BLE123

3 hours ago, LaserCaps said:

Let's review this email line by line. A good exercise and one we can all benefit from.  

"I will just post the offers I get as they come in." So you are basing your decision on cost.  Wait a second, maybe not.....

"Erdogan recommends 2300-2500 grafts." What exactly are you getting done? Be specific. 

"I will only let the lead hair surgeon work on my hair not randomer technicians who could be anybody so this clinic is on my list too on that basis. That would work out at 6250 (€2.5) which is within my general budget." I am assuming the clinics you are considering have more than one surgeon.  Does that mean you will end up paying more? Why are there multiple doctors? Do you think the clinic will just hire anyone off the street? My first thought is to find out what education they have.  Who trained them? What experience do they have, etc.  Have them show you photos of results.  It is about results after all.  

The next thing that's somewhat bothersome to me is the fact you just want the doctor to work on you.  This is a comment I typically hear from someone just coming into the industry with little to no knowledge. That's why you come to forums such as this one.  I am glad you are doing this, part of the research.  

The doctor is typically in charge of the surgical part of the surgery.  That's harvesting grafts, closure, and making sites.  It is the Clinical staff who is in charge of placing.  While some doctors do placing, this is best left to the techs.  These are very talented individuals who typically place hundreds of grafts at any one time.  Consistency and results is what is all about.  Ask who has been there the longest and ask if they can be part of the team.  The graft can only go in one way, the way the doctor made the aperture.  How deep is typically discussed during meetings and based on overall results.  So one question I would ask the doctor is what exactly do you do, and how do the techs know how deep to place the graft.  If you let the doctor also do the placing, you'll be there a few days - and you may end up paying more for his time. Besides, doctors typically do not have experience doing this.  Keep in mind the clinic hired the techs they have for a reason, typically experience, demeanor, etc. 

FUE or FUT will depend on many factors including how you plan to keep your hair, what is your overall pattern, ongoing hair loss, etc.  Are you doing any medical therapy to help you with retention of the native hair? Pls post some photos, these will help.

 

Did you read any of his first post? Pics and info are there.

Obviously all doctors have technicians assisting them throughout the process but what he doesn't want is to end up somewhere where it's just technicians doing the work and all the doctor does is draw a line on your head. None of those he shortlisted are like that though(not sure about Yaman), apart from Erdogan depending on what package you choose.

Looks like you're NW3 but with otherwise pretty thick hair. You've already identified some good clinics - I don't know much about Yaman but the others all produce good consistent results. There's no "taking meds for a while", you either stick with them or not at all. I don't see why you shouldn't get a good result and would expect it to take 2500-3000 grafts. 4000 seems a bit high to me.

4 hours ago, ced80 said:

Thank you for your experts comments 😉 

Indeed the surgeon plans to harvest around 2000 grafts from scalp and 1000+ grafts from the beard hair.

I'm by no means an expert but I feel informed enough to know a bad transplant candidate when I see one and unfortunately I think you fall into that category. You have extensive thinning throughout the donor, even if the surgeon did somehow manage to harvest 2000 grafts I wouldn't bank on them sticking around for very long - are you even on any kind of hair loss medication? All I can see is in a few years' time you'll be back to more or less where you are now but 30 grand poorer and with a bunch of FUE scars in the back of your head. I'm really not intending to be mean but that's my honest opinion.

Have you ever looked into SMP? Given you want to wear your hair short anyway and you still have a bit of stubble left on top I think it would blend in well with the SMP giving it a bit more of a "3D effect", you'd also be able to cover the FUT scar to the point where it's almost undetectable. You're also probably looking at a cost of more like 5k rather than 30 and you get the illusion of a pretty full head of hair and no scars. Of course just like with hair transplants you need to do your research to find the right place to get it done but some of the results nowadays are seriously impressive, far more so than what you're going to get out of a hair transplant. 

Like I say though, that's just my opinion. 

Sorry but I don't see where you're going to get 3k grafts from unless you have a lot of beard/body hair to use. Have you consulted with the surgeon yet?

10 hours ago, JayLDD said:

Personally I wouldn't take anyone that puts Bicer or Demirsoy above ASMED seriously. Put simply, their eyes aren't functional or they certainly aren't using them.  Or put more socially acceptably, they lack good aesthetic judgement. Even off the sole basis of success rate. For hairlines Pekiner appears to do good work, although there's not a huge body of work to go off and as others have said he seems to have a larger than average track record of aborted cases (for better or worse) and there are a number of poor results. I would put Keser who he worked with at a clearly higher standard and Keser also has a broader track record to judge from.  HLC is a world class FUE clinic however they have a range of surgeons. 

For the OP, if you're looking for a megasession that covers the entire balding scalp (hairline/mid/vertex) and graft numbers that are potentially 3k+ I would absolutely consider ASMED primarily. If you're looking for mainly hairline refinement Keser and HLC have earned their strong reputations for this.

I know that as an Asmed patient you're going to defend them but if you read my post and not just how I ranked them you'd see that I said that some of the very best results I've seen have been from them, the problem is that they've also had MANY poor results as well - which I haven't seen from Bicer or Demirsoy. I even said that Asmed seem to have picked their game up recently but I still can't ignore all of those high graft low density results they were churning out. At Asmed you could get a 9/10 result or you could get a 4/10, with Bicer and Demirsoy I'd be confident of getting at least a solid 7/10 without much worry. As for Pekiner I've only seen one bad result(the one where his rep tried to lay the blame at the patient) and a sub-par one more recently, as for him aborting cases personally I see that as being the act of an ethical doctor but I can see how it would be upsetting for a patient to go through. 

1. Pekiner
2. HLC
3. Bicer
4. Demirsoy
5. Asmed

That would probably be my order of preference if going to Turkey, it depends on your specific case though. The thing with Asmed is that some of the best results I've seen have been from them but they've also had plenty of shoddy ones too, I think most of those were around the time they opened up their new mega clinic and were just trying to cram in as many patients as possible. Their more recent results have picked up again from what I've seen but that could just be the impression I get from those cases posted on here. The most recurring problem I see with their results is a lack of density behind the hairline, which is surprising as they also typically use a higher number of grafts compared to most - yet their donors pretty much always look immaculate so it's kind of confusing to me. Demirsoy is the "budget" option but despite that I hardly if ever see a poor result from him, always good growth and natural looking results. Bicer and HLC are both very reliable, again I can't recall seeing many poor results. Pekiner's hairline work just tips it in his balance for me, I would say he's the best option for lower norwood patients and he's very conservative with regards to the donor.

Keser I'll leave out for now. His results were among the very best but I haven't seen any recent cases of his and there have been some complaints about him not using microscopes which for some wouldn't be acceptable.

I have the same. When shaved short you can't really notice it and when longer it's ok too but there's a weird middle length where it becomes quite apparent. It doesn't really bother me and at worst it just looks like a shoddy attempt at a fade but I wonder what it means for me down the line? I have otherwise thick hair and only a little temple recession so right now not much to be concerned about but does having retrograde mean that advanced loss is for sure on the horizon? I've still yet to really find an answer to this but anyway, I don't think it should deter you from looking at getting a transplant.

Some doctors say not to buzz up until six months, that seems a bit extreme to me but most agree that you should avoid it for at least a month, preferably three.

Not to be rude but you've just had 700 holes punched into your head, you must have known that it's probably a good idea to let them heal first before taking a razor to them. 

2 hours ago, rgm82 said:

I'm just a little bit confused now because I feel I'm getting contradictory information, the general consensus seems to be that HLC, Pekiner and Bicer and very solid, recommended choices but also not to go near Turkish doctors with a 10 foot pole...so what is the vedict? Can I expect a good result from these doctor-run clinics or no? 

For what it's worth I've already reached out to all three just to get information - Pekiner hasn't responded, Bicer responded once but hasn't followed up, only HLC has actually provided real info - 2000 grafts, 2.7 Euro/graft, 50 grafts/cm2, FUE only (this being a rough estimate based on photos I provided) ...they also offer an optional additional "surgery package fee" for room and board during your stay, not sure if that counts as one of the highly questionable "all-inclusive packages" that some of the disdained hairmills are providing since it is an extra charge, but it's an option

This is more grafts than expected, double the 1000 or so that were prescribed 5 years ago so perhaps I've lost a little more hair since then or perhaps the team at HLC couldn't get a clear picture of what I need from the photos I provided, or maybe a little of both.

I also reached out to Arocha again just for the hell of it to see what he had to say but he hasn't gotten back to me either, so...that's what I have to go on for now

Turkey has more viable surgeons per sq/mile than any other country, it's just that the same can be said for the not so good ones. Thanks to forums like this though we know which ones are doing good work and which to avoid, unfortunately though the good clinics get tarred with the same brush purely because they're in the same country. Pekiner and HLC are the most expensive at around €2.5 per graft or so but Bicer also has a lot of good results lately and is only €1.5, another budget option is Demirsoy who I think gets overlooked despite consistently producing solid results and I think he charges around €1.25(I could be wrong). Asmed are a bit hit and miss but seem to have upped their game again more recently. It's possible to get a good result at a "hair mill" but that's for you to decide whether it's worth the risk.

Just my opinion(so don't shoot) but I think the forum was too quick to put Dr Arshad on the recommended list, he had a few decent results but too small of a sample size and not over a long enough period of time to say that they are the norm. His more recent active cases aren't looking so impressive - hopefully they will turn out good in the end though. I would 100% wait and go with Bisanga and it sounds like the price may even be in your favour to do so. The only proven Dr in the UK is Dr Reddy but of course he comes with a price tag that many can't afford. 

21 hours ago, JDEE0 said:

To be honest, I would suggest forgetting about Harley street clinic, I believe that's where Dr. Reddy worked, but I think he has left/opened his own practice? I'm not sure to be honest, but you mentioned it would be a dr raja doing your procedure in any case. If you absolutely have to stay in the UK, Dr. Reddy seems like a decent choice, he is the only Dr. I would personally let touch my head in the UK, but for cheaper/a similar price you could easily go to the best options in the whole of Europe: Dr Bisanga, Dr Ferudini, Dr Bruno Pinto, Dr Rafael De Freitas, Dr Bruno Ferreira and Dr Ximena Villa is my personal list. 

Agree, Dr Reddy is the only UK surgeon with consistent high quality results.

The very straight hairline isn't really to my taste but the work itself looks very nice as expected from Bisanga.

Looks good but I'm a bit confused by the hairline drawn. Do you have post op pics of the area that was transplanted?

End result looks good either way, Dr Reddy easily does the best work in the UK.

How many grafts did you get?

2284.

I would choose Pekiner from your list.

That video actually made me feel sick.

I would shave and get SMP.

Martin Braithwaite has had a transplant, has a strong hairline but not much growing behind it.

I noticed Kyle Walker was rocking a full head of hair as well but he's running a lot of concealer or something.

Is it just me or is Demirsoy quite underrated? His work seems to be consistently good and at a very affordable price yet he's rarely mentioned when people talk about the best Turkish doctors.

This is another nice result, congrats @GLHF.

What would cause this to happen?

Have you tried cutting your hair shorter to see if that resolves the issue @FinMin20?

Woah, I've never seen a transplant like this before.

That said, I don't really see the massive asymmetry you seem to have a problem with and unless someone sticks a protractor on the side of your head I doubt anyone will ever notice that one temple angle might be a couple of degrees different to the other side. Your friend on the other hand, I'm not sure what's going on with that design. All you can do now is wait and hope for the best, being rude to your doctor isn't going to solve anything.

I'm not even sure where the grafts are meant to be going.

4 hours ago, duchaine said:

your post has nothing to do with guano HT.
We were talking about his results. Why did you come here to say that P. is a great doctor? Is this relevant for the topic?

Actually I would say his post was relevant as above you were speculating that Guano had been paid off to keep quiet, Athensr has since added that he outright asked Dr Pekiner whether this was the case or not.

You could consider SMP instead.

The recipient looks very natural even when shaved down but the donor scarring seems quite apparent, how do you see it Rolandas? I guess you're unlikely to ever have your hair that short again though so not really a concern.