required the eventual painkillers). I felt about 30 of these before suddenly I was out cold. I thought I had just fallen asleep, but there is no way that even a whole week of sleep deprivation could have led me to a slumber deep enough that it would have blocked out this sensation, haha. But that wasn’t even the painful part; it was coming round about 15 minutes from the end of the morning’s procedure with my face being pressed through the hole from the force of whichever staff member was leaning on me. Not so much that it was sheer agony, but enough to make me realise that, if I weren’t under any anaesthetic, I would usually ask if I could take a break from the discomfort. I guess this appeared to unfortunately be an inevitable part of the procedure, so that the doctor could most accurately approach each graft from the correct angle. They obviously can’t just approach from a seated position next to you. Whist I was still in a daze from the anaesthetic, I could not deny that my face was in an extreme level of discomfort from the pressure of the face hole rim on my cheeks, chin, but mainly, my forehead. I must have been experiencing that pressure for nearly 2 hours whilst out. I decided to eventually tell the staff that my face was very uncomfortable, and they supplied me with a soft blanket to soften the area where my face was, and Dr Umut told me that he would be nearly done. When he finally finished, we took our 15 minute break, and I took a moment to see the indentation and redness of my face. Not pleasant, but that’s what you gotta go through if you want this procedure, there’s no way around it, I don’t think. It may affect some people more than others, but for myself, it was not a pleasant experience. But hey man, I just kept in mind that this whole process was all in the name of turning me into the beautiful and elegant princess I was always supposed to be. Suffer for the art, trust the process.

    By the end of the day, having ‘slept’ through most of the 2-hour stints, I had a donor area with quite a few holes, and a nice square of implanted grafts in my scalp, about half completed. It looked just how I imagined it would, only with surprising lack of excessive blood or pain. The techs bandaged me up and gave me some steroid and gastro-focused tablets to take. I then had a quick chat with Dr Umut. He gave me some Ibuprofen tablets (Suprafen) and spoke to me about the importance of sleeping not on your side, but on your back, with your head elevated above heart level. After a quick chat and laugh with the other patients and Ebru in the post op/waiting room, my dad and I retired to the hotel for the evening to eat pizza and watch the footy before heading to bed.

    The worst headache I have experienced in my life
    I’ve suffered from headaches throughout my adult life. Many of them (well, most of them) are self-inflicted through my enjoyment of a bit of a party now and again, so I’m not expecting any sympathy there. It goes with the territory, and whilst I’m not happy when I am experiencing them, they are like badges of honour, like medals for bravery. Plus, whenever I have them really bad, they are usually concentrated in one area of the head (back of the neck, behind the left eye, behind the right ear, etc.), I usually just take some painkilling combination and happily float through the day. However, the moment I decided to go to bed in the semi-upright position that was recommended to me, I realised that there would be no sleeping any time soon, for as the last of the anaesthetic finally wore off, a tiny dull ache behind my eyes slowly crept in. Unfortunately for me, this pain didn’t subside, but spread around my head, and it slowly evolved into one of the most intense headaches I can ever remember having. It was the entirety of my head and neck. I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself, and I attempted to take some walks around the room. No use, it got worse and worse until I was pretty much unable to speak normally or sit/stand with any sort of comfort or relief, and I was getting extremely irritable at the slightest inconveniences which must not have been pleasant. Bless my poor Dad, neither of us knew what to do. We agreed to ask reception at about 11pm to see if there was anyone around who could assist me somehow. Dad came back from reception with the receptionist and one of the nurses on night shift. They saw my state and knew something wasn’t right, and the nurse decided to see to it that I was looked after by taking us to the clinic for the evening to try some different methods. We made extensive use of Google translate for our communication, and they even turned the lights out in the hotel corridor and offered to physically guide me, as I was super sensitive to any light and couldn’t really open my eyes.

    We got to the clinic and she took me into a room with a hospital style bed in a reclined position. I got onto the bed, and after some brief questioning, she connected my canular to a drip, to which she added a painkilling solution. She made sure that she would be present and gave me a button to press if me or my dad had any more concerns and needed her. I tried to just lay there and get some sleep with a neck pillow around me, sat with about 4 pillows behind me, my Dad sat next to me, half keeping vigilant of me and half dozing off. But it was no use, it was just an all-consuming pain that didn’t even remotely cease. I just sorta sat there shaking my head in passive resignation at my situation. After all, what else could I do? I’d already been trying to sleep and taken the Suprafen and whatever the night nurse had administered, and so far, nothing had changed. After an hour, the nurse came back and asked how I was feeling, and I was totally honest with her and said that I didn’t feel much different than before. I asked politely if there was anything stronger that I would be allowed. From what my dad remembers, she obliged and came back with a large tube of clear liquid and applied it directly to my canular. After this, I know that I managed to catch at least a couple of hours of light sleep. I woke up at about 3am, feeling the slightest bit better and generally more able. I could muster a light joke with the night nurse and my dad, but that was about it. I was just thankful the worst of it might have actually finally been over. I was assisted back to my hotel room, and I thanked the staff for their time.

    My intention is not to scare anyone, but simply to relay may experience so that people can best prepare in the eventuality that something similar starts to happen to them if they go through the procedure. I still wonder now what the overall causes may have been; general swelling reaction from the invasive traumatic procedure, a more pronounced and obvious inflammation that precedes my usual headaches, a bad reaction to a foreign object piercing my skin, the constant pressure from my face being pressed into the table hole, a negative reaction to the initial administering of anaesthesia… a combination of all of them? None of them?! We’ll never know, but all I will say to you is this: do not ever hesitate to enquire about at least preparing yourself with the most potent, highest dosage of painkillers that you are medically allowed to take, just in case. If there is a medically and clinically sound way of warding off any pain that you may have to go through unnecessarily, don’t grin and bear it, there’s no point. I’d hate for someone to have to experience the same sensations that I experience, particularly if it was always avoidable. I’m not saying you should dose up on large amounts of codeine or morphine at the slightest ache. Just don’t needlessly suffer. Speak to the clinic and be as honest as possible, they get everything that they administer approved by a doctor, and they are ALWAYS looking to make sure you have the most comfortable experience possible, within reason.
     
    The Following Day
    I woke up from a very broken sleep feeling about 50% better. Dad even noticed my face was looking a lot brighter. We went for breakfast, and I spoke to many of the other patients that I had become acquainted with. Some had heard about my experiences from the night before, and I explained in better detail what went on. None of them had experienced anything similar overnight. Some had slight headaches, yes, but nothing that required attention, thankfully. One of my fellow patients that we got friendly with gave me a melatonin tablet for the following night, just in case (if you’re reading this mate, thanks a lot!). It was also very physically obvious that I had reacted severely to the procedure as the day went on, as we all noticed that my forehead and eye area began to swell right up, I looked like Lakitu’s cloud or something. Wasn’t painful, just very tight around the top half of my head, and very puffy/soft around my under eyes. I got a huge amount of discolouration too, like I had two black eyes. Incredibly attractive, I know. But I didn’t care. For me, the head pain no longer being there made me feel like a million quid. The second day was very much a slight repeat of the first day: breakfast, followed by surgery with breaks and snacks and a few chats with fellow patients. Only this time, I was told I no longer needed to put my face in the face hole, and that I could rest my head on its side for the remaining extractions. Bliss!

    So, despite initially being told I needed three days for the operation, they actually managed to complete the process in two days. In the end, the total number of grafts used was 4,108. I know it was only the first day, but I could tell that the placement of the grafts was painstakingly done. It was very neat and the density seemed to be very thick in comparison to other examples I have seen. When everything was over, I asked about any other type of oral painkiller that I could take during the night, in the event that I experienced the pain again. They managed to sign off on some tablets called Arveles (Dexketoprofen). I got to spend the rest of my day just chilling in my hotel room, feeling five times better than the night before, and my Dad and I ordered some food from one of the local restaurants whilst watching some more footy. Once again, I started to feel a headache creeping in. I took one of my Arvales tablets as a precautionary measure. I can’t quite remember how long after I took the tablet it was, but whilst we were watching Welcome To Wrexham, the headache suddenly stopped dead in its tracks, and the pain was reduced to an ever so slight ache at the back of my head that could easily have been the surface of my donor area recovering, rather than something deeper. I felt so relieved. Sleep looked like it could finally be on the cards for me that evening.

    However, the next big struggle (which is still a bit of a struggle even today), was trying to get myself some sleep as a devout side-sleeper. I have never been able to sleep lying on my back horizontally, let alone sat upright with a neck pillow. The fact that I couldn’t rest the side of my head on a soft surface meant that I was pretty much wide awake for the next 6 hours, trying to somehow bore/tire myself out enough to just conk out. This, I’m afraid, is something I have no advice for. I knew from the forums that sleep would be very difficult for a good few days after the surgery, but there is no known safe method for side-sleepers of ensuring that you get some good sleep for the days following the procedure, unless you just somehow learn to be happy with sleeping on your back. I think it was partially my fault, to be honest, as I was possibly a tad overcautious about applying pressure to my donor area. I didn’t want to disturb it at all, so I dared not lay my head back, plus I sat virtually bolt upright in bed against the wall, so that I didn’t slip into a horizontal position, and perhaps even roll onto my side in my sleep. This adds the extra pain of sitting on your arse all night, causing a deep ache in your buttocks/legs. The kind of position that causes bed sores in long term hospital patients. Not pleasant. But I didn’t want to take any chances on messing anything up after all this.

    The Last Full Day
    After meeting with Dr Umut for one last time to receive my aftercare package & medicine routine. I asked some final questions of him. For anyone who is curious, these were his answers to my questions:

    ‘Yes, we can send you your photos that we took, your receipt and medical documents via WeTransfer’

    ‘No, you will not need to wear any more bandages from now on’

    ‘No, you cannot wear any wooly/beanie hat, or helmet, until at least 4 weeks after surgery. You may only wear a loose fitting baseball cap or hood, but very infrequently’

    ‘No, you cannot exercise/lift at the gym before a minimum of 4 weeks. But you may gently run/cycle after 2 weeks’

    ‘Yes, you can now start drinking some alcohol, but do not get drunk’

    ‘No, you cannot shower yet, this is only after 3 days, and even then, it can only be tepid water, gently trickled over the recipient area, with no scrubbing and no drying with a towel’

    ‘You must only use shampoo after seven days, we recommend Sebamed 5.5pH shampoo. This can only be gently added to the scalp and then rinsed with tepid water on low pressure, no rubbing or scrubbing’

    ‘’Only gently massage the scabs off after 10 days, using the Sebamed shampoo”

    “Yes, you can go to bed normally after 2/3 days (I obviously decided to be more cautious than this based on how my head was feeling)”

    ‘Yes, only take the Avarles when you feel you are in too much pain.’

    ‘Yes, have a cold water massage twice a day to deal with your swelling’

    He also asked me if I could send to the clinic the one month, three month and six month progress pictures, which I was happy to do. I shook hands with Dr Umut, we bid each other farewell, along with Ebru and any other staff that I recognised, and that was the end of my dealings with the clinic. I now had a day to kill with my Dad before our flight the next day. We took a little trip around the area, just to see what options we had for dinner later (and also to see if there was anywhere to grab a pint!). I snapped a photo of the clinic ( pictured ). When we noticed the building work that they were doing, I joked to my dad that I heard the plan was to remove the back part of the clinic and place it on top of the current clinic, so that it looks brand new. I’m glad he chuckled.
    At this point my headache was nothing more than mild, and I knew that I could keep it at bay with the tablets I had been given. All in all, I am super impressed with how the clinic makes sure that you and your peace of mind are held as the number 1 priority for the duration of your stay, without having to compromise their protocols. They take good care in their work, both in the clinic and in the hotel. The only extra thing I believe could be improved of the service is, of course, the comfort of the massage table in terms of the face. I would be interested to see if anyone else has experienced this kind of thing in their procedures, and if it is perhaps something that is common enough to make clients (and clinics themselves) aware of, so that it can be avoided whenever possible.
     
    Recovering at home
    Since I have been back at home recovering, I have been applying the spray solution to my recipient area every two hours whilst I am awake, and Bepanthen to the donor area every 3-4 hours. I’ve been taking all the tablets at the intervals suggested. There are a couple of experiences and sensations that I think could be of note: firstly, sleeping has been very difficult and occasionally a very frustrating affair. Attempting to compromise your preferred sleeping position in order to get some sleep and not disturb your scalp can be really tricky. All I’ll say is… just hang in there, buddies! My personal choice was to only choose to get a maximum of two hours sleep on the first night, so that I would be just completely exhausted, and therefor catch mini-naps throughout the following days with my head resting sideways on a neck pillow (when my body literally forces me to rest). This way, you can avoid sleeping for the whole night on your donor area if you are feeling protective of it. This is why I booked off a whole 3 weeks of work for the whole process as because of the sleeping pattern and anaesthetic, I knew I would be completely spaced out and useless to the world for 3 weeks, so I could afford to try out my own routine. After 3 days, I felt comfortable to finally recline my pillows a little and rest the back of my head on the pillow, and despite it not being my favoured sleeping position, my lack of sleep meant that I got a full 7 hours which was just unbelievable.
    Secondly, the swelling & discolouration didn’t go down for about 4-5 days after the procedure. This can feel really strange, and even after the facial swelling subsides, there is what feels like a thick layer under the skin encasing my skull that renders it quite numb on the top, but still sensitive at the donor area. Just be as careful as possible with any pressure you end up applying to it. I scared myself on the 2nd day by waking up on my side with my right hand supporting the side of my head. I had to actually peal my hand off the side of my head, and the result was 3 massive ridges in the side of my donor area where my fingers had compressed the squidgy layer overnight. I thought I had completely ruined everything, but it restored after a day. Phew! Just so you know, you will mess up every now and again, but as long as you are mindful of it, you should be just fine. If you can try and keep from donking your head, or scratching it and when it itches, you will be allowing the grafts to heal in a way that will achieve the most desired results.
    Remember, you will ache, and you will itch, especially at your donor area. Medicate only when necessary, but seriously, when it is necessary, just do it! I am currently in the period of being allowed to gently trickle tepid water down my recipient area in order to wash it. No massaging yet, no scrubbing, no shampoo. Just the water, and then letting it drip dry. It’s important to maintain a level of moisture in the first week or so.

    Final Thoughts
    I hope this has been an informative read for anyone considering a hair transplant, and specifically one from HLC. If you have any questions at all about my experiences, please feel free to ask and I will answer them all. I just want everyone to know that just because I made certain decisions and actions that felt appropriate for me, that does not mean that I think that they would be the best plans of action for everyone else. You have to look after your own peace of mind, but all I can do is express my experiences and how they affected me. I would, however, always ask people to have a real, genuine think about the pros and cons of taking various medications to help with the various parts of the process. Don’t just rush into a decision without thinking. Do the research and weigh up properly what would be in YOUR best interests. You know you. Good luck!
    Massive thank you to everyone at HLC for the extremely positive experience, I will provide updates as and when I feel it necessary!

    THE END. WELL DONE YOU.
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  14. Pre Surgery

    My Pre surgery pictures
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  15. FUT at HRI of Minnesota (Dr Gary Petrus)

    55yo M. Minnesota. 2300-graft FUT . These are my photos before, at 6 months and 10 months.
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  16. Gabel FUE Before and After (2 sessions: hairline / hairline and beard)

    Posting before photos, session 1 results, and session two to come shortly. Dr Gabel is far and away the best surgeon, hence why I’ve gone to him twice. He’s honest, ethical, cares about EVERY minor detail, and hands down does the best design and implementation. Each session took upwards of 12 hours for only 2000 grafts each time. Nothing is rushed, he handles all of the incisions and extractions personally, with a highly qualified team of assistants to maintain efficiency. Will update in a few days or weeks as my new results come in.
    Let me say it one more time - Dr Gabel is as good as they come. I never take the time to post on review sites or blogs, however I truly want each of you to have a great experience as hair transplants truly need to be done perfectly. I am an avid researcher in all regards, and would be happy to explain why I chose Dr Gabel in Portland in the first place. Shoot me a message anytime - will update this thread shortly.
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  17. Asmed Clinic Apr 2022 ~5,000 grafts

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  18. Post HT status at 15 days

     
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  19. DR HANS HEINICKE - Doctor presentation and start showing cases of hair transplantation - 2364 GRAFTS - ANDROGENETIC ALOPECIA NW III

    Hello, I am a patient and also the community manager of the   doctor Hans Heinicke , who I want to present you.

    He is a good opportunity for people from   Europe and USA   who want a reliable doctor with top quality.
    Hans Heinicke is regarded as a top-notch doctor in Spain with 11 years of experience with amazing results. Also he is going to open very soon a new clinic in   Peru   and he will spend some of his time there as well as in   Spain .
    For any questions, consult or make an appointment with the doctor:
    Website: injertoscapilaresfue.com
    Whatsapp: +34 691040944
    Mail:   info@injertoscapilaresfue.com
    Results in YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCD4aMv4YTqVV3Av3dNClwMw
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