Ali4981

10 minutes ago, shiba1985 said:

what are your next steps? are you happy. it looks good but still lot of baldness in crown. do you have enough to go back for round 2?

Honestly, I am very happy. if you look at my pre-op pics at the very top of my post. i was completely bald.

You have to remember the crown was never touched and I only had a frontal third surgery (temples, hairline to mid-scalp).

Dr Pekiner advised it was not possible to do the whole head in one block/session. What i have had done was over 3 days.

So pre-op to now ive been on finasteride MWF 1.25g per day.

Dr Pekiner advised to jump on minoxidil after 3 months of the surgery but i never did. - reason for that was because I was very pleased with the growth and felt like i didn't need to. Now im considering topical min for the crown? in any event I will be going back for second surgery.

11 minutes ago, Min12 said:

Big change to the front, did pekiner say how many grafts you required for the crown?

Yeah I think he said it would be around 2000

I do want crown coverage. I will be going back for a second surgery on the crown

Before and after 

Pre-Surgery to 8 months post OP

Month 8

Month 3

Month 2

Month 1

Hello everyone, first of all I do apologise for the late update.

I have gone through my progress pictures and I have month 1, month 2, month 3 and month 8 to share (I am currently in month 8).

There was some slight numbness on my recipient area which faded away around month 6.

My donor has completely healed and I am still able to have it faded at the barbers.

Little reminder, I only got the frontal third done. As a result my crown area is still very much bald and I plan to visit Dr. Pekiner again sometime next year or the year after to have a 2nd surgery.

Hello everyone.

very sorry for the extremely late response, life got in the way!

I will be uploading updated pics hopefully later this week, currently on month 8 and in my opinion I would go as far as saying the result has been phenomenal.

Sometimes, I still cannot believe the result so far and I cannot wait to share with you the updated pictures.

Watch this space.

On 1/26/2022 at 11:21 PM, Gatsby said:

Congratulations. This looks like it’s going to be a killer result! 

Thank you! I am hopeful too and will post here with updates.

Starting oral Minoxidil next week

On 1/26/2022 at 10:09 PM, Davy773 said:

Love the hairline design. Hopefully you recover fast. 

How is it communicating with Dr.Pekiner? Does he speak English? Do others on his team speak English? I'm also considering him and going somewhere English is spoken is very important to me. 

Thank you! Yes Dr. Pekiner is fluent in English although its not his first language. His team can also speak English including the patient advisors and clinic manager so communicating was no problem at all.

On 1/24/2022 at 2:24 PM, Vann said:

This look really clean actually. What did your donor area look like after the procedure? Also your donor area looks pretty dense to me? was he talking about the sides as well when saying it looks pretty average?

Post updates when you can I am excited for you and I also was considering going with Dr. Pekiner since I see he does a lot of work with diffuse thinning patients. 

Thank you! I will be posting every month on the 4th

To be honest I thought the same thing, I thought my donor was pretty dense too but Dr. Pekiner seemed to think it was average.

The donor area grew back pretty quickly and you cant even tell I had the procedure done! i got my first haircut today and its made no difference to how the fade looks

About a week ago I created a post under ‘Hair transplant experiences and surgeon reviews’ however it’s not available to the public yet. 
 

it needs to be reviewed by one of the forum moderators before it is. Hopefully it will be reviewed soon.

Hi All

I am 4 weeks post op (full review posted and pending approval by a moderator) FUE with Dr. Pekiner and have been advised to start oral Minoxidil at 2.mg per day.

Can anyone recommend a good place to get this from within the UK? I know I will need a prescription and I'm currently in the process of obtaining this.

Also, any recommendation's for a good shampoo? I'm currently using Sebamed and wondered if I could continue using this long-term? I am definitely considering Nizoral, but ive read that it shouldn't be used as a daily/regular shampoo due to its harshness? I plan to use it once, a week alongside another shampoo. perhaps from the Bulldog range?

As always, any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Hello Everyone,

So after countless amount of cancellations due to covid, I finally managed to get myself to Ankara for an FUE surgery with Dr, Kaan Pekiner. The surgery took place over 3 days from 02/12 to 04/12, exactly 1 whole year from my original planned date.

Background Characteristics

-         28 years old male

-         Norwood 5

-         Fine hair

-         0.5mg Finasteride per day for 1 year

Pre-op consultation

After assessing my situation via a video call with Dr. Pekiner, I was advised that I would need two surgeries to fill the whole head. The first surgery would involve re-constructing the hairline, temples and mid scalp and then the second surgery for the crown. Dr. Pekiner concluded that I would need 3700 grafts in total for the first surgery, being 3000 from my donor area and 700 from the beard. In addition, I was advised to start finasteride to stabilize the hair loss.

After taking finasteride for the year as instructed, I can confirm that although it didn’t work wonders, it definitely halted the hair loss and I gained some hairs back in the mid-scalp region.

Transport & Accommodation

I went to turkey with a friend and we were picked up from the airport by the driver and taken to the Atakosk hotel, where we were staying. The clinic has an affiliation with the clinic and as I understand, patients stay at this hotel for the days of the surgery. The hotel was absolutely amazing, big spacious rooms, SPA + Sauna + Hammam and the staff were very accommodating. Breakfast was included in the price every morning.

Surgery:

I was picked up from the hotel by the clinic office manager and was taken to the clinic. It was just a short walk of about 5-10mins. I met Dr. Pekiner and the rest of the team and was explained how the days would run. My head was shaved, hairline planning underway and then it was time for day 1.

Each day I was in the clinic from 8am to 5pm with the days planned as follows:

-         Extraction

-         Break

-         Implantation

-         Lunch

-         Extraction

-         Break

-         Implantation

After reading countless reviews of Dr. Pekiner on here, I can say he definitely lived up to his reputation and expectation. An incredibly skilled surgeon, ethical and full of knowledge. I instantly felt that I was in safe hands and made the correct choice of choosing him.

Now, as the days were progressing and my receipt area was being filled with grafts, I predicted that Dr. Pekiner may be able to complete the surgery without the need of 700BHT grafts. Either way, I was not fussed if he needed or didn’t need to use them. In the end, I was right and my hairline, temples and mid-scalp was filled with 3004 grafts, saving the need to use my beard. As a result, I was able to save around £1400 pounds.

Graft count as follows:

6,503 hairs using 3004 grafts = average graft count 2.164 per graft.

Post-op debrief

After the surgery was completed on the 3^rd day, I had a sit down with the Dr. Pekiner in his office where he went over a few things which I will bullet point below:

-         My donor area was average, he has seen worse and he has seen better but he is confident I will achieve a satisfactory result.

-         I am to continue taking finasteride ( I purchased some proscar from the pharmacy at the airport and I am now cutting them into four pieces and taking 1.25mg MWF.

-         I am to consider starting oral Minoxidil after a few months. ( I am happy to try this and see how I get on. Dr will confirm dose.)

-         Biotin daily

-         Aspirin daily for the first 30 days.

-         Sebamed shampoo daily until scabs come off

-         Bepanthol for donor area and Saline Solution for the recipient area.

-         I was then given a post-operation aftercare document detailing the above and additional do`s and don’ts.

Conclusion

It was an amazing experience, one that I will never forget. The team is outstanding and the patient care is second to none. I am 3 weeks post-op and would very much appreciate any comments.

I have posted some pictures below with various lighting including Pre-op, post-op, week 1, week2 and week 3.

I don’t think I have started shedding, am I correct in understanding that these hairs (week 2/3 pics) will all fall out, which will start the ugly duckling phase?

Thank you for reading.

Donor Area

 Pre-Op

Post OP

Week 1 Post OP

Week 2 Post OP

Week 3 Post OP

Graft Count Board

Hi guys,

I hope everyone is well and keeping safe in these challenging

As per my previous posts, I had booked a FUE HT with Dr. Pekiner for early December last year. However it has been an absolute nightmare (no fault of the clinic) due to the travel restrictions the UK is facing. My surgery date has been postponed 4 times and counting, with current dates set for late next month, albeit I am confident these dates will also be cancelled as there is no sign of Turkey opening their boarders to the UK anytime soon. 

On the advice of Dr. Pekiner I have started taking finasteride 0.5mg per day for almost 3 months now with no sides. I'm also thinking of starting Minox but need to research further into it.

Anyways, I was hoping to be able to get some opinions on how my donor is looking and how many grafts roughly can be sourced from it?

I have attached a few pics, some with dry hair and some with wet and a pic of the recipient area. 

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks guys

@Curious25 yep, I’ve now arranged for it to be done at the morning of the surgery at the Clinic. 

This was also something that crossed my mind...surely they won’t get the results back before starting the surgery? 

Regarding refusing to do the operation if you test positive.....I think I read somewhere that it’s actually against the law to refuse to do the surgery purely based on a positive result. That being said, they do the tests just so they can be extra cautious in the event of a positive result 

Honestly I have called up a few clinics today and the prices I have been quoted are shocking. £500 plus as they all explained that they charge individually for each test even though they are taken from the same one blood sample. 

I have now messaged Dr. Pekiner’s advisor and requested that the tests are carried out with their partner lab and I had previously been advised this would be 80-90 euros. However I’m not sure if that the price for all tests combined or each individual test? @Portugal25 could you kindly shed some light on this please?

Thanks 

Hello everyone,

So I have my HT booked with Dr. Pekiner soon and I have been asked to undergo a blood test to check for the following things: 

HbsAg (Hepatitis B)

Anti HCV (Hepatitis C)

Anti HIV (HIV)

PT/INR (Prethrombin Test)

Blood count.

I was I could do this at the clinic for 80-90 euros but wanted to see if I can get it cheaper here in the UK? 

And am I right in understanding that it is just one blood test, and then they use that blood sample to test for the above? And does anyone know where I could get this done? I’m near London. 

I’m inclined just to get the test done by the clinic on the day of the HT as one UK clinic quoted me £230 for all tests!

Thanks guys 

Hello everyone,

So following from my last post and having done extensive research which started to feel like a part time job, I have booked a HT with Dr. Pekiner in two weeks time.

After having a video consultation with Dr.Pekiner himself, he explained that I will need 2 surgeries (HLC and a few other clinics also said this). 

He will do my hairline, temples and mid scalp with 3000 grafts from donor hair and 700-1000 grafts from my beard. Then a year later he can do my crown. 

At the end it came down to HLC, Pekiner or Dr. Arshad. Although I have seen many great reviews of Arshad, I wasn’t too keen on him wanting to my whole head with 4000 grafts as the density could have not been great (Norwood 6, touching 7) 

Flights have been booked, deposit paid and now I need to do a private blood test and a Covid test so I can board the flight.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me so far :) 

@BA-FUE I think your right. At this rate il never pick a surgeon lol. Once I’m in receipt of everyone’s quotes, I will look into each surgeons work and decide.

thanks 

@Portugal25I understand, thank you for you input, means a lot. Also, your graph is INCREDIBLY useful. Thank you 

This is exactly my problem. I’m getting conflicting information all around. So far everyone has praised Dr.Arshad and I’ve heard really good things about Dr. Erdogan but @Portugal25you’ve literally crossed them out lol.

I am in talks with Dr.pekiner’s patient advisor Alex, who has requested some more information from me. 

I’m just really struggling to pick a Dr and it’s stressing me out.

Hi all, thank you for your input. 

I will look into Dr. Edward Ball. As with Dr. Arshad, £12,000 is slightly outside of my budget, however I’ll be able to consider this properly after I receive quotes from the others. 

Eugenix - as rightly pointed out by @JohnAC71India is not accessible. 

@BA-FUEI’ve never taken any hair loss medication ever. 

What are your opinions on DR. Demirsoy and Dr. Erdogan?

When I spoke with Maya (Dr Arshads practising manager) she spoke highly of Dr. Erdogan and advised that if I were to go to Turkey I should only go to him.

Thanks guys