NW8

This pic was taken at 15 days This one at 23 days. So I think my shedding has already started.

I live on west coast so basically I had to travel a long way and there were two stops on the way. Communication through the clinic is through email and whatsapp they give you your drivers number and someone else's number that you can call and ask questions or message them if you have any questions. More often than not I would just email the clinic as I would receive longer answers to questions and the time difference between me and them is a lot. I tried messaging the driver that the flight was gonna be 30 minutes late but it didn't go through and he was waiting at the airport for like 1 hour he said, but he picked me up grabbed my bags and went straight to the clinic. He was nice and glad that I made it lol he didn't speak English too well there's also another driver that speaks a bit better English but I don't think he drives as often due to health problems. HLC has two buildings, one floor of the left building is the 'hotel', it's basically a normal hotel. I think this floor was probably new as other reviewers talked about sharing rooms or staying at hotels across the street but this was literally next door to the clinic and you eat breakfast and lunch at the top of the building which is provided. They also have room service but I never got this. So when I arrived at the clinic the girl that shows you around was there she briefly talked to me and showed me my room and told me to get settled. I wanted to ask more questions but it's alright she always seemed busy. There's always 1 person that is at the hotel area and the guy that I talked to there was nice. At this point it was basically 5-6pm so I decided to explore the city I walked to the nearby park and it was filled with people on a Saturday, the area the clinic is in is nice it's mainly taxis or Mercedes Benz driving around it's close to where all the embassies are in Turkey. From the park I walked down the street and basically just followed the crowds and explored. I'm 6'3'' white guy wearing shorts so I probably stood out a bit but nobody bothered me or cared, I just went along my business. I don't think there is a huge tourism aspect to Ankara so you're not gonna get people trying to sell you things etc. The next day my plan was to go to the city. The guy I met from the day before was outside and he was really helpful he helped me exchange some dollars for Turkish Lira and he showed me this taxi button that is outside the clinic that you can click anytime if you need a taxi real fast. I go to the city see a few museums, the Ankara Castle, parks, and the mausoleum. I walked to everything didn't take a taxi until I went back to the clinic. The city seems safe everywhere that I went to. There are actually security guards and police everywhere around the city, they are in the parks just walking around at entrance, etc. Now the surgery. You eat breakfast at like 7:30am and right after breakfast at the same table they bring in all the paperwork that you need to sign basically telling you the risks and all that stuff you should already know about. There were 2 other guys getting surgery with me that day, and one guy brought his sister. We all go to the main clinic that is also about 4-5 floors tall. The clinic building is very nice, it looks extremely clean inside and organized. We go to the 3rd floor and just chill for a second in the waiting area, talk to the others getting their surgery that day. They have a TV and video playing in the background that shows all the procedures they do. HLC does A LOT. They do all kinds of lipo suction, rhinoplasty, fillers, prp injections, breast augmentations etc. Actually the first day I was there I saw a girl that I believe got rhinoplasty done at the clinic. After this they send you in the 'surgery' area of the clinic you put on plastic sheets on your shoes so that this area doesn't get dirty, they do the blood tests on you and you wait a bit outside this area again. They call you in again, I was first and this time all the doctors were there. Ozgur asks me questions about my balding what I want done etc. I tell him this stuff and he warns me of future hairloss etc. He measured my facial thirds and made 2 dots on my face how low I can make the hairline. I went with the lowest one and then he did the corners and I could hardly tell a difference in that one so I went with the more squared one. Then they shaved the hair again lower so they can fix the hairline easier as the first time they buzz you it isn't all the way down. At this point I mentioned that I wanted my temples also done, but he told me it was too late as we shaved the second time, I think it would've been hard to see how to design it I guess, I was a little disappointed that I wasn't getting temples done as well but it's not the end of the world. So he fixes up my hairline as it's easier now that the hair is shaved more. I forgot to mention but throughout this process all the other doctors are watching and they're saying stuff to each other. So I had like 5 doctors looking at my hairline design and commenting on it. So he fixes it up a bit and I mention that one corner is not completely symmetrical, I actually correct it twice and after the second one it still isn't and he says don't worry we're going to look once more at the hairline before we do it. So they measure how many grafts and have two options for me. One with just hairline one with hairline 1350, one with also further back at 20g/cm2 at 450 grafts. I do that one. After this you leave the room and pay so that you can get started on the surgery. I pay and then wait a little bit for the next girl to check out my hairline and finalize it before going in for surgery. She immediately sees whats wrong instantly and fixes it. I was happy with the final hairline design and ready for surgery. I think I waited a couple more minutes and then got started on surgery. They give you sedatives and I was out of it. I think Ozgur was there in the beginning in the room, there were like 2 nurses always there, and I think Dr. Akin did all my extractions and Dr. Umut did the implantation. I fell asleep through most of it I think. In the beginning actually when they extract your hairs from the back and have your face rest on their chair it was pretty uncomfortable because the chair presses into your forehead, but after that it was fine. I didn't even feel the anesthetic injections. Towards the end when anesthesia was wearing off in my donor I could feel some discomfort because your donor that just got surgery is laying on a towel. They did two sessions. With a break for lunch in-between. After this you're basically done. The next day they take off your bandages take more pictures, and you speak to your doctor about what your after surgery care is. They give you some pills to take, some spray to spray your grafts every 2 hours and some lotion. Taking off the bandages hurt more than the surgery tbh. I did hit my head the morning I left at the clinic because the shower door is too small for me to leave without ducking. Thankfully I just barely missed most my grafts I got extremely lucky. I think I actually damaged a graft by hitting it with the top of the door as it was bleeding after this, this was at the back of the hair so I wasn't stressing about losing a couple grafts in the very back. I also very slightly touched my grafts in the car on the way to the PCR test I needed to do. I told Dr. Umut about this and he looked closer and said it was fine. Overall it was a good experience, if you have anymore questions I can definitely answer them.

That makes a lot of sense. They were worried about future balding which is why they suggested the 450 grafts as well in the area in the back at 20 g/cm2. My hair looks perfectly fine in the pics I posted but there is definitely thinning throughout my hair that reaches pretty far back. Hopefully finasteride continues working throughout the years, but in which case it becomes less effective, I can see how I will need this extra density definitely and this could've prevented a touch up hair transplant in the future. I wouldn't want to go bald for another 6 months again! Thanks for the advice!

I do agree, it seemed like they lowered my hairline not that much for the amount of grafts. About 1350 was used in the first section of the hairline and 450 in the back. I wonder if I should've gone with a lower hairline, this is as low as they recommended so I went with this. I will wait for the final results before coming to a personal conclusion. Right now I just hope it looks good when all is said and done, which should be the case. Which is the area that has no problems did you say? Yeah I'll make a more detailed post in the next couple days.

Yes I forgot to add it. It's not very good I will ask the clinic for some of the photos they took of me before and after the transplant.

Update: So I had my surgery on Monday with a total of 1809 grafts. I will post a few update pics and some more pics in the coming days. On this last one you can see how much lower the hairline is from the mole on the left and I think I got the red dots in the middle the same based on skin quality around the area. Overall I'm very happy with the process and I'm happy with the hairline. Ozgur measured my face and decided how low I can go for facial proportions, I decided with the lower one. They said 1350 grafts will go into the front hairline with 50 g/cm^2 and if I want to I can go with about 450 grafts behind the hairline at a density of 20 g/cm^2, in case of future balding which I decided to do. Here is the graft types used. This one was taken Friday and surgery was Monday.

For that one I used faceapp to combine my face with another persons and then I over layed the original and the edited and I erased the originals hair on the pic so it exposes the edited version that is layered underneath it.

That is good, I was thinking maybe my hair isn't growing there due to some other reason besides MPB like maybe an immune disease but I have no confirmed immune diseases, and because my hairline improved on finasteride I know that my balding is definitely at least partly due to that.

Yeah they told me they will do 50 g/cm^2. My hairline is less than 6 inches, but the middle part is more bald so some more would need to be added there. Do you think that with my hair quality 50 g/cm^2 should look natural?

Ahh ok. I've drawn a hairline with a pen before but its not that great, what do they use to draw the hairlines on? The thing I am most concerned of is the bald spot in the middle. Seems like it didn't improve as much on finasteride as some other areas but looks like it did improve somewhat. My concern is the ability of transplanted hair to grow in this region.

Hi, thanks for getting back to me. I don't know what an F2F is? Yeah hairline design is very complex imo. I've done morphs of myself with all different kinds of hairlines and I do think a straighter hairline suits me better but it would require of course more grafts as my corners are low. I don't think its possible to get a hairline as good quality as this morph and also its most likely too aggressive, and would be risky going that deep? But here is one example. My hairline has basically always been uneven as far as I can remember and did recede slightly during high school. At 14 years old, I wouldve had a pretty straight hairline if the left side was the same as the right side. At 18 years old These two here, first one was a year before finasteride the next one was a couple months ago almost 2 years after finasteride. It's short hair but I think some regrowth is visible from the moles on my head. Bisanga has this hairline design video that I haven't analyzed my hairline using. I was actually just thinking that HLC's hairline design would be good enough? Not sure. What are your thoughts?

I really hope so! Yes I don't think I need many grafts either, I will definitely post updates. I'm 28 1/2 years old, I am very grateful that finasteride works for me, as it doesn't work on some others. I've experienced some hairline regrowth, much more hair quality gains and density. I like how my hair looks now compared to before but I don't think my hairline is aesthetic with how it balds down the middle, slightly uneven, combined with my forehead not being the best for rounded hairline look. If my hairline was a normal V pattern I wouldn't even consider hair transplant but it balds down the middle. I do hope my results aren't noticeable unless someone is really looking. I've been on finasteride for 2 years now, I don't use minoxidil because of the chance it effects my skin quality. I have a derminator 2 but don't really use it as it hurts a lot. 1mg finasteride seems to stop my balding. I tried switching to .5mg finasteride and 2 months later the difference was noticeable in loss of hair day to day. Thank you! I saw your thread you have an amazing donor area, and your conservative approach is ideal. Your balding down the middle and the results you had make me a little bit more comfortable, I'm glad everything worked out well for you. My hairline is balding down the middle but also rounded on the sides, so to fix my balding down the middle it will probably be necessary to have grafts in approximately 50 percent of my hairline (my guess) and these will be front visible hairs. So with such necessary, I guess I may as well fix the entire hairline is my thoughts. With 1.5-2k grafts they want to add hair in the temples as well. My temple corners are lower than the middle of my hairline. *I think* I have an ok donor though it was never checked, I shaved my head bald 1 year ago and the difference in density between the top of my head and the sides was, concerning to say the least. I will see what HLC says about my donor area, if I have a couple thousand spare grafts after this surgery that should hopefully allow me to fix it if something goes wrong, I pray everything turns out great tho.

Been on finasteride for about 2 years now. I have a hair transplant with HLC next week. They quoted me 1500-2000 grafts, Hasson and Wong quoted me 2000 grafts, 2500 if i wanted to go aggressive. I hope everything goes well. My hair has gotten a lot better on finasteride the past 2 years, but I think a successful hair transplant can make me look better. I'll be posting update pictures. Here is also a video of my hair under my bathroom lights which are 5 light bulbs https://i.imgur.com/yZyJoco.mp4