stevenbol

4 days post op pictures

Hello, I'd like to share my experience with Dr. Resul Yaman's clinic at the end of January 2023. As a foreword, my balding is not terrible. I have wavy/curly hair that can end up looking more dense whenever my hair is grown out. However, I still have a pretty big bald spot on the crown, and I'm receding in the front (much like the top of an iPhone X screen). I noticed for the past two years or so I've been wearing more hats/struggling with being happy with the way my hair looks. So my journey to Yaman clinic begins in October 2022 when I had a friend mention that Turkey was an inexpensive place to get a hair transplant. After just some quick internet searching on this topic I came across Smile clinic in Istanbul, as hair-milly as they are their marketing game is no joke. I got a consultation from them and I don't remember the exact amount but I want to say it was around 2-3k for 3000 grafts including the hotel/taxi service. Sounds good at first right? Diving deeper into the Smile hair clinic online reveals some questionable content, many sources saying you're gambling with your appearance at places like this. But on the other hand, there are people who go there and have great results. Hmm... Before photos: Being from the states, I didn't want to rule out just getting an operation done close by. I went to a plastic surgeon who I'd been to before that also does hair transplants. Came in for a consultation and was quoted $16,000 for up to 3000 grafts. BRUH. Even looking through the examples this surgeon had done, there were many photos of patients not even near an end result, there was only 1 picture I remember that looked fantastic out of the many. This surgeon was easy to rule out. Post reflection I think he didn't even want to do it and wanted me to just go away. So back to the internet to do more research on Turkey and other options. I got into a deep dive on this forum and saw that Dr. Yaman was being recommended on many different occasions. Doing further research on him I loved how his results were consistently natural looking hairlines. A few others I considered where Dr. Bicer, Hassan and Wong (wow expensive), and Dr. Bisanga. I'll skip the details of research here... I ultimately ended up choosing Dr. Yaman because of the great connection I was getting with their director Ihsan, the price, their results, my condition, and the fit with my schedule. So I left for Istanbul on the 29th of January. First piece of advice, if you're tall or can't stand airplanes, pay the extra amount for an upgrade, it doesn't have to be first class there are usually other options. But I found this to be worth it for 18+ hours of travel. Second word of advice, make sure you file an e-visa if you're visiting Turkey. It's very easy just google it. This leads me to my first con about the trip to Istanbul, the airport. It's large/foreign/intimidating. I traveled alone and got initially a bit spooked about how a lot of signs in the airport have minimal English, most of the time I was just following the crowd to baggage claim/passport control. I don't know what would've made this easier. Once I got through customs and baggage claim, I was approached by someone in the terminal that got very close to my face and started speaking a foreign language, like he knew me. This kind of creeped me out, he was younger so I didn't think it was Yaman's taxi driver. I said "no" and walked away. After that spook I eventually found Yaman's driver where they said he'd be... a nice fellow that escorted me to the Yaman branded taxi. Once in the taxi, there was another individual going to Dr. Yaman, they spoke great English and immediately made me feel more comfortable, if you're reading this sir, thank you. The taxi took us to the Gorrion hotel, which is ULTRA nice, more on this later. At this time it was getting late and I was exhausted from the flight. Time to get some rest before operation day. Getting up on operation day, the downstairs of the hotel had fantastic breakfast. Great Turkish foods and even a honeycomb to get fresh honey from. Proceeding this I was taken to Yaman's clinic. Met another great group of people on the way here that actually lived close by to me in the states. Once we arrived we were met by the director, Ihsan, who I cannot speak more highly of. He has a natural ability to make people feel welcome and cared for. After the initial blood tests I began the consultation with Dr. Yaman. I was given two options for treatment, one with more grafts than the other. After some quick thinking I decided to go with the lesser graft count of the two as horror stores of too many grafts at once echoed through my mind. We decided for around 2000 grafts to be placed on the front of my scalp, and the rest in my large crown area. Now begins the operation, we go through a full head shave and then proceed to put on the proper clothing for the treatment to begin. Next piece of advice, wear a button up shirt for the next few days, including operation day. Don't risk trying to wrangle a t-shirt around your precious noggin. The first step in the procedure was to take out my hair via motorized extraction. I was warned of the pain this step can have. To be frank, the pain wasn't as bad as I'd imagined. Remember to take deep breaths at this point, and that one can only make pain worse by thinking "oww this hurts!" … I've had multiple tattoos and I would say the anesthesia for this step is a similar pain. This only took about two hours. It included but was not limited to long gazes at the fridge, power outlets, and floor. Next step was the opening of the channels, this probably took another hour or so. This step was done by Dr. Yaman himself, he got right to business with the PRP and then incisions/channel opening. At one point at what felt like 40 minutes in I said "all good?" with no response. I think he was in the zone! Onto lunch, which was a Turkish chicken. It was pretty tasty, I recommend filling yourself up with it. The director at that point told me the next step in the procedure was implantation, this part would take the longest and not be painful, but it will be easy. Foolish me thought it would be 3-4 hours. Wow I was wrong. Implantation started with the front part of my head, anesthesia was needed again and it hurt quite a bit more this time. No worries though, I'm going to be beautiful months after this procedure, bring it on. During this time, I was able to use my airpods and listen to music. Highly recommend bringing something like this. Something I started to notice was that the position of my head resting on the chair was hurting my donor area. oww. My two hour playlist I prepared was over, and it seemed like the techs were about done with the front of my head. From what I could tell, one of them had finished their part on the front and had moved to the crown. This is where things took a turn for the worse. In my reading of how this procedure went, I hadn't heard people speak of how much getting the crown done can hurt. The nurses had kept asking "pain?" and I would reply with "yes" , "no" , or "kind of". I'm not sure if that didn't get through to them, but as they got further on my crown it really started to hurt. That prick of implantation combined with the pressure of my head leaning on the donor area was a nasty conversation. The techs seemed to figure out that I was getting in worse pain so they called in the director on the phone. Once the director was in he quickly assessed the decision and was able to have a tech give me an IV with painkiller. The IV was a heavenly gift that immediately relieved my pain. Just being honest though, before the painkiller I was in a world of discomfort/pain. I do not blame the clinic for this as I think it was a simple miscommunication on pain/expectation on my part. Back to watching Turkish music videos! The implantation was still going, and I was in a state of trying not to fall asleep and be aware of anything the techs needed me to do in terms of my position. No joke, this step took a total of around 6-7 hours. Dr. Yaman had come in at various times to make sure I was okay, and to keep an eye on what the techs were doing. At one point he took a good look at the implants and looked at me and said something like "magnifique" and proceeded to do the chefs kiss emote like he had just made some killer spaghetti. At another point he came in and looked at my crown, and proceeded to talk to the tech about something. The tech paused and then resumed after this. I was told by Yaman as well that the crown takes much care, getting the hairs to go in the spiral direction takes time. It had gotten dark outside and at this point the techs had taken so many trays of my hair out of the fridge I thought for sure we were almost done. Music video after music video, they kept going until eventually one of the techs was left and proceeded to finish it up. Deeps breaths... I did it! That was one of the most painful experiences I've ever had. But I'm on the other side of it. One step closer to a beautiful result. We proceed to go back to the main lobby and talk with some of the patients that also got their procedure that day (I think it was just 3 of us). After receiving some post-care instructions and heading out, we had some good laughs in the taxi discussing the day, vibes were great. I was told by the director I would be brought in the next morning for the first wash. All of this went smooth and I went to bed in the proper position. Last day after the first wash was just pure resting. If your in this same hotel, I recommend using the lounge chair to sleep in that is next to the bed. It's easy to setup a 45 degree head rest area that has almost 0 risk of leaning back far enough to hit the implantation crown area (there is nothing behind the lounge chair). I didn't use the travel pillow Yaman gave me to prop up my head, it was a cheap blow up one. I had bought a memory foam travel pillow that was leagues better and I didn't see any big difference from the two aside from comfort. After the rest day, I traveled back to the states the next day and had an enjoyable flight home. Don't worry about people looking at you in the airports, you look beautiful in that Yaman headband with a swollen noggin. I've been recovering well with 0 pain and no misplaced grafts (so far). I plan to update this thread on progress on a pretty spread out basis. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my experience. I would definitely recommend Yaman at this point. Obviously this could change if my results go south, but I have great confidence that it will be just fine. Post transplant: