Swooping

Thanks for updating pidda. Your results on recipient should grown in soon, exciting. Do you have a current update of your 3 month donor status? Thanks.

Just came back from Turkey with Dr. Hakan Doganay perhaps interesting for you too read;

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/178374-hakan-doganay-2835-grafts.html.

Anyway your hair color is close to your skin color as it seems from the pictures here. That is good as that gives a better appearance of the hair coverage. I think you should have some pretty good results with 4000 grafts depending on your goal obviously. E-mail your pictures in high resolution to the dr. and he will tell you what is possible depending on your goals. Always handy to ask for 2nd opinion too in my opinion, with a qualified surgeon in your own country. Personally I think 4000 grafts is the maximum spread over 2 days with FUE. I wouldn't go higher. Make sure you are certainly sure like you mention that your hairloss is at least somewhat stabilized. Perhaps more people will chime in who are better at assessing pictures visually. Good luck man!

Hey Darren. I just came back 2 weeks ago from turkey. I had a FUE surgery with Dr. Hakan Doganay. You can view my experience here;

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/178374-hakan-doganay-2835-grafts.html

Hope that helps. Educate yourself as good as possible! Good luck.

Nice detailed review, and super work, very neat!:rolleyes:

Where were you staying during your procedure? Any Hotels recommended By doc? and was it near the clinic?

Hey Rawkerboi,

I was staying at the private hospital where the clinic is located. It's not too big of a private hospital. I had my private room there. I took a picture of it;

Was a pretty big room, high hygiene standards obviously. You don't see it on the picture but on the left I had a private bathroom which was very big. It isn't really cozy as you see but that is the least priority I would think of when you go for a hair transplant . In the room there was a TV and WI-FI. They bring enough meals through the day. There is a cafeteria in the hospital where you can get free drinks, snacks and toasts. I liked to stay close because you are just a few meters away from where your operation happens. After the operation you just want to leave as soon as possible to your room to have some rest, at least that is what I have experienced. The adjustable electrical hospital bed is a real plus in my opinion.

When I was touring through Antalya with Muslum he told me that they cooperate with a hotel called Madison Blue I think. That hotel was really close by. There are many other hotels close by too as Antalya especially in the summer is a pretty popular tourist place for foreigners. It's just a individual preference I guess. Hope that answers your questions!

14 days post-op , shed quite allot tiny hairs already. Those were tiny hairs that came off with the scabs. Here are the pictures;

Hey guys, In this thread I am presenting my 2835 FUE procedure with Hakan Doganay (AHD CLINIC). My surgery took place in January over the course of 2 days.

Introduction

I am 25 years old. Mainly active on other forums like baldtruthtalk, hairlosshelp, hairlosstalk and stopaga under the same username. Been around for like 2+ years on these forums. What started as a search to explore my possibilities of battling androgenetic alopecia it also became an interest for me. As much that after finishing a degree in economics I started a study in bio science. I am working on a paper for the NCBI about AGA & senescence currently. Looking into visiting the hair congress later this year and quite possibly setting up a collaboration which is related to FUE multiplication.

Nonetheless, aside from that obviously the journey began primary to reverse my baldness. I managed to maintain and regrow a bit using compounds, while I was definitely happy with that it wasn’t enough. I wanted a better hairline and so did I chose to go for a FUE treatment.

Choosing the doctor

I quickly narrowed my choice to Dr. Hakan Doganay and Dr. Koray Erdogan. I lost some confidence in Dr. Koray Erdogan though. First of all because the communication through e-mail was incredibly slow and abrupt. Funny enough I spoke to someone from the United Kingdom on the last day of my stay at the AHD clinic and he said exactly the same. Secondly I feel that he takes the “safe road” by working with a overestimation and usage of graft numbers.

On the other side the communication with Dr. Hakan Doganay was very good and quick. They answered all my questions in detail & transparency. Not only that they were very open to input from my side which I liked extremely much.

I had 2 important requests prior to scheduling my FUE procedure; First of all that is splitting the surgery in 2 days. They were open to that and it was no problem I liked that because especially with FUE when the grafts are extracted it puts a massive amount of oxidative stress on the hair follicles. The hair follicles reside in a generally moderate to severe hypoxic state (low oxygen) in your skin, removing them from that optimum environment is detrimental. Even if adequate mediums are used like hypothermosal with ATP, mixed with PRP etc. I still think the best option is to minimize the time the grafts are outside the body. Which can ultimately only help with achieving a higher yield. Aside from that there are other positive sides with it too as I experienced in during the 1st operation day which you will read further in my story. The 2nd request of me was that all implantations were performed by Dr. Hakan Doganay himself which they agreed upon too. So the choice was set; a surgery with Dr. Hakan Doganay.

Arrival 1st day;

Landed in the evening in Antalya was picked up by Muslum (representative of Dr. Hakan Doganay), plus another guy of the clinic forgot his name. All went smooth. Arrived at the private hospital, was escorted to my room and I went for a nap as it was becoming late and I had surgery the next day.

2nd day;

Was woken up quite early like 6:30 AM and a nurse came in to take blood of me. They measure your blood for around different values to make sure you are healthy etc. Then later I was supposed to have surgery that day but Muslum came to me that there was a problem. The problem was that a very good friend of Dr. Hakan Doganay passed away and if we could re-schedule my operation. I was fine with that, they gave me 2 options either do a 2x a session in one day. So extract half of grafts the first session, implant them take a break and then resume with the other half. This would still cope with my request of having the grafts stay the minimum time outside of the body. Or they gave me an option to stay 1 day longer and they would obviously compensate the new tickets I had to book. I chose for the first option. Dr. Hakan Doganay also drew my hairline this morning and said I needed 2500 grafts. I had enough donor but I have quite fine hair in the donor area, which I already knew. Dr Hakan Doganay doesn’t really speak good English but Muslum always made sure every question or request I had was translated correctly.

So there I was expecting to have my surgery that day, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible anymore. Muslum came to me and said don’t worry I’ll show you around Antalya today. He picked me up at like 12AM at my room and we went on a tour through Antalya. The weather was like 17 degrees really lovely. We had a drink, walked around the old & new city and enjoyed some Turkish cuisine later. I actually felt like I was on vacation instead going for a trip to Turkey for a hair transplant. Muslum is a really good host and really a relax guy to hang around with. At like 6PM we headed back after a nice day of sightseeing & relaxing in Antalya.

3th day (1500 grafts);

So I woke up in the morning and ate some breakfast. Muslum picked me up and brought me to Dr. Hakan Doganay. Again he inspected my hair, and started drawing the hairline again. We agreed upon 2.5K grafts and opt for a high density because of my thin hair. Then my hair was shaved, blood was taken for PRP etc. and I was brought to a room were the extractions began. All went smooth. They always made sure I was comfortable and Muslum was there often to make sure If I needed something or had some questions. After 1500 extractions there was a quick break and Dr. Hakan Doganay started to implant them all. However during the implantation (almost halfway through) Muslum said that my grafts were popping out too much if the Dr. tried to place the hair follicles in a high density. So I was like damn, and asked Muslum if after all I can stay one day longer and we can split the surgery in 2 days. Hakan Doganay agreed with me that this was the best option. I was quite happy anyway because of that, as you see such problems may also arise. Waiting an extra day would ensure the blood coagulated properly so that popping shouldn’t be an issue anymore. I still don’t know why it was an issue in my case, perhaps because I was a bit too excited and my blood pressure was higher than normal. Nonetheless it didn’t matter anyway. I felt great aside from a brief moment when my anesthesia worked out on my right temple. I stupidly didn’t ask for extra anesthesia but just bit through the pain which felt like a sort of burning coal on my temple for 15 minutes. The injections themselves were less painful for me. After everything was done I was a bit tired though so I just went to my room and relax to prepare for the next day.

4th day (1335 grafts)

Same story, I ate some breakfast and was brought to a room where they started extracting. They extracted 1335 grafts instead of 1000 grafts to my surprise but I didn’t care. We took a break and then Dr. Hakan Doganay started implanting them. There was no problem of graft popping now, which was obviously very nice to hear. This day was very comfortable, I learned from the first day and asked for some extra anesthesia on my right temple after the initial one when I felt the burning again. It immediately relieved the pain and the operation day was comfortable for me. When all grafts were extracted I headed to my room again for some rest and Muslum kind as he is ordered a big pizza for me and him. After that I just laid down and went to sleep.

5th day (washing day and leaving)

Woke up had some breakfast again. Went downstairs to have a wash of my hair. They basically explained post operative care and gave some stuff. Paid the remaining of the surgery and was brought to the airport later.

Conclusion

They handled the problems extremely well and always provided me enough options. They refunded all extra costs I had to make because of this and to my surprise I did not need to pay for the extra 335 grafts, extremely kind. I can really recommend Dr. Hakan Doganay and his staff. Special thanks also to Muslum, he is really a relax kind guy who took care of me and had a real fun day with him in Antalya. I felt they all tried to put their maximum effort into obtaining the best possible result for me.

That was my story guys, I didn’t go over to much detail because the story would have gotten way too big for that. If you have any questions about anything, shoot them and I will respond to you. I’ll be also updating this topic with pictures. Hopefully my result will turn out to be to my expectations.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Graft breakdown

Single: 835

Double: 1200

Triple: 800

Total: 2835

Punch size: 0.7mm , 4mm length

Implantation: Choi pen 0.6 & 0.8mm

I'll update this topic with pictures constantly and have more pre-op and post-op pictures taken myself etc. Just watch this first or 2nd post for updates .

Thanks for reading, comments are appreciated! Again if you have any questions shoot them, whatever that may be!

Way too much gimmick and no innovation in my opinion.

Seems to me to be hypertrophic scarring or something in that sense. Doesn't look right. I think your density was very low to begin with too in your donor area? You shouldn't have one to begin with I guess. Do you have a pre donor area picture?

I can wholeheartedly recommend Dr. Doganay, had a hair transplant with him last week. Will make a topic soon.

Nice.

Question though;

"We also injected Acell + ATP + fresh DP cells in recipient area."

I really can't find myself in this combination aside from ATP. Why do you inject fresh DP cells in the recipient area? How many did you inject?

To me that seems a straight wastage of DP cells as you can't culture them and even if you could they rapidly lose gene expression. Therefore you could better transplant the whole hair follicle. What is your goal with this?

Thanks.

@Splitting hairs I doubt that a motorized punch would matter that much however 5k grafts in one day and letting techs do all the work is very worrisome. I thought he was pretty well known for his good work? Did those issues arise lately? Thanks.

Some more information and photos would be great.

Minoxidil has turned my hair into a brittle mess in a week and I only use it once at night. It feels like as it;s damaging the hair I've left instead of helping. What to do now?

It's still too early to judge by a week however if you feel it doesn't really help you within 3 months I would quit it. Many people don't respond to minoxidil because they lack a enzyme to make it effective; sulfotransferase.

Also take note that you might experience a shedding, but often this is a good sign. If you really think after a while that it isn't effective, then it doesn't make sense to really continue minoxidil. All in all it isn't going harm your hair and the brittle mess can be from the vehicle minoxidil is suspended in (probably ethanol& propylene glycol).

Cool! Yeah, I've read over a lot of your posts and plan on reading over your newest "understanding androgenic alopecia" post when I have a minute. I think some of the new ideas regarding oxidative stress and fibrosis are interesting. I'm not 100% convinced, but I always enjoy reading about new AGA theories. It's obviously a very complicated process, and there are many pieces of the puzzle still undiscovered.

 

You are referring to the Italian donor doubling study, right? I think he further proved the theory behind donor dominance: both the bulge stem cells and dermal papilla stem cells are capable of regenerating some type of functioning follicle. Unfortunately, these studies continue to confirm the fact that these bisected follicles grow thinner hairs. The structure of these follicles, and whether or not they can be extracted, split, implanted, and still show growth, remains unknown.

 

I think donor doubling is going to be my initial research focus when I start my clinical practice a bit down the road!

Yeah sure go ahead, can post it on this forum too if you would like. It kinda explains why reversal of androgenetic alopecia is so extremely hard. Glad that you enjoy it. I agree the exact pathways/mechanism of AGA is yet to be understood, but we are advancing extremely hard lately.

I was referring to the Italian study yes, I really did not expect that cutting a follicle in that manner would yield "regeneration" even if you get thinner hair follicles. That's exciting man! If you ever need a test subject just give me a call man, haha.

Dr Doganay done over 1 day dr did approx 75-80 pc of the implants I was fully awake and only had a local anestetic not general

Hey gibbsville, what do you mean by that? He did only implanted 80 grafts himself?

Hi Swooping,

 

He literally cut them in half. The upper portion contained the bulge stem cells in the outer root sheath (ORS) and the lower portion contained the dermal papilla stem cells from the bulb region. This was done under a microscope with a standard scalpel - as far as I understand it.

 

Are you the same "Swooping" who posts on several different hair loss forums with the same alias? If so, I like your posts!

Yes I'm, thank you appreciate that . Interesting that he still got such a good yield from cutting a hair follicle like that!

What developments have been made in Taiwan?

Hey Matt, if you referring to the trials going on there unfortunately I don't have information about that. The one i'm mostly asking questions/getting educated/updating information with isn't implicated with those trials.

It's a bit off topic anyway but I wonder what has happened to these trials and what the result were/are. I'll try to contact them to retrieve some information. Will let you know.

The future is very dim. I would not expect anything to come out for about 10 years, and if it does, it is a nice bonus. Taking interesting work from a laboratory to clinical studies to trials to actual approval and release is a long, long road.

The primary exciting papers and research lately is coming from countries like taiwan, korea etc. Primarily Asian countries. I'm in contact with one of them. The timelines you are talking about definitely don't apply to those countries.

And how do you know how a person receding in a NW3 at age 25 will bald in the future?

 

And when you are 40-45, you will care about your hair, especially as that is the typical age for a man to get an HT. You will definitely care if you have pluggy looking grafts and are slick bald behind it, especially if you have a strip scar. Spend enough time on the forums and you will meet these men.

 

You ever seen men with frontal transplants who later balded? I have, just saw one this weekend. Have another guy like that at work.

Perhaps I will but by a margin what I do at a young age. That said in 10-15 years, believe it or not there will be way better options available. I'm a extremely skeptical and objective person but considering how the pace and development is going the future is looking bright. With the Taiwanese being the primary example.

While it's true that people are getting HT without meds, that doesn't mean it is advisable. If they are getting side effects from meds, that does not make them a better candidate. You can get hair transplanted, and then watch it recede constantly, and go and chase your loss. Then you will have pluggy looking grafts on a bald head. We haven't even gotten to shock loss yet.

Not everyone balds aggressively. HT's can bridge quite some years for many people who ain't balding that fast without meds. Secondly like I said it also depends on your outlook. I for example will give absolutely nothing about my hair when I'm 40-45 as strange as that may sound to you. Sure it's not the most optimum thing to do, but is it always a bad idea like projected? Nope.

Sorry...I see a few typos just on my crappy cell waiting on my next job but I sure hope you get the jist of what I'm saying here...

HT will always be there I say to young guys don't rush things but at least try Meds & don't believe everything on the web cas most of it is BS...IMHO.

I agree with some points of you, also I agree that using medication is the best option obviously. However some people get side-effects and in some certain situations it is isn't a bad idea to do a HT at all without medication. I remember Erdogan or Hakan quoted that they see more and more people who refuse to go on medication.

If you have troubles with side effects on propecia and don't see a other way around I would strongly suggest anyone to look intro RU-58841. Although it is an "experimental" the compound is way more exciting than propecia. Anecdotally, it seems to do a better job both in terms of effectiveness & side effects.

What certain situations?

Not a bad idea you say ? Why you say that?

So all donor folicals stays alive do they?

If that's the case everybody would be a good canidate then huh?

Let's say OP is 25 years old. He is a NW2-3. Balding doesn't seem to be aggressive. Has a good donor quality. Most importantly the guy values hair more at a young age than at a older age.

If you think in this case going for a hair transplant without medication for example is a bad idea you are completely wrong in my opinion. Seeing as how things develop lately in research the future is looking quite bright too.

The donor follicles don't get affected by androgenetic alopecia. Doesn't mean that they all stay alive in the process of getting a hair transplant and thereafter. But generally yields are extremely high as you know as long as you get a skilled surgeon and don't opt for extremely big sessions.

It depends on your hair situation and your outlook in the future, but also life in my opinion. But yes in certain situations getting a HT at this point in time without using medication isn't a bad idea at all.

Regarding your question about your donor area, when they are transplanted they won't get affected by androgenetic alopecia.

Mariachi,

 

He did, but both the upper and lower part of the bisected follicles produced significantly thinner hair shafts. This brings up an important question: what's better, one thick hair shaft or two thin ones?

 

Growth factors could maybe help, but they are risky. Remember that any element that increases the growth of a follicle can also increase and induce growth of unwanted tissue. For example, vegf does induce new vessel growth and could improve flow to doubled follicles. But what is stopping that same vegf form creating new life sustaining vessel growth to something else, like a tumor?

 

In my humble opinion, we must figure out a way to achieve doubling without growth factors. Risks are simply too high otherwise.

How did he bisect the hair follicles, in what manner?