berliner

Thank you Dr. Ozturk for the detailed response. Do you think I might have retrograde alopecia ?

I have consulted with dr gur, dr turan , dr bicer, dr karadeniz and dr. yaman so far. dr gur and dr turan has no availability in the short term, so unless i postpone it, i will need to go with one the remaining ones. HLC seems solid but i want to have the operation in Istanbul. thanks @Gatsby -- this forum is such a wonderful resource thanks to you folks. my next trip will possibly be in summer time, and i want to avoid a summer surgery if possible. but you have some valid points so i will follow up with a local doctor first regarding finasteride and retrograde alopecia. I never though about it - good catch! after some quick reading my understanding of retrograde alopecia risk is that it requires additional diligence in selecting donor area and graft. but i also understand it is hard to know where it will stop. does that mean i should wait more maybe, eg 1-2 more years?

hi folks, newbie here I started loosing my hair in my mid 20s and am 37 years old. I am not obsessed about it. Indeed these days I shave my head and am comfortable with the look. However, I witnessed some amazing outcomes with friends and family members that went through hair transplants. So before it is too late I would like to give it a shot 🙂 I plan to have it in Turkey as I travel to Istanbul for business every now and then. I have an upcoming trip in March so I want to have the operation then. I consulted with a few clinics in Istanbul over email and were given a few options, which got me a bit confusing. Some estimate that I will need 5-6k grafts to completely cover the bald areas with reasonable density. They can't tell how many grafts I can provide by simply looking at the pictures (attached) but they estimate that by also using grafts from the beard we should be able to reach north of 5k. Hence I have the following questions; - Assuming I indeed have 5k+ healthy grafts, should I go for a mega session spread over two days and be done with it or do 3K now and the rest next year? Setting aside the financial, convenience and recovery aspects, what are the pros and cons of the each option in terms of success rate? - I am leaning towards doing it over two sessions separated by at least a year. In this case, what should be the strategy in the first session: aim for wide but sparse coverage and increase the density next year? or should we aim for dense transplant in the frontal and mid-scalp and save the crown for next year?