SeanT1

4 hours ago, Gatsby said:

At 30 days post op I wouldn't get too hung up on the derma pen. Grafts are planted a lot lower than 1mm. Also if you are not getting side effects from finasteride then I strongly recommend that you stick with it. It can take up to two years to see it's full effects! All the best!

Thank you Gatsby, my thoughts exactly.
I think I'm panicked due to the fact that a lot of hair fell out during the procedure, but again this hair is expected to fall out regardless as I'm only a month post operation.  Do you know how deep a graft is planted?
 

The post above will be edited as time goes on.

A little bit of background;
I take biotin supplements every day, Other than being vegetarian I have no dietary restrictions.
I've been on finasteride 6 months prior to the surgery.  I personally didn't notice any hair growth but at the same time I didn't notice hair loss either so I think it was working its magic.

If anyone knows how deep transplanted follicles are placed into the scalp please let me know as it'll help ease my conscious from the mistake I made with a dermapen!

Hello everyone!
This thread will be my log of my hair transplant progress by Elithair ( Dr. Balwi ).
I will update the first post regularly with new images and updates as time goes on.
This will be an interesting Journey as the clinic is considered a Hair mill on the forums.
I'll leave a full review in a year's time in the correct forum location.

Background:
I naturally have fairly thin hair, I have been on Finasteride 6 months prior to the operation with no side effects.  Minoxidil gave me a bad reaction.
Being only 25 and having a receding hairline was an insecurity of mine.  I chose Elithairtransplant based on videos from a youtuber called "Follicle Freedom" and another called "Hairline Confessions), both YouTubers had similar hair to me and had fantastic results at this clinic for the price.

Trip to Istanbul and the clinic itself:
I was quoted 2000 Euro for FUE 3400 grafts (similar to the Youtubers mentioned above), hotel pre-paid as well as breakfast.  I stayed a total of 5 days.
They also sorted out transport between the airport/hotel/clinic.  The clinic itself was inside a hospital which was comforting, met a lot of nice people too.
Staff were quite friendly and the clinic itself looked professional.  Dr. Balwi did an analyses on my current hair situation prior to the surgery.  He recommended FUE for the hairline and DHI where I had existing hair, this costed an extra 400 Euro so be cautious of this.

The procedure:
Dr. Balwi did NOT do the procedure itself, instead it was done by technicians.  This is seen as a red flag by some people understandably.  
Regardless, the 8 hour procedure went smoothly, I literally slept through it.  It seems they correctly put single hair grafts in the front and multi's in the back.  I'll get to this later.

Post operation Images (1 month prior to operation):

Post operation Images (4 months prior to operation):

Day of operation:

During operation:

Day 1 post operation:

Swollen as expected, but the swelling never went down to my eyes, awesome.

5 Days post operation:

Most of the blood has came off, now it's just crazy scabbing.  It seems the transplanted follicles swell up after interacting with water.

6 Days post operation:

I thought this would be worth mentioning, due to the crust; the hair began to split and make canyons.  This is normal and should not affect the final result.

10 Days post operation:

The scabs all came off without ease, simply by rubbing the area gently.  Awesome!

______________________ MILESTONE 1 ____________________

28 Days post operation:

Shedding has just begun, we're losing around 20-40 hairs in the shower.  I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner.

30 Days post operation:

Aha, now this is where I made my first mistake.
I went to a clinic to get PRP treatment, I've never had it before.  However, they used PRP micro-needling.
Essentially they put plasma all over my scalp and then used a derma-pen between 0.4mm-1.0mm.
More shedding occurred as the procedure was taken place.  My hair was certainly thinner.
When returning home elithair told me that dermapens shouldn't be used until the two months mark.
I worry that this has damaged my grafts.  If anyone has any feedback please let me know!

(Update due in one month's time)

Anyone?
I might just be over reacting, just need some confirmation that the grafts are safe haha.

2 hours ago, gillenator said:

Never heard of PRP microneedling, so have no idea whether this was a good thing at this point in time…the area does look more thin and am wondering how much of the hair is native?

Thank you for your response!
I hope this image will help.

They basically poured PRP onto the area and used a derma pen afterwards.
When they did this, quite a few hairs did fall out.  Probably more than I feel comfortable with.  But again I am shedding around 30-40-ish hairs a day anyway so it's likely that the derma pen just forced out hair that was due to fall out in the next couple of days.

I assume we're told not to derma-roll so soon in case of risk of infection while the scalp is healing, is this correct?

Do you know how far a hair follicle is implanted?  The derma pen went up to 1mm I believe.
Thanks!

Hi, just back from the clinic.
I got the PRP treatment, however they interestingly used a derma pen (0.4mm to 1.0mm) combined with the PRP rather than a needle, known as PRP micro-needling. This caused extra shedding.  I've been shedding 40-ish hairs a day anywho.

Was this a safe approach?

On 10/2/2021 at 9:26 PM, gillenator said:

You are healing nicely and IMHO, the PRP treatment is not necessary…save your money.

Thank you very much sir, and thank you for the advice!
Alas I've already prepaid.  The clinic I'm going to is operated by a friend of mine and offered three treatments (over three months) for £300 in total, so it's not a huge burden.

Hello everyone,
I've made an appointment for PRP treatment next week (one month after my transplant surgery).

The center of my scalp is very itchy at the moment, donor area is not so bad.
I was wondering if it would still be safe to do a PRP treatment despite the itchiness?
The itchiness is not intolerable, just very noticeable and the scalp is red.
The middle of the recipient area was DHI and the hairline was FUE.

Thanks!

13 minutes ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

I’ve considered it, but it faded after a few years. I wouldn’t want to keep retouching it, that would get pricey.

Very fair!
It's every 2-3 years it needs touched up right?

I think there is an ink variant that actually disappears rather than fades over the years.  Perhaps it's worth giving it a shot to see if it's for you.

I fired up Photoshop and did an edit to your photo to get a general idea of what micro-pigmentation results may look like.
It's of course not perfect (looks more like hair fibre!), but food for thought.

 

Hi,
Firstly; you're rocking the slicked back hairstyle.  We'd need to see what your hair is like with other styles to get a better impression though.
Have you ever considered micro-pigmentation?  I understand it's not for everyone but I've seen some good results in the past.

12 minutes ago, blackislback said:

This does not necessarily mean that it is a quality clinic if USA guy travels to TR, but it's often cause low cost clinics make attractive offers, like 1.5-2k euros for any amount of grafts, and then people from whole world, based on social networks - fb,inst,yt without much checking clinics, doctors who perform or not at all doctors, run to visit such clinics, and then after few months claim about fail HT... I don't say about that clinic "elithair" is such kind clinics, just say about view of distance clinic - patient, isn't major reason to judge is good or not.

Many people travel to Eugenix - India, but that clinics by it's patients proved good work, and people worldwide travel to their clinic, even so far for many people, but there will always be people to weigh what's more important them price or result, distance, or whatever, some people if at the moment not in budget, will wait to collect needed amount and will do it in 1-2y, who only requests and insist to quality. About these things need much think, and always choose quality above all, by my opinion...

Fair analysis sir.
Prior to going to Turkey, I never heard of the term "hair mill" before.  I can see why it's a lottery, especially when technicians are doing the surgery itself.
The research I did on elithair was the reason why I chose the clinic personally, with of course money being a huge factor also.

I'm going to log my progress here on the forum for some honest feedback on the clinic in question!  Regardless of outcome.
I like the open discussions that are on this forum, it's a great environment to be in when discussing hair loss. 

2 hours ago, gillenator said:

Many patients also experience numbness as well.

Which part of the forum and I log my progress sir?

1 hour ago, Gokuhairline said:

you mean your recipient area ? i'm also at 23 days post and my donor still felt a little weird up until about 5 days ago but now its mostly gone and the recipient area was tender also up until about 5 days ago and now slowly feeling back to normal so I would say its normal feeling. 

Hi
The donor area itself is most affected and what my friend was referring to.  
However my recipient does have tingling every now and then.  And if I touch, it does begin to get a little tender (burning).
I'm hoping it's just the nerves getting irritated as they repair like @gillenator said.

It's still red but I assume that's expected. 

Thanks sir, I was worried as my friend said this feeling should be gone by two weeks.

Apologies for the bump, I'd like to share some images for reference!
I apologise for the quality also, I don't have a great camera.
I'll get one for the future!

(Today)

(14 days post op)

(Today)

15 minutes ago, JohnAC71 said:

YouTube isn’t the place to research, what people need is full patient posted journeys posted on forums such as this. 

You get a lot of vlogs following others journeys on youtube though. 

On 9/28/2021 at 12:04 PM, digi23 said:

To be honest this is great results from where you started, you could do some more in the crown and refine the hairline and it will be perfect but its already very good.

I agree,
Actually.. I wonder if he could do a round of scalp micropigmentation for density of the crown.

I went to Istanbul to "elithair", it's about a 20 minute drive from the airport.
It's important to know that the staff transport you from the airport to the clinic then hotel.

I personally stayed 5 days but you can stay for 3 and be on your way. 

When I was in Istanbul at elithair, I met a guy who travelled from America to this clinic. 
I suppose this shows professional quality if he chose a clinic so far away in the end.  I'm only 3 weeks op so I can't say much but I recommend researching on YouTube.

Hello everyone!
Hope you're all doing well.

I'm just over three weeks in (23 days) and my donor is still tender to touch.
It's not intolerable pain or anything, more of a burning sensation, perhaps similar to sun burn.
Nothing looks out of the ordinary, it's red.  Nothing more.

I got a FUE transplant in addition to DHI (3700 grafts).

In addition, my recipient area tingles consistently.  Is this normal?
When I rub my hand through the baby hairs (first hairs prior to shedding) the tingling becomes stronger and sometimes becomes irritated/tender.

Thanks, hoping to post progress photos on this forum in the future.

Just an update, cleaned off all the scabs.  All the hairs that are due to shed are still in place.
Everything looks in order.   Day 10.

I went to Elithair in Istanbul, 3700 grafts, 2300 euro in total. 

My advice to anyone is to just trust the procedure.  I'm an anxious person so when I patted my head several times I began to panic, but all is well.

3 hours ago, JDEE0 said:

You'll be fine - you should generally avoid touching the recipient at this stage apart from when you start cleaning the scabs off, which should be around now, but as long as you weren't aggressively scratching the area or something then I can't see any way it could damage things. At 8 days, it would take a surgical instrument to dislodge any grafts, but the area is still healing and you generally want to just leave it alone/not touch it with bacteria filled hands etc.

Thanks for confirming  
Here is progress.

Hello everyone, I hope you're all doing well.   I'm new to this forum.

Basically, from day 5 - 8 of my hair transplant, I've caught myself sometimes patting the transplanted areas (not rubbing or scratching).
This is fairly gentle I'd say, I haven't noticed any bleeding or anything.

However, I'm concerned that doing this may have caused damage to my hair graphs under the skin?
Is this a valid concern?  Or am I being paranoid?

Thank you all, and thanks for reading.