Hello all,
Let me tell you a bit about myself, I am 34 years old, after more than 10 years using finasteride, I started to suffer some side effects so I had to stop the medication. Almost 1 year after stopping finasteride I decided to undergo the surgery.
I am a Norwood IIIv, based on the photos I sent the estimation from Dr. Turan was 3250-3500. At the end, 3581 grafts were implanted, this is the breakdown:
Singles - 215
Doubles - 1719
Triples - 1289
Quads - 358
Because I had very few singles, they had to dissect doubles into singles for my hairline.
At 8am I was picked up at the hotel which is less than a 10 minutes drive from the hospital. Once I arrived at the hospital I was greeted by Spartak (the translator) who brought me to the consultation room where Dr. Turan was already waiting for me.
During the consultation, my hair thickness was measured to choose the right punch size (47 and 50 microns in the parietal and occipital area respectively) donor area capacity was measured, as well as an scalp assessment of my donor and recipient area with a trichoscope.
After the regular health questions, Dr. Turan asked me what my expectations were in terms of the hairline design, he did the hairline design and again asked me to confirm if the design was what I wanted. I asked Dr. Turan to lower a couple of millimeters in the temple areas, Dr. Turan agreed that he could do it so he corrected the design, I approved it and we continue with the paperwork, consent forms,etc. The entire communication is done with a translator, but it seems like he has been working with Dr. Turan for years so the communication went very smoothly. The entire consultation took around 45 mins.
The extraction was performed in three different sessions, 1000+ the first one, 900+ the second and the last one of around 500 grafts. Extraction was done with the manual punch in the parietal areas and micromotor in the occipital. After each extraction, which is performed by the same extraction specialist, Dr. Turan proceeds with the implantation stage using implanters (choi pens).
It took around 3 hours to extract and implant the first 1000 grafts, then we did a break for lunch. Almost another 3 hours for the second extraction and implantation, 15 mins toilet break and the last session took 1.45h. I started the surgery at 8am and I was done by 5.45pm.
The day after the surgery was free, and then I returned to the hospital 2 days after the surgery for the postop care where they remove the bandages, clean the donor area, and wash. The post op briefing and wash took 1.20h.
I am very happy with the evolution so far (you can see below my photos until the 6th month) and I do looking forward to seeing further growth in the next 6 months.
After 10 days
After 30 days
After 3 months
After 6 months (the weather was overcast when I took the photos but I think that they show the evolution so far)
Donor area cut at 1 (tons of white hairs in the sides )