veckihair

12-13 days after surgery, I am seeing hairs falling off with follicles. One in the picture is shown here, where the z-shape, double 90 deg turn worries me a bit. Was this due to mis-installation/extraction? thank you for your insights.

Thank you @Gramatik for the encouragement! fingers crossed !

I am re-uploading the pics

I have used the "drag files here to attach, or choose files..." that is at the bottom of the text window. Again, open on a pc, you should be able to see all the pics, let me know if that is not the case

From my laptop I can see all the pics, but only the file paths show up on my phone, if anyone can help me fix that for mobile view I would do that, but honestly I do not know how.

Once I get home I will try and see what's happening with the pics, sorry...

Hello Folks, As promised, I will give you guys an honest review of my experience with Dr. Yaman. Hoping this helps others in making their choices, which is not an easy process. I had receding hair since my 20s, but in my late 30s and 40s I lost hair in the top and back of the scalp that, in conjunction with other life events, really made it difficult for me psychologically. I have been doing my research: I believe that for lower NW cases there are many options and it is difficult to go wrong there. However, there aren't too many surgeons that can tackle severe NW cases like mine: NW6+, 51 yr-old. Yes, the superstars are well known, like Dr. Pitella and Zarev, but they are years-in-advance overbooked, I am not getting any younger and do not have unlimited financial resources. There are also some ethics that I do not agree with, at least in one case, where secrecy and mysterious powers are not fully disclosed, thus these were not good options for me. I did a couple of interviews and visited with 2 clinics. The consensus was that I would need a minimum of 5,000 uf, really I would need closer to 8,000 uf to appear normal again, but I am old and perhaps can try and accept myself if I turn out a bit better than what I started off with. Dr. Yaman struck me from the get-go as a nice human, with a poised and calm style similar to mine. There are other clinics that are very aggressive in their pricing, but even more with their attempts at getting you to selecting them, they may be even better but I do not like pushy people. Dr. Yaman speaks English as well, and for me that was important. India was another somewhat affordable option, but the ‘car-dealership’ haggling with various packages and "throw-ins" just left a bad taste in my mouth and I excluded it. I speak a bit of Italian as well, learned about HT through italian friends, thus Alpi was my mediator, also a super nice human. Alpi speaks great English and he helped me get things situated. Pro-tip: in general, you want to be extra clear and use easy terms with all the folks at the clinic, ‘dumbing down’ your speech as much as possible to make sure they understand you. It is a long trip out to Istanbul, and I wanted to tack on some work and possibly visiting a bit of the city. I recommend visiting before your surgery, taking a couple of days to stroll the maze of the old city and overcome the jetlag is worth it. After the surgery, weather and abundance of caution may impede the efforts. Beware the vendors are ultra-pushy, and taxi drivers are scammers though. I had my surgery on a holiday, and they shut down a big portion of the city, including public transportation, which is a recipe for disaster and sure enough they faced protests and unrest from what I saw in the news. The clinic driver could not get to me because the roads were closed, so we had to improvise. I got ripped off by paying some $100 for a $20 cab-ride. That made the experience a bit stressful, also by starting a couple of hours later than planned. Luckily, I had my consultation with Dr. Yaman 2 days prior, so we could get going with the procedure as soon as I got to the clinic on surgery day. I have enjoyed meeting Dr. Yaman. During the consultation, he analyzed with the scope camera my remaining hair and donor hair. He said I had a good donor, which was a bit surprising but very welcome news. I was pleading to have some beard-hair used for the transplant, but he stated there was no need for it, and that it could be used in the future. I agree beard hair is not as good quality as scalp hair, but everything helps fill in the baldness! Anyway, he proceeded to measure the various areas of receiving and donor areas and calculated 4,650 would be the target number of grafts. I was again a bit surprised, as I was told 5,000 is really what I need to start off, but he added that he does not want to overdo it to help the skin heal better. I get that, and I agreed, though my 5,000 uf wish was vanishing. He drew a cool hairline. Really, I care more of my mid-scalp and crown, so I was impressed at how low the hairline was. On surgery day, he would draw it again with more care and we moved it up a bit to be more conservative. It is not perfect, and a bit asymmetric after seeing it with calm, but ok, as I said I want to see some of the donut on top filled in. After the crazy adventure in a grid-locked Istanbul to get to the clinic, we started with getting an IV plug in my left arm and drawing some blood for the exam (absolutely painless, thank you lady technician for that!), slipping into the gown, shaving and nogging washing, sticking electrodes to the chest, checking pressure and pulse, and then front anesthesia. This anesthesia phase is a series of pricks executed by Dr. Yaman around the frontal zone of your head. Not fun but no real pain, so fear not this phase. The anesthesia in the back of the head is administered later. The doctor proceeds to make incisions at an extraordinary speed. Honestly, I think the canals are opened at an approximate number, and then will be filled by the grafts which are also extracted at an approximate number. This begs the question: what happens when no. of grafts <> no. holes… More on this later. The incision phase is painless. The Dr. also administers PRP in your recipient area at the end of the incisions. The next phase is the harvesting, which requires a pretty painful series of injections in the back and side of the neck. You are facing down and just waiting for the next prick to arrive, hoping it won’t be as bad as the previous one: sometimes it is not, sometimes it is worse. Here my heart was racing, and my body was shaking, perhaps due to the blind waiting rather than for the actual pain. Nonetheless, you can make it through, it lasts about 5 minutes with perhaps some 5 or 6 real painful injections and others totally tolerable. At this point, the tech (I was told I was assigned the second most experienced team) starts the harvesting, which consists of a glorified Dremel tool with a hollow bit that loosens the graft from the scalp, and then a second person extracts the grafts from the scalp with tweezers (or something similar). The doctor comes in every once in a while to check in. He said he was happy with the extraction phase, and felt more confident than he was at the beginning due to my thin hair caliber. That was good news. At one point he said something to the lead tech; to me it sounded like an instruction to modify the way she was performing the extraction, I know he mentioned “vertical”, but of course I did not have much clue on what was happening. I wish they had mirrors on the ceiling and walls for you to see exactly what happens. Other than that, the whole procedure was somewhat soothing, and I struggled to keep my eyes open, but managed to stay alert 99% of the time. The tech administered more injections here and there. I asked whether they were PRP, she said “no”; anesthesia?, I asked, she replied “no”. She did not tell me what they were for. Very strange and definitely a cultural barrier here, in the west, a medic would tell you what they are doing, but oh well… One of the techs complained about something, and I could see pieces of tissues being discarded. I do not know whether that was coagulated blood or transected follicles, but nonetheless I did not like not knowing what that was. At another point, they phoned in the doc with a question. Obviously, something was not going according to plans, but the doctor seemed to reassure them. I do not speak any Turk, so I am speculating of course. Finally, the ‘drilling’ phase was declared concluded, and the collection of the remaining grafts continued. This lasted a long time. At times, there were some grafts that were not free from the scalp, even after some significant tugging, and the second tech had to use the drill to loosen them again. This happened in a particular zone of my neck for some reason, and for what felt 2-3 grafts. This phase was completed, I was told to stand up for a break and late lunch. As I did that, one of the techs held in her hands a bunch of tissue with more follicles (gone-wrong follicles perhaps). She clearly was asking another tech what to do with them, and she was told to discard them. I did not inquiry, I was a bit tired and I do not think they would have told me the truth anyway, and did not want to face bad news at that moment. Lunch was really delicious. I drank all the water they gave me, hit the restroom, and then back for the implanting phase. This is the longest phase of all, with 3 techs working on me at the same time. They hooked me up to a saline IV, and they would check here and there to make sure I did not experience any pain. Things went smoothly, but at one point I had to get rid of all that extra fluid they pumped into me, and I asked to give me a bathroom break. I had forced myself to drink a lot even at lunch, but in hindsight, I would not. A break during the implanting is risky. They must have all the grafts that were taken out of the fridge implanted or they would die, so you have to alert them some 15’ in advance, and they have to cover your head to prevent contamination. Next time, I will avoid taking a break in this phase, but I know myself and how I can handle dehydration, for you it may be different. After some 7.5 hrs from the start of the surgery, we were done, I was bandaged and released. Techs vanished in no time, it was a holiday, and I am sure they wanted to be home a lot earlier. Alpi told me that in the end they extracted 4,800 uf. How precise this count is? This is not clear to me. At half time I was told 4,200-4,500 is what they were thinking it would sum up to according to the doc, but it is possible he was being conservative preparing me in case there was some bad news. Later I was given a count per single, double, and multiple units, take it for what it is. i suspect that the channels were more than the grafts, but again i think I saw some getting discarded. I will post up pics from pre-op, and immediate post-op. I pray that things will work out, but I am happy with the whole process so far. There were a few hiccups, even with the hotel charges, but all in all a good experience. Add-on: The clinic offers a variety of other aesthetic surgery services. I have had two little skin tabs that have been bothering me for a long time. 2 days after surgery I went in for a second wash and I asked Dr. Yaman if that was something the clinic could help with. He said " No problem, I will take care of that". 10' later he did a little procedure to help get rid of them and at no charge!! To me that is such a nice gesture and makes him a human being that cares about his patients. I hope that will be the case for me and others for future follow-ups. I know some folks are a bit unsatisfied with the outcome, but I think it is worth going back to Dr. Yaman to have necessary fixes, I am sure he is compassionate enough. Like others said, it is a no-frill clinic, do not expect US resort-style hospitalization and pampering, but at the same time there are no nonsense restrictions and fear-culture to deal with. I hope this helps others. And I will answer sensible questions.

Really good results, all the best! I will head to Turkey at the end of April, and submit a review of Dr. Yaman as well, I am a NW6 and a bit worse than you to start off, wish me luck