ScientistGuy

No problem, I wish someone was there to send me a reply during that situation! Oh yes, that reminds me, I did also have that pinching randomly. The pinches came and went for more than 14 days (maybe 3 weeks to 4 weeks), but that was MUCH better than the pain in the back I'm sure you will agree. My doctor had no information on this post-op either. Don't let the doctor tell you this is "super rare". I think that is a BS answer and not true. All the doctors online acted so "confused" and "shocked" at the pain when people would post online and it surprised me that these experts in hair surgery were so clueless. The fact that your pain is 2 out of 10 now at times is great. When you start noticing pain reduction then take that as a great sign.

I had my FUE hair transplant in June of this year... so about 4 months ago. After surgery I experienced severe pain in the back of my head, and when I researched it... information was surprisingly lacking. The pain was as you said around an 8. It would get much more severe closer to bed time, but during the day time the pain was like a 3 or 4. Sleeping was brutal, I had to sleep on a inflatable J-shaped pillow sandwiched between another pillow in such a way that the back of my head was "floating" to reduce the amount of contact the back of my head had. Everything I did read said that experiencing such pain was extremely rare and only occurred in a small small percentage of people. That upset me because I felt a bit alone and couldn't believe it was "that rare" because I regard myself as a fairly healthy person and I went to one of the top doctors in the world in Turkey. Anyways, the pain does go away by day 14. Around day 10, the pain did not subside at all and I was starting to panic because I read a situation where someone had pain for several months and years and had to go on Lyrica for nerve pain. Basically the nerves in the back have to regenerate, and during that process, it causes severe pain. It isn't an infection. I could go more into detail on how the nerves can spiral into a coil like formation and what happens during nerve regeneration but this message is getting too long as is. Please take lots of B vitamins as vitamin B6 helps with nerve regeneration/health. I used Ibuprofen sparingly because it hurt my stomach as well, and lots of aloe vera. By day 14, I was 90% better... just wait 4 more days and tell me how you feel. It was seriously an emotional and painful experience after and I really empathize with you, especially because this is one of the least talked about subjects of hair surgery and literature makes you feel "abnormal" and "rare"... You will be ok, just a few more days!

I actually thank you for bumping this thread because I keep reading how "uncommon" this pain is, but I don't believe that. I am going into my 9th day now after FUE and I am having severe pain in the donor area since day 3. The description others in this thread have given is very similar to mine. Pain is around a 3 to 4 during the day time, but at night before bed, it is around a 7 or 8. Enough to where I cannot lay my head down properly on the pillow. Lots of tension and aching in the neck/base of skull. Clearly some damage has been done to the occipital nerves... I do find it strange that the pain can vary to such an extent based on the time of day and Aleve doesn't seem to help me much. I'm wondering if your pain subsided, and if so, when would you say? 10 - 14 days seems the general consensus...

I am in California, but having no luck with any cities near by as far as the exchange rate goes. Thank you, I did look into your suggestion about the bureau de change. Surgery is scheduled for the week of June 13th, so in two weeks! I definitely plan to share my experience because I feel some details were lacking in other reviews that I would have loved to see answers for... so I plan to contribute in a way that I feel people researching years down the line might appreciate. On a side note: After going through countless pages of reviews on Ataturk airport, I grew slightly anxious and a bit intimidated, especially because I am heading back home two days post-op and wouldn't want to deal with those same scenarios/horror stories. Istanbul Ataturk Airport Customer Reviews | SKYTRAX So I decided to do CIP Prime Class which basically allows you to sit in the lounge, eat, rest, and allows you to enter a special line for expedited customs/passport check in etc. with an assistant who guides the whole process. (Costs around $100 roughly for the CIP service). Istanbul Atat?rk Airport International Terminal VIP Departures Service I figured on my way back home, this would be the most stress free way to go about it; as such, I plan to review that extensively as well.

Thank you for the detailed reply! I did look at online companies but the rates all seemed very similar. At Wells Fargo, I am looking at around 6% in fees to convert the money. I will need to take roughly 7800 euros with me for my surgery (this covers the surgery, hotel, driver transfer fees and post-op medications). So basically 8000 EUR = $8886 USD. Wells Fargo wants $9,424.00 to do this which is about 6% in fees... absolutely terrible. I was thinking possibly converting the money in Turkey because I heard that might be cheaper, but I have zero clue where to go and do that. I will have to email and ask if they also take USD as payment, but I highly doubt that they do.

I am scheduled for surgery with Dr. Erdogan in mid-June and sent my 1000 euro deposit a few days ago, but now I am curious about the best ways to exchange USD for Euro. My bank (Wells Fargo) has a terrible exchange rate, and I read that ATM withdrawals are limited to a max of 1000. Since I am going three days before the actual surgery, I was thinking that I could pull out $3000 over those 3 days from an ATM to help reduce the amount that I would need to exchange from the bank. Has anyone gone through a similar process? Or any advice? Thank you