silent1337

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm glad to hear that the results panned out. I agree with what jjsrader said in that at most it could use a minor touchup at some point just to refine the density a bit, but it's not a high priority for me. I think I'm going to wait ~5 years and see how my hairloss progresses and then maybe do another procedure then. I am on finasteride 1.25mg per day so I'm hoping it continues to maintain. I'm unsure of which team it was - Cinik's facility has so many of them. I do remember feeling kind of uneasy as it seemed to be mostly college-aged techs.

1 year update: Overall, I'm ok with it. The results aren't perfect but it was affordable. There are two thick multigrafts on the front of my hairline on the left side (right side in pictures) with 4 hairs in each and it looked a little odd to me, and so I ended up plucking out 1-2 of the hairs and it surprisingly made a big difference.

Yeah I did. I do think his choice of hairline design is generally pretty good, but ultimately the most important parts of the process are in the hands of the techs - which seems to be a gamble.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Here's month 10. I think it's still filling in/thickening up. Regardless, although I wouldn't go back to Cinik, I am also not dissatisfied with the results. Note that you can see some of the FUE scars on the right side of my hair when I buzz down to a #1/2. Not sure if this is normal, I'm thinking maybe overharvested / damaged on that side. It's more noticeable in real life, but I still don't really care about it much.

Month 9. Subtle improvements noticed, but nothing substantial. Hopefully continues to improve.

5 days till month 8. I still notice little hairs sprouting out here and there, some are growing out of what I thought were single grafts. Anyway, at this point any added density is a bonus. How much more growth can be expected from here on out? Will existing hairs get thicker? Because the coverage on the left temple is ok but the hairs all seem to be thinner than the rest of my hairline.

7 month update. Doesn't seem much different than month 6. Hoping for more density on my left side in the next 5 months!

If I end up looking better than I did before then the results are good enough to me! But yeah I wasn't too pleased with the multis in the hairline, but to be honest it's not noticeable in real life, only in high resolution photos where the camera is inches from my hairline. I expect that they'll become even less noticeable as the transplant continues to grow and mature. Still not excusing the work, but it's not surprising out of a hair mill. I knew the risks going in.

My results seem just ok from Cinik so far (only 6 mos, hoping for more density) but I wouldn't recommend him. In hindsight it was pretty sketchy with how fast of a process it was. You are gambling on the skills of the technicians assigned to you, and there are a lot of them.

Today marks 1.5 weeks until 6 months. Here are some pictures I just took. Seems to be getting better each week.

Thanks for the replies John, much appreciated. Will continue to update.

Month 5 is today, here are pictures. I also included donor area. What do you guys think? How much more density should I expect? I am hoping for some more growth on my left temple (right side in pictures)

1 week and 2 days until 5 months. Hair is blow-dried + a bit of hairspray. So far the right side of my hairline has come in very dense, while the left side not as much. I had an area of concern in my donor area that seems to be getting less noticeable each week. Overall I am satisfied but in hindsight I would probably not go there again. The amount of multi-hair grafts in the hairline is concerning but it doesn't appear to be too noticeable given the way I style my hair + the amount of native hair that I still have blends it. Still waiting for more overall density though. Will continue to update ~monthly

2 days until 4 months, no product just blow-dried:

Here are some pics I took today in favourable lighting, just over 3 months. Growth seems to be kicking in. However I can see a fair number of multi-hair grafts (a couple with 4 hairs) in the hairline, which probably isn't a good thing. C'est la vie.

Day ~78 Hair is in pretty rough shape still. Looks like some of the grafts stuck around and are growing, but a lot of the shock loss has yet to grow back.

Hey yeah the shedding started at about ~25 days in, and it's been shedding like crazy since. My hair looks worse than it did pretransplant at this point, but this was expected so I don't really care too much. My hair has been itchy in the recipient areas for the past couple of weeks, but I presume that is also a normal part of the process. Here are some pics I just took minutes ago: I guess another month or two of shedding/waiting until the growth starts to (slowly) begin

Day 12... What do you guys think? Is it possible that some grafts aren't visible at this point, i.e. the hair fell off already? The reason I ask is because there are some spots that look like they could've used a graft, but I'm wondering if maybe there's already a graft in that spot but the hair fell off when removing scabs. Also, what % of grafts will survive? I would hope all of them but I'm curious as to what kind of result I can expect from these initial hairs

Here's day 9... probably the last picture before I start shedding most of the hairs

Day 8: removed a lot of the scabs in the shower by gently rubbing with shampoo. I noticed a lot of hairs falling off but I'm sure that's normal.

True, well ECG is not an invasive or dangerous diagnostic test so I don't think it's a big deal. They give you a copy of the ECG report too so you can analyze your heart beat later, lol! Anyway, here's some day 4/5 pictures. I have a question. I gently poured some lukewarm water over the grafts in attempt to clean them, and I noticed afterwards that there were tons of little white specks all over, many in places where I didn't even think there was a graft. Initially I was thinking that each red scab was a graft, however If I were to count the white flakes seen in the picture, I would believe that there has been ~2600 grafts placed in the frontal hairline, and so my question to you guys is: Is every one of those white flakes a graft? Or do I just count the red scabs when dry. I have a lot of time to kill in hotel quarantine and so I've been trying to count the grafts lol

Yes they did, that was done on the first day alongside the blood tests. What is the EKG done for? Just to discover any heart abnormalities that could interact with pain / anesthesia?

I'll try to recall as much as I can. First of all I have to commend their professionality and commitment to service, everything from the beginning to the end was very streamlined. To begin the process I was in contact with members of their team via Whatsapp. I'd booked everything months ago. I flew into Turkey on Wednesday, and they had a driver pick me and two other gentlemen up from the airport. We were driven to the Cinik Hair Hospital where they took our blood work, and after that we were taken to our hotels. The next day a driver picked us up from the hotel and brought us to the hair hospital where we first went over some preliminary stuff - talk about the process, signed waivers, they set up a peripheral IV lock, and finally I had a consultation with Dr. Cinik. During the consultation I showed him old pictures of my hairline, what my desires are, and then he drew a proposed hairline, to which I asked for minor changes and he obliged. From there I was taken to take pre-op pictures, get a haircut, and then after the haircut I went into the operating room for the surgery. There was a team of 4-5 technicians that all had particular tasks. First they gave me some sort of oral painkiller, not sure what it was. After that was the local anesthesia. As a buffer they used a needleless anesthesia, which they administer through a compressed airgun to direct some sort of numbing agent onto the scalp and then one of the technicians massaged it in. The intention is to minimize the pain from the actual local injections. I have read people on here who said it didn't help much and so I wasn't expecting it to (they included it in my package for free), but the local anesthetic injections were honestly pretty close to painless. They felt like little pinches. One of the other guys I met had his injections without the painless anesthesia and he said it was some of the worst pain he's ever felt. So I guess it works. Anyway, after that they begin harvesting grafts. This took 2-3 hours. At some point they gave me some lunch (15 minutes or so to eat) and then we continued. Dr. Cinik came in a few times to check up and see how I was doing. After the harvesting, Dr. Cinik came in to do the channel openings (You have to pay extra for Dr Cinik to do the channel openings, otherwise it's a technician that does them). While he's doing the channel openings there is a technician there counting the openings to make sure they match the amount of grafts harvested. I wish I had paid attention to this part so that I wouldn't have any doubts about how many grafts they got. After that the technicians begin inserting the grafts. This took about 1.5 hours I'd say. After that, you meet with one of the reps and he/she goes over some information in terms of post-op care. You are then taken back to your hotel. The entire surgery day lasted from about 8AM - 4:30PM. The next day you go back for a wash and to take the bandages off. This was actually the most painful part for me, but still it was pretty quick. Then they put a headband on you, you take post-op pictures, and then you are taken back to the hotel or to the airport to fly home depending on how you planned the trip. Overall a very efficient and professional experience. However, the most important part of a hair transplant is the results, so we'll have to see how those pan out in the months to come!

Some more pics from clinic. Now we wait and see!

Pre-op pictures: