Portugal25

Dear HRN friends, Apologies for the delay with the final results pictures at 19 months without taking Finasteride or Minoxidil. Took photos today with heavy lighting at the barbershop. I understand I had a lot of area to fill in but I had hopes I would get a bit more density from my beard grafts, sadly my beards grafts are just as thin as my scalp grafts. In the end I managed to get coverage all over but with very little density so I think I have to consider a third and last surgery. My frontal HT from my FUT with Dr. Rahal 13 years ago is also with little density due to losing all the native hair in that region. After my surgery Dr. Pekiner said I had no donor area left but I will speak with some more Doctors for a second opinion as I believe there’s enough donor here for a third surgery. Have to say that I kind of lost faith in BHT because these 1888 beard grafts (all singles) really didn’t added as much density as I had hoped and the 2007 scalp grafts alone weren’t going to be enough to fill up 120cm2 of slick bald real estate. Looking forward to your comments.

@5BetaReductase I didn’t write that Doctors doing pre-made slits don’t achieve amazing results in fact I simply wrote that it’s a older technique that DHI or stick&place or DHT which is true because pre-made slits was the first FUE technique. The best results I have seen are from Doctors doing DHI (Couto, De Freitas) and Stick&Place (Konior) so I tend to lean towards Doctors with great results that do the whole surgery using these techniques.

@digi23 you are approaching this the wrong way by saying "Clinic" instead of Doctor. In Turkey a clinic is almost always a hairmill with underpaid techs doing surgery on several patients per day with zero to little Doctor involvement. Hidden Gems exist in Turkey but they are called Doctors and you can find them by looking at their real patients posting great results on online forums. The sad reality is that you can count hiddens gems in Turkey with one hand because in my opinion it`s just Dr. Pekiner, Dr. Kesser, Dr. Ozgur at HLC and then the two low cost Doctors doing the older technique "pre-made slits" Dr. Demirsoy and Dr. Bicer. Other than these 5 options in Turkey I wouldn`t risk it because Turkey is the world capital of botched hair transplants.

Updated.

In my table I added 18% tax. I do believe that’s the tax for cosmetic surgery.

@H.KI asked just that to @Melvin- Moderatorabout a year ago. It would be truly amazing if HRN had a similar benchmark table for all it`s coalition Doctors and other Doctors doing amazing work.

Thanks! It takes a lot work to get all the information stated for each Doctor on this table. I really don’t understand why I had to call every clinic on that list to get this information when it’s something that could simply be available at each of these Doctor’s website.

@JohnAC71 I have only seen the 7000 graft HT done by Dr. Zarev and it was really amazing. Melvin also thinks he`s very good but at 4,00€/graft he does seems pricey for Bulgaria. He does the extraction using vacuum that supossedly means less trauma to the graft than punch extracting but there`s not a lot of information out there on this extraction method. Also his website doesn`t inform what technique he uses for implanting the grafts. If you have this info available, please let me know how many patiens per day he does and his implantation technique so I can add Dr. Zarev to the list. Thanks!

@JDEE0not being able to update the first with the correct price for Dr. Pinto but will do it as soon as I can update. Thank you for contributing with this valuable information.

Dear HRN friends, I took the time to develop this benchmark table with a quick comparison of the prices, technique, patients per day and Doctor involvement in the surgery. When I was researching a Doctor apart from looking at results from each Doctor these were the most important factors I took into consideration. This table might have some information that isn`t accurate so I ask for everyone`s help on keeping it updated. Let me know if I need to amend anything. It would also be great if you could share information on other top Doctors you would like to add to this list (Doctors with amazing real patients results, not hairmills). Just write up the details on the Doctor so I can update the table with all his info (the more the merrier!). Thank you everyone!

@mikocongratulations on having your HT with one of the best Doctors in the world. After the terrible ordeal you had at ASMED hairmill i`m very happy to see you come out victorious. Thanks for the update on the prices. I will update my table accordingly.

@Curious25they now even sponsor the NBA: https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FCinikEmrah%2Fstatus%2F1232571824829059078&widget=Tweet Wonder how many thousands of tech run surgeries they need per year to pay for this Marketing investment...

@helimachoptorI don`t think you have enough donor area to get a decent density in the front, midscalp and crown because you will need over 9.000 grafts. For a NW7 usually FUE is not the best option and you should consider doing FUT first using up all your FUT strip donor area and only after doing FUE as to maximize your scalp donor area. There`s only 1 clinic doing mega sessions with combined FUT and FUE showing good results and that`s Dr. Muresanu in Switzerland. So that`s what I would advise you if you truly want the best possible outcome. Check HRN mega sessions at Hattingen: I had 1888 beard grafts implanted into my crown and I can tell you BHT is not a solution jas it just adds a little extra density to transplanted scalp grafts in the crown area. Check out my table below with the prices, technique and Doctor involvement. Wish you all the best with your HT. P.S: Cinik is the most famous hairmill in Turkey with underpaid techs doing dozens of HT per day so it´s problably one of the worst choices you can make considering your situation. Cinik is famous because they sponsor the British premier league.

@Mdc2021it`s very strange to see a thread comparing two hairmills with HLC that is the best clinic in Turkey. ASMED has several patients at HRN complaining about being mistreated after their botched HT and how this clinic is a hairmill with techs doing HT on several patients per day. Cinik is the most famous hairmill in Turkey because they invest a lot on Marketing and even sponsor the British premier league soccer. You can imagine how patients per day that marketing budget requires. HLC is a clinic where the Doctor does the whole surgery with a more refined technique called stick&place same one used by Dr. Konior in the US. You can`t compare HLC with hairmills only with other Doctors that are involved in the whole surgery using a similar technique. In Turkey the other Doctors doing this are Dr. Pekiner (former HLC Doctor) and Dr. Kesser. A better option to the two hairmills you were considering is Dr. Bicer and Dr. Demirsoy. I would suggest you to spend a bit more and have your surgery in Europe. Check my table below with the prices, technique and Doctor involvement. Wish you all the best with your HT

@RyGuy it’s great you missed your HT last year because Turkey is the world capital of botched hair transplants. There’s hundreds of hairmills in Turkey and it’s easy to get seduced by their low prices. Then there’s expensive hairmills that spend a lot on Marketing like Asmed that sponsor premier league soccer because they have techs doing over a dozen surgeries per day. You would be better off at Eugenix but if Istambul is a must then go to either Demirsoy 1.25€/graft or Bicer 1.50€/graft. I recommend you to spend a bit more money and have a Doctor doing your whole surgery with a more evolved technique. Take a look at Dr. Ximena Villa in Madrid at 2.5€/graft and Dr. Bruno Pinto at Porto for 2.45€/graft. They both have dozens of patients posting great results on the Spanish forum. You can take a look at my table below comparing prices, technique and Doctor involvement in the surgery, Wish you all the best with your HT.

@FUEmonger yes please post Dr. Bruno’s results here at HRN instead of the Spanish forum because they already have more than 40 patients posting about Dr. Bruno Pinto.

Guess that’s the issue with HLC as it’s a clinic where you don’t know who will be the Doctor doing your surgery (reason why I wouldn’t chose them) so maybe these subpar results you mentioned are from a new HLC Doctor. I advise them for anyone considering Turkey because in past years they had a steady flow of great results and do BHT on a regular basis also with great results. Dr. Pekiner started out at HLC before venturing out on his own.

@FUEmonger this clinic belongs to Dr. Bruno Pinto who does just 1 patient per day with the most recent technique called DHI. He does the whole surgery with techs for assistance. He’s very strong in the Spanish forum were you can see dozens of patients posting their results. The reason for this is because he started working in Spain before returning to his hometown in Portugal so he built quite a reputation in Spain and is booked solid for months just with the Spanish clientele. He along with Dr. Bruno Ferreira also in Porto will be my options for my next HT. Asking if Dr. Bruno Pinto is a hairmill is like asking if a Ferrari drives like a Fiat.

@RandoBrando517thanks and I agree with you that wouldn’t pay extra 6k for HLC unless I wanted BHT. Even though I believe HLC are the best in Turkey at that price point I would much rather go to Dr. Pinto and Dr. Ximena Villa.

Just updated my table to include Dr. Bicer. HRN friends let me know if any information on this needs to be updated.

@Melvin- ModeratorI fully agree that it`s the surgeon and his team that are responsible for the results and not the technique. A average doctor doing stick&place will get a worst result than a good doctor doing pre-made slits. What I can`t agree is that if you have two equally great surgeons; one doing the older pre-made slits and the other doing more evolved techniques like stick&place or DHI (without pre-made slits) they will both achieve the exact same results. I do believe that in this situation the great surgeon doing stick&place or DHI will get a better result. If that wasn`t true then Dr. Konior would also be doing pre-made slits instead of stick&place because it`s a technique that demands much less effort from the Doctor. I just saw that Dr. Bicer is now a recommended surgeon at HRN and I hope to also see HLC on that list in the future because I believe they are the best in Turkey and one of the best in the world for BHT.

@hairtxpit`s true that between these two Doctors you can only compare the cost of the surgery because they have very different techniques. HLC is a Doctor only surgery doing a more refined technique called stick&place which means the Doctor performs the slit and immediatly implants the graft so the slit remains open for just a few seconds before receiving the graft (same technique used by Dr. Konior). Dr. Bicer from what I understood (please correct me if I`m wrong) is doing the same technique as Dr. Demirsoy and many others, The Doctor does all the slits and then the techs (not the Doctor) do the implanting. This means the slit stays open for a much longer period of time and since the slit begins to close immediatly after being opened any surgery doing pre-made slits can`t have punch sizes as low as 0,7mm like you see with DHI or Stick&Place because they need wider punch sizes to compensate for the time the slit stays open. Ofcourse this older technique can alse get good results in the hand of a great Doctor but the best results I have seen are from Doctors doing either DHI and Stick&Place. So for me comparing HLC with Bicer is like comparing a VW with a BWM but come from Germany but have different approches in construction.

BHT is great to add density to the crown but if your beard hair color is not the same color as your hair like @TommyLucchese or if you have very curly haired beard then you are not a candidate for BHT. I had 1888 beard grafts transplanted to my crown and can tell you that it does help with the density because the grafts are denser but beard grafts are all single grafts so 1888 beard grafts will be equal to around 750 scalp grafts. It takes some time for the beard grafts to flow the same way as the rest of the native hair but now that I have cut my hair several times and combed it daily for more than 18 months it`s flowing just like the rest of my hair despite being slighly more curly but that can be easily solved by applying some hair products. When I touch the area with the beard grafts I can`t notice anything different but Dr. Pekiner did say my beard grafts were thin just like my scalp grafts. If I were to advise good BHT Doctors I would have to say Eugenix, HLC and Pekiner are the best options because I don`t see any other Doctors doing BHT on almost a daily basis like they are doing.

@Luismendes535maybe you should to speak with Dr. BF or Dr. BP about finasteride so they can better answers all your questions. I was told that the chances of having side effects are less than 2% (less if you take just 3x/week) and even if you notice something it usually fades away after a couple of weeks. If you do find after a few weeks that you still have side effects you can simply stop taking finasteride and the side effects will fade away. Back in 2007 Dr. Rahal told me to take finasteride 1mg every other day (dia sim dia não) and I didn`t take his advise because after the transplant to my frontal area I had a very dense full head of hair. Unfortunately you can see on my profile pic that I lost all the hair in my midscalp and crown in the following 10 years because my genes had already determined I was going to be a NW7 by the age of 35 and only if I had taken finasteride could I have prevented my hairloss from advancing to NW7, You can buy finasteride 1mg and minoxidil 5% spray at any local pharmacie without prescprition. Wish you all the best.

@giegnosiganoecongratulations on your 6 months results! Pekiner achieved a dense pack home run and you have 6 more months of growth.