Greetings, long time lurker. This forum played an important role when it came down to choosing a surgeon, therefore I would like to give back by sharing my experience. Been planning this post for a while, just today I got the surgery report and the photos they took so it is time.
This post will contain a lot of details related to the whole experience, but if you do not feel like reading all of them you can navigate to the TL:DR section at the bottom of this post. I do value my privacy; the pictures will have my face expertly hidden with the help of my fantastic paint skills :D. Apologies in advance if what I am about to write is difficult to read, but I am not native speaker. Anyways let us dive into it.
Case: Male, mid thirties, NW2/3 + seboherric dermantitis, not on meds.
Background:
I cannot pinpoint an exact time when my temple recession occurred, having a natural widows-peak and sort of a long face/large forehead definitely does not help when I look at old photos. It did not bother me for a long time, but the more it progressed, the harder it became to style my hair. Other than styling it so that the hair from the mid-scalp would cover the temporal area there were not that many other options. Even then, one gust of wind was enough to bother me and make me feel insecure. I decided to do something about it.
Choosing the surgeon:
I was planning to have the surgery few years ago. I did contact Dr. Resul Yaman and was planning to have a consultation with Dr. Bicer, but first of wave of Covid19 hit and I did not want to book a surgery in an environment where I can be stranded in a foreign country so I put the whole thing on hold. Couple of years passed, things were finally calming down and after further research, I did have two other doctors on my radar, Dr. Pinto and Dr. Turan.
I tried to get in contact with Dr. Pinto, sadly I got an email that they were not doing online consultations at the moment. In the email they mentioned that if I wanted to be notified once they start doing online consultations again – to answer back to the email – I did answer – but I got the same email as previous but this time with the wrong name and also in Portuguese lol.
Anyways, no harm done. It is understandable – he is a top tier surgeon and most of the Portuguese/Spanish/Belgium gurus are booked years in advance.
After that, I messaged the FUECAPILAR. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they are like an agency that links your inquiry to both Dr. Turan and Dr. Gur and then you get a personalized offer by both. They did ask for my medical history, pictures from multiple angles and so on. It seemed like I was taken seriously and they were not in a rush to have me booked, unless I had realistic expectations and no contra-indications. After some, back and forth I decided to book a date for my surgery with Dr. Turan. Some other cases here suggested that I could expect a good result/experience. He also appeared to be excellent when it came down to designing and creating hairlines, which is exactly what I was looking for.
Arrival: The flight was delayed and I arrived in Istanbul a couple of hours later than I was supposed to (around 21). I found the person who was going to help me out with the transport, he called the driver and he came to pick me up after 15 minutes. Do not think that just because you have arrived in Istanbul the traveling is over; it took us over 2 hours to cover a distance of 70km’s (Airport -> Hospital). Istanbul has crazy traffic issues going inwards to the city (no such problem from the Hotel - > Airport when I had to leave). Even though it was almost midnight when we reached the hospital, we proceeded with the original plan and went to the hospital for the blood work. A nurse took a blood sample and then I was taken to the hotel which is a couple of minutes away from the hospital.
Day of the surgery:
I was picked up early morning from the hotel. Once in the hospital I was greeted by the translator that was fluent in English and overall a great guy. We made our way to a room where I met Dr. Turan. We went over my medical history, expectations, any questions I might have and so on. At this point and time I had been reading this forum for a while, therefore I knew what to expect and the only question I had was if they were okay with me sharing my story here (was not sure if I had to sign NDA) I’m describing my experience now – clearly it was not a problem which was encouraging. I signed some consent forms related to the surgery and paid the rest of the money and that was that.
The next parts might not follow an exact chronological order due to my memory being a bit dodgy after the anesthesia.
I met the rest of the team and they all seemed super excited (they had just come back from an event where many other top tier surgeons were present – 5th world FUE institute workshop in Istanbul– according to their facebook page, and they had bought some new equipment and had new ideas they wanted to try.
First they shaved ONLY the donor area. They took some pictures from multiple angles. Later with some sort of an electronic microscope, they were evaluating my donor and the rest of my hair quality/density in real time. I was able to see it on the computer.
Then Dr. Turan and his team started designing the hairline. We agreed to what you see in the pictures. It cannot possibly be lower due to my facial muscles, could have been straighter but we chose more natural/conservative approach.
The rest of my hair was then shaved, some more pictures were taken.
Graft extraction and implantation – > pretty straightforward, had plenty of anesthesia and I was not in pain. The technician who did the extraction was often inquiring about my comfort level. After around HALF of the agreed grafts were extracted, we took a lunch break. They fed me and the food was actually great. After the lunch break, the implantation began – I cannot recall much other than it was done by doctor Turan himself. Once all the extracted grafts were implanted – we went back to extracting the other half. I did not ask why, but it seems like Dr. Turan favors an approach where the grafts spend a minimum amount of time outside the body which makes sense to me. The other half was extracted and then implanted. The nurses bandaged me nicely and I was taken back to the hotel.
Day 3: Rest day
Not much to say about that. Had no pain, but obviously I had to make some changes (sleeping on my back, in an incline position with the travel pillow to not damage the grafts, had to be careful when I took shower and not to hit my head anywhere). Some medicine etc. Normal stuff.
Day 4: First wash and post-care
The driver took me to the hospital at around 12 o’clock. There I met Jose who is the guy behind FUECAPILAR if I recall correctly. We sat down in an office, a nurse came in and applied some foam on the recipient area and Jose went in a lot of detail of how to wash my hair post surgery, the meds, timeframes of when I can return to normal, expectations and so on. Around an hour passed and a nurse washed my hair. Then Jose called the driver and we bid each other farewell. I joked that as great as they are I do not want to see them ever again mostly cause surgery is never fun, even when everything goes according to plan. Anyways, I was taken to the hotel and left Istanbul early the next day.
Post-care: Not much to say about it, I had been given instructions and video related to the scab removal. If something comes up I will update this field
TL:DR - It is early stages so far, therefore I cannot make a full recommendation before I see the results at 6 months or so. What I can say is that - I had as good of an experience as I could possibly have in the clinic. Wouldn’t change anything about it given the chance. They all seemed friendly, helpful and thanks to the translator, Jose and one lady (I didn’t get her name) there was no language barrier. So far I would rate the experience 10/10, hopefully the actual growth is also along those lines.
