Payam

On 10/24/2018 at 12:15 AM, kw877 said:

Well said. Calling someone unhinged and crazy etc is just cruel. People are spending thousands, sometimes every penny they have got a surgery to improve their lives. Yeah it’s cosmetic but the negative impact baldness can have on someone’s self esteem and quality of life can be massive. It’s why we are all on this forum.

If you don’t agree with his feelings and opinions on his OWN hair and surgery, respectfully disagree and move on instead of name calling and telling him he’s wrong. No one has the right to invalidate payams own feelings about his surgery because they are his feelings and it’s his hair (that he’s paid a large sum of money for). The emotional toll this journey has affects everyone differently. He may not be dealing with it the same as some others but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

In comparison to successful results, he is lagging behind. He may be a slow grower, he may not be. It might improve, it might not.

Going forward, I do think the Asmed website could benefit from being 100% transparent, and informing potential patients straight up that Dr Erdogan won’t be performing the actual surgery. They should divulge the level of training, expertise and credentials of the people that actually are performing the surgery.

Yes, we can research and find out in round about ways but the clinic can’t be dependent on that and should instead make a point of making sure potential patients are fully aware of what to expect.

payam, my advice is to just wait. At the end of the day there’s nothing else you can do until the allotted time has passed. If after 18 months you aren’t happy, revisit it. Until then don’t put yourself through the scrutiny and stress. 

I appreciate it mate, it is not easy going against the grain on a popular surgeon like this, being called everything from mentally ill to dishonest and disingenuous. I hope my thread gives other dissatisfied Asmed patients the courage to step forward, you can PM me otherwise if you want to talk. Anyhow, sorry for the notification spam fellas, I've turned them off as well, I don't like that it is turned on by default. I will take some more detailed pics with a real camera to showcase the issues at the 8th month mark, in the meantime my coordinator has stated that the conversation is over, and Koray has not responded to my pictures for 5 weeks. I only want answers and nothing else from the clinic at this point.

5 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Sorry your unhappy with your procedure. Do you have a thread? If not I suggest creating one and highlighting all of your before and after photos. I can reach out to the clinic on your behalf to find out what happened. With that said, if I’m being honest it doesn’t look too bad, just needs more density, but I personally dont think it looks pluggy, so don’t feel too bad it can certainly be refined and fixed quite easily.

Judging by how blurry parts of the image is it looks like his camera adds softness, I have this issue myself and will borrow a dslr to show the true extent of erdogans work, there are countless doubles and tripples in the first 0.5 cm of my hairline, many are at the very front. For someone with dark thick hair compounded by the low density it just looks awful, we are past the realm of touch up here. 

17 hours ago, HarryHonolulu said:

I have seen some good results from him but I have seen some hairlines that look absolutely terrible, at least to somebody who believes that hairlines should be age-appropriate and not draw attention to themselves.

 I’m not a surgeon but I can tell you what my observations are. It seems that a lot of his hair lines have the following problems.

- they are straight lines ie no natural recession.

- the direction of the hair is eerie and sometimes gives a quiff-like effect.

and the BIGGEST issue, in my opinion:

-  there is no subtle transition from the forehead to the hairline. It gives this bizarre Legoman look and frankly why I never even considered him as a possibility for my transplant.

 I am sure there are people on here that can explain better why his hairlines starts so strongly with no subtlety. Perhaps it has to do with the number of single unit follicles implanted there or something along those lines. 

I always thought of his work as more of a “rug on the head” kind of situation. For some that’s good enough but I’d be happier with a natural, conservative approach rather than a drastic mega session that leaves me looking like wiggin’ John Travolta

It's because Erdogan for whatever reason puts doubles in the very front, i have this issue and many before me, and it can only be fixed with a repair. 

30 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Payam,

Do you really think there was no growth? Even with you spreading you hairline apart making it look worse you can tell the growth is obvious. Also, your growth is slow, but steady and is improving every month something that can not be denied. The problem areas still have several months to grow in, I think it would be appropriate to at least wait the full time before making a final judgement.

Wish i could show it to you in real life, the left side is so sparse i cant slick my hair, it is exactly as bad as the pictures show

7 hours ago, Mick50 said:

I think Payam's situation to a degree is symptomatic of the whole hair transplant industry in general ,there just isn't enough honesty about what can be achieved  with a hair transplant   and the actual results , clinics ,naturally most  would argue, show their best results on their websites, and people who have had great results, myself included, come on here to get admired and congratulated which is great ,but if we agree clinics show their best results, by definition there are results which are not as good and maybe they are more the norm than the home-runs that are proudly shown .

In an ideal world there would also be some pre-phychological screening by the clinics  ,there are some people who are obviously not equipped to deal with having a transplant and all that it entails , in my opinion it makes good business sense anyway to do this ,,as an unhappy unhinged patient with a perceived  bad result can do a lot of damage to a clinic , surely Docs know that a guy losing his hair especially young  guys can suffer form severe depression , and just taking a bit of time possibly with  trained psychologist  to talk through the whole thing would be worth it, because as I say an unhappy unhinged  patient will take down as many people as possible  online etc 

 

Kind of mean calling me unhinged mate, lol. I am voicing my concerns about certain aspects of their methods, yes I am emotional, I went into this with so much hope an excitement and have been left disappointed. But being emotional and rational are not mutually exclusive in my opinion. I will share my feelings when I post, but I'm also trying to take a critical look at the clinic, simply don't believe that "bad transplants just happen sometimes", there must be a root cause and if I'm going to ever do this again I should at least make an attempt at finding that root cause. 

15 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Just to keep things in perspective, Payam has indeed seen a big improvements from months 4-7. I see no reason why things won’t continue to improve when they have improved every month since he’s been updating the thread. It’s hard to appreciate change when you look at the mirror everyday and personally don’t see it. However, looking back it’s quite obvious.

I think you should compare them to month 6 instead. Even in the pics above you can see the problem areas barely had any growth in the past three months.

3 hours ago, jj51702 said:

Btw, payam, have u ever thought about seeing a therapist so you can openly talk to someone regarding some of your thoughts? Sometimes it helps to be able to talk to a neutral party that can help lead you in the right direction. Sometimes it’s hard to get that good advice from our friends and family. Please pm me if you have questions or want to talk to someone.

I really appreciate the concern brother, I will be fine though. As anyone will tell you it sucks when you are speaking to someone and their eyes focus on your hairline, really makes your heart drop and I have been quite depressed over it. I do firmly believe this can be fixed though, there is still a couple of months left of maturation and I am making plans for a surgery to fix this in the meantime, mainly the density and the doubles in the hairline which look especially awful with thick dark hair.

I am being cautious though and won't rush into anything, no surprises this time.

1 hour ago, Gasthoerer said:

Some points are clear to me:

1. So far (!) the result would not be satisfying to me either, but it is not a butchered job. No clinic and no protocol guarantees a better result than this. Actually, it is quite common that for such a big case a 2n round is required. It is unfortunate but happens. 

2a) It is normal for any (!) clinic that they will not give a detailed answer to every status report to any client. Also clinics with less patients per day are often bad in communication. It is a long travel and the clinic can only help you partly though it. 

2b) The way the communication is handled will make future cooperation between clinic and patient impossible IMO. I said this 10 pages ago and in several other threads.

3. Payman was not prepared for a HT and to be honest: Many people are not as the waiting game is horrible. You can clearly see from the initial discussions (Crusts, hairline to low) that there was nth which could calm him down. Not even the worse crusts by a Konior patient (unfortunately the link is broken since the transfer to the new forum) could calm him down or convince him that this is not an ASMED issue.

4. ASMED is a tech and math driven clinic. This approach is borderline to me. Also I do not like the "typical" hairline design of Erdogan which might be just my taste or "partly" the result of the time spend with the patient. I personally prefer more time with the surgeon and paid significantly (!) more money for it (even though also techs are used for extraction and planting!). On top I went to the clinic twice (!) before the surgery day. BUT: I cannot expect a better result due to that especially not in terms of density. 

Hey man, do you have a thread on your HT? Would really like to follow your progress, hope it turned out good for you, were you satisfied in the end?

I disagree on the 3rd point however, I was not ready for the Asmed experience is all. You could blame me for not reading the forums beforehand like Jean, I personally blame the clinic for not being upfront about the whole process. The experience left a foul taste in my mouth unfortunately and I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, it felt like I was on a conveyor belt in the Asmed FUE factory and as much as it pains me to say, it's starting to look like I was right. 

1 hour ago, JeanLDD said:

 

You say this:

"You call it mudslinging but I have not said anything false anywhere about their process"

Then subsequently:

"they clearly changed their model to maximize profits and Erdogan is not nearly as involved in the process any longer, he even leaves supervision to his lead tech. Most patients have no idea of these things because the clinic is not upfront about it"

How in the world can you honestly say they did it to "maximise profit"? Did Hasson and Wong or Rahal decide to use technicians for extraction and implantation to "maximise profit"? Nor is it fair to say he isn't nearly involved any longer, the tech setup has been going on for at least 5 years, and being a surgeon with some of the most patient posted results on the internet, at least A HUNDRED of these say that Erdogan is not involved with extractions in detailed descriptions of the process. Nor does it say in the emails or booking confirmation or the website that he is directly involved. Nor is it industry standard ANYWHERE IN EUROPE for the surgeon to extract the grafts.  It isn't misleading if its the industry standard and the clinic aren't proclaiming that he is involved in it, you are clearly the one being disingenuous.

Nothing I said there was related to name calling, nor was it hyperbole, nor was it a conversation with you because the reality is that you're deluded to the point its like talking to a brick wall and have made your mind up. Wish you well with any surgery you have in future, although I feel for the surgeon that is going to have to deal with having you as a patient.

 

Erdogan was much more involved earlier with his lead tech named Dilek whom he supervised, now he barely enters one of FOUR operating rooms to do the incisions and leaves supervision to Dilek, a tech supervising techs. How is this not raising eyebrows? Is he trying to set a record for most surgeries in a day? Are 4 completely tech driven and supervised surgeries in parallel also the industry standard? If he had been more involved I would have accepted the result, but now of course I worry that maybe it was due to negligence. Of course the assumption when booking a surgery with Erdogan is that he will perform most parts of it or be very involved, how can you even argue this point.

6 hours ago, JeanLDD said:

 

Honestly man it's impossible to have a discussion with you when every other sentence you type is either name calling or hyperbole

9 hours ago, jj51702 said:

Can you post his last response? Is the patient coordinator ignoring u too?

His latest response from a month ago was quite unprofessional, I understand he feels I am trying to sully the reputation of the clinic, but we must be able to discuss the lesser known aspects of his process and the dangers to patients without resorting namecalling and attempts to discredit the patient as Jean is doing here. I have done my research and the fact is Asmed has a number of par results lately when most of their patients are great prospects for a successful transplant, I am compiling a list of these, they clearly changed their model to maximize profits and Erdogan is not nearly as involved in the process any longer, he even leaves supervision to his lead tech. Most patients have no idea of these things because the clinic is not upfront about it. Claiming 90% of the complaints come from me is ridiculous, I have been contacted by several unhappy patients who are afraid of going public as I am due to the obvious.

Erdogan has a responsibility as my physician to explain to me what went wrong despite his personal feelings, at least answer my questions, not give me pointless platitudes and then ignoring me. You call it mudslinging but I have not said anything false anywhere about their process. I think it is important we are open and honest and attempting to discredit the patient is not doing the clinic any favours.

50 minutes ago, jj51702 said:

What did u ask the clinic that they started to ignore you?

I have been updating Koray with pictures asking him what he thinks is happening, last time he answered was over a month ago

On 10/17/2018 at 10:58 PM, BigBen said:

The good thing, Payam, is that Asmed has this 90% surviving grafts guarantee so if you don't get that go back to them like other disappointed patients have done and keep us posted. We appreciate their sincerity so we know how Asmed deals with their not so good results. It's early though, you have to wait at least one year for the definitive result. I know that time goes slow after a HT but there's nothing we can do but wait. In the meantime, remember to eat healthy (including fruit, vitamins...). I'd recommend minoxidil and finasteride which is what most doctors and patients recommend (I don't remember if you use them or not). I have used finasteride since I was 19 or 20 and one month after the HT (as recommended by the doctor) I went back to minoxidil, now foam instead of liquid. I keep buying the shampoo that Asmed use (Seba Med Everyday) because I like it.

I'm not going back there its too risky, you have no idea which techs you are getting on a given day, clearly they have tech teams that perform better than others judging by the results I've seen. We don't know anything about these people, age, education, not even names. They look in their mid twenties at most yet the clinic claims they have at least 5 years of surgical experience? How is that even possible are they pick them out of high school or something?

Clinic is pretty much ignoring me now as well. I'm doing them the courtesy of mostly containing my criticisms to this thread for now. In the end i will know what my yield was.

On 8/13/2018 at 2:16 PM, Mick50 said:

Hi Dr Erdogan, I'm not sure if you have understood the main concern recent threads have  highlighted with your clinic . There seem to be 2 main issues, the first one is the matter of  full disclosure regarding , are patients aware that you will not be doing the extractions  .

 I have looked at your website and in the in the "What We Do At Asmed" it is ambiguous to say the least as to who performs the extractions  ,as I'm sure you are aware it  points out the 'Doctor wears a magnifier on his head " and directly beneath there is a picture of you I presume, with said magnifier ,OK it doesn't directly say you carry out the extractions  but I'm sure you can see how this might cause confusion. Can you clarify   that this potential confusion is cleared up in following consultations and the patient is fully aware what happens at that stage of the transplant ?

  The second issue/concern is    some patients have posted on here that they feel the techs are not properly supervised as you are doing up to 4 procedures per day and you  do not have the time to properly supervise the work they are doing. Can you clarify that it is possible for you to fully  supervise the techs  ?   

    Regards.

  

 

Don't hold your breath waiting for any answers

16 hours ago, BigBen said:

Payam, why do you disapprove his message when many recent Asmed patients have shared exactly the same concerns, including you? You only disagree with him on two subjective points: good results ratio and hairline design.

Regarding hairlines, it's totally subjective, I like Koray's design but I understand that it might look artificial to others. It depends on your original hairline and face considerably, but it's quite different to what Feriduni would do, to name two doctors I asked. I liked Koray's hairline because it looked good on my face. So it's both subjective and it's influenced by your face and original hairline. Mine looks great on my face and it's similar to my hairline before the loss (I keep the temples). If others don't like them, that's okay.

Results? I have seen a few awesome results but also some others that lack density even after one year, you have seen them too. So yes, I agree with you not all but not any are bad. I have realised that some people consider a good result what others wouldn't but I believe that this is partly influenced by two facts. Firstly, trying to cheer up the patients; secondly protecting the doctors' reputation. I find some cases to not be good or bad, but enough and slightly disappointing. I also check the pre-HT photos because it's not the same covering the front than covering almost the full top of the head. I also pay special attention at the front and the overall homogeneity so basic hairstyles can be done and hair looks consistent overall.

I can't comment on my results at all because I had it done just over two months ago. I would say it's going well this far because I see small thin hairs already but it's so early and uncertain at this stage that I consider that it's pointless to try to reach any conclusion and that doing that would confuse me and confuse other people.

No i agree with him, i think looking logically at it you introduce a lot of unknowns with having this many patients a day, everything to maximize profits i guess. I am over 7 months and i have never been this self conscious about my hair, it looks really bad in real life, peoples eyes keep drifting to my hairline when I speak with them and I understand why, my camera adds noise to the pictures making them look better and the hairline softer, in real life it looks like black toothpicks stick from my head. I have to hide the hairline like these two guys, which absolutely sucks but will have to do for now as I can't handle the looks I get, trying to get other opinions in my case from professionals in the field as well. 

11 hours ago, HT0416 said:

It's just my opinion, we all have one. 

Hair transplant are never going to look good if hair grafts look like plugs sticking out. Successful hair transplants are meant to be undetectable.

I am hoping to see some solid results in next couple months.

I mostly agree with you, even if my surgery had a great yield It would probably not look that great due to all the doubles in my hairline, at least it would not look as bad as it does now

On 10/16/2018 at 4:22 PM, Gasthoerer said:

ASMED is not my first choice clinic either but this is certainly not true. 

I agree with Gas, we should be able to criticize the clinic but try to be constructive man, they have certainly had great recent results no doubt

On 10/14/2018 at 3:21 AM, Sean said:

Squidward, you make a great point on saving money.  If surgery fails and you paid 7000$ vs 30000$ then you obviously have more money.  Not a lot of American docs offer refunds nor help, they may try to do repairs again and fail or etc.  you are kind of held hostage.  I can see your point here.  But there are few docs with gaurantees.  You just have to document really well though. 

A lot of docs prey on folks and do not fully inform, just so they can get you in the chair.  I do not believe that I am out to help you storyline at all anymore by some folks in this industry.  Some docs will even try to put words in your mouth when things seem to go downhill.  Business is business.  Be a good documenter and things will be easier.    Best thing is to teach out to authentic repair patients. But try to find ones that are not biased.  

Payam is certainly doing his best here and  hoping things change by the end of the year for him.  At this stage, result is obviously not there yet.  That is a fact.  It is a waiting game and we’ll all see how his clinic responds.  

Money is not the issue for me, lost grafts are much much worse, they are priceless.

While I wish I had kept my cool earlier in the thread as it is easier to antagonize and discard an emotional response, I don't regret arguing that there are a number of recent sub par and what I would consider failed Asmed results, and I still firmly believe that it is due to the techs as the clinic very rarely did badly when Koray and his head tech Dilek had more involvement. It is important for me to look at the facts and get to the bottom of what happened here so that I can plan for the future.

1 hour ago, fortuneplant said:

Wait a couple of months before you make any decision for another operation. Hair takes time to go from stringy to normal.  (I attached my pic. The texture - among others -  is noticeably different between 7th and 11th month.)

A lot of sprouts cannot be seen with the naked eye. I bought a digital microscope on month 4 just to satisfy my curiosity/anxiety that I have hair growing on my head;  you can get one online priced pretty reasonably,  about US$20 tops.

Hey is that you in the picture? What a great result you got, happy for you bro. I really do need a touch up though unless i have an explosion of sprouts which i doubt, but i will wait until month 8 or 9 before i book as i think any staggering sprouts should at least be visible by then. 

Month 7

Probably no point in this update since I've posted so regularly. I took pictures if both sides and some closeups, trying to show the gaps in density with these pictures. Also adding a post op picture for comparison. It makes me sad to see the post op and what I currently have, I think the front is a bit better in terms of growth, the right side looks better than the left which has too few hairs to even slick the hair, I have to cover it. I had more hair on the right to start with though. The full face picture is of the "good" side.  I can't see any new sprouts anymore, not sure how many % of the implanted grafts are growing at this point, I'm sure someone more experienced could make a rough assessment by looking at the post op. I know I have to wait 5 more months before taking action but I would like to plan ahead and book someone right now, I have no problems using toppik on the crown and midscalp, but applying toppik to the hairline is a huge pain and you are constantly self conscious about how it looks, I can't live with that and need to fix it in a couple of months.

19 hours ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Payam,

Are your last photos without concealer?

I have some toppik there, like I said I can't go out without it

15 hours ago, jonyny said:

First of all i m sorry for you. but you are only 7 months.Do you think you wait enough? it's hard at 7 months and  wanna see you final result, my hair started to look better only after 23 months.and bealive me it looks way much better now then back at 7 months.How do you think your hair should look at 7 months? 

It's a bit different though as my issue is graft survival, yours look like most your grafts survived when i looked at your old thread, you had really nice density. I think i can expect some improvement in the coming months, but it won't be enough even for an average result, especially not on the left side where it looks like i had a terrible yield..

I don't understand how you could say this guy had high expectations, with 3000 grafts and 75 micron caliber he should be looking at much much more than that

Took these today. Don't think I can go out without toppik, anyone have tips for concealers? Something that is a bit easier to apply and doesn't make such a mess, from a spray bottle would be nice

A dermatologist should be able to help you, can you show some pictures?