So after 3 previous transplants I was ready for my end game! My first two were FUT procedures in 2008 and 2009 in Athens which were quite successful at the time but with further recession I went back to the same surgeon now with a clinic in Berlin in 2017 for an FUE procedure and after confusion over payment (they hadn't made it clear they wanted paying in cash and my credit card had a limit less than the agreed price) I only received around two thirds of the amount of grafts I had hoped for. On reflection I think that surgeon would only offer smaller procedures in hope I would keep coming back for more!
After experiencing thinness around my crown which hadn't been an issue before I decided to research other options and discovered that in Turkey many clinics offer as many grafts as possible for a set price. After looking at many results on this and other forums I opted to go with Dr Cinik. I was initially told that due to my depleted donor area I could probably expect 3000 grafts max, but they said they could also use hair under my chin, and I was astounded when half way through the procedure they said they had managed to extract in excess of 4700 grafts! I think this is more grafts than all 3 of my previous procedures combined!
Everything went exactly to plan and my experience with Dr Cinik was so much better than the previous clinics I had been to, who frankly couldn't get rid of me quick enough and offered no aftercare at all.
Over the last 10 years I have been heavily reliant on hair fibres and nobody that knows me actually knows I am thinning, so it was a big decision for this procedure to take the plunge and shave my hair off (my previous procedures had all been done without having to shave the recipient area), but research told me this was the best way to go and I really didn't want to risk poor results after what's happened before. I am now over 3 weeks post op and now that the shedding has occurred it is very difficult to conceal things even with fibres, so my social life is currently on hold! 😂 I really do hope that this will be the last time I have to go through this and that I won't need to rely on hair fibres after this one!
Anyways here are some photos thus far and I will post updates as I go along 🙂