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ASMED - Koray Erdogan - 3207 Grafts (24th February 2017)


Vainism

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Thank you

First of all i would like to thank the Hair Restoration Community for giving me the opportunity to write this review. If it wasn't for you guys I wouldn't be prepared to move onto the next chapter of my life,

As always, I strongly believe in the phantom of giving back to the community, so I hope you thoroughly enjoy this review and that it enables you to move forward with your hair loss implications.

 

Profile:

Age: 25

Location: Australia

Norwood: 2.5-3

 

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Introduction

At the beginning when you come to the realization that you need a hair transplant, you are desperate, you'll have thoughts and temptation of jumping onto the next plane for a cheap transplant. Many times I came close to throwing deposits down on India or Thailand (Oh boy oh boy what a big mistake that would have been)

Selecting a surgeon in the hair industry is like picking a needle out of a hay stack, there's so many to choose from with so many inconsistent results which makes it a extraneously a daunting task. I mean this one person is going to manipulate the frame of your face for all of your existence. Its either going to be the best decision you'll ever make or the worse (fear fear fear is what sabotages our minds - major apologies to those who have bitten the bullet and shared their experience with average results)

 

 

Research

I guess this is why they say - Knowledge is King? I can't stress enough how important it is to do your homework. I spent a few months in my spare time researching each and everyone's reviews. Through intel and reccomendations I accumulated - I selcted between four surgeons; Lorenzo from Spain, Rahal from Canada, Pathomvanich from Thailand and the infmaous Koray Erdogan from Turkey. (Yes I'm bias who cares lol)

 

I understand Lorenzo is renowned to be one of the big dogs for FUE, but I found his price far too expensive. Rahals employees who instigate contact via telephone were exceptional, and I do love how natural Rahal's hairline designs are, except the only flaw I found that his FUT was his biggest perk, and the quote was double Erdogan. Pathomvanich was next door to Australia, and the most experienced, except I found way to many inconsistent reviews recently over the past year or so which really put me off him in regards to FUE. I also considered Bhatti from india, except I found a lot of bad reviews pop up, although I must admit he does take on some pretty high norwood scales which doesn't really work to his favor.

 

I selected Erdogan as my number one candidate as he produced the highest quality of work for the best price in the industry. He was the only surgeon I couldn't find one negative review from him. The only negative feedback i could find was in regards to his over-harvesting methodologies which wasn't quite a concern for me as I'm relatively a low Norwood and am fond towards the compact hairlines that Erdogan and Rahal seem to be producing. My only down side with Erdogan was his location, as we all know Turkey isn't the best place to go spend a vacation with the recent terror attacks over the past few years. So i decided to go until things calmed down. Funny enough as soon as I booked my flights and made my deposit with ASMED, a few days later there was a night club shooting massacre. FML I'm a bit of a risk taker, so I just went ahead with it, i was done with my hair consuming me. The date was set for Feb 24 2017.

 

 

2 Days Pre-OP

After a 20 hour flight from Australia, i finally arrived in Istanbul. My driver Shivak was waiting for me with a sign, when we met, I immediately was given the phone and spoke to my co-ordinator Sevinj, who spoke to me about the process. The airport was on complete lock-down, heavily under surveillance and I actually never felt like i was in any danger. The city was vibrant and full of life, it was like any other normal hectic city, it kind of reminded me of Bangkok and Athens, except much more developed.The city is very beautiful and lies between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. The roads, are very fast, and busy. Many times I saw near accidents, but nonetheless, i always felt safe with my driver. I was brought to the Radisson Hotel which took approximately 40 minutes from the Attaturk airport. This hotel was perfect, I highly recommend staying there for a few nights pre-op to get settled in, the room service food was some of the most amazing food ive had in a long time.Plus the hotel is like a few minutes away from the ASMED clinic which is ideal.

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1 Day Pre-OP

I arrived at ASMED, where Sevinj was waiting for me at the front of the lobby, all very professional, the facility and professionalism almost reminded me of the West World TV series how there clients were greeted. All very strict and professional. The clinic really is a world class facility, it has this futuristic design about the environment which makes you feel at ease.

First you are asked to wrap your shoes, hygiene standards are taken very seriously.

Then you are brought into a room for blood tests and for a blood pressure measure. My heart rate was through the roof, (I wasn't nervous, i was more excited lol) Plus what do you expect! not very often are you thrown into a room to strip your clothes in front of (beautiful) women to measure your damn heart rate lol. My best advice is to just tell them how you are feeling so its not awkward lol.

 

I was brought back to the lobby and bought some lunch and tea, and I read the contract to sign my life away. What really appealed to me was the ASMED Warranty Policy that guarantees a 90% policy insurance to the transplanted grafts. (I've seen some rough cases with some surgeons from America where they have had unsuccessful results, and try charge their patients more money for the fix up this is a big no no from me)

After i finished signing the contract, I had a young attractive asian female play me some music (yes there is a big ase Yamaha Piano sitting in the corner of the lobby) Being a music producer I was like wtf is going on why is there a professional pianist playing me music lol. I was quite impressed.

 

 

The Interview

Eventually you are brought into Koray's office. He speaks to you about your hair loss, talk's about the future, and measures your donor capacity. (note his english is exceptional).

He gives you realistic expectations and everything you want is taken into consideration. He looks at you for a brief second, and draws the hairline he thinks suits and asks you for any tweaks. I came into this part of the process with an open mind, and thought i would put my trust with the surgeon 100%.

 

The hairline he drew was great, in-fact it was perfect, except my only concern was that it looked a little to perfect, and I wanted it lifted a little higher for realistic expectations. He also told me that I needed to take Propecia for the year so I keep all my native hair and no further is lost. I've never taken Propecia as I'm pretty prone to gynocemastia, so I've always been conscious about the drug, but I guess once you get a hair transplant, your in it for life!

We agreed on 3200, and I was told i have a total donor capacity of 7000 in the bank, so this gives me 3800 to work with in the future for the crown when I go back in ten years time depending on how the Propecia looks after me.

 

 

Shaving & Hair Surgical Plan

You are brought down stairs for the shave! We had some fun with some hair styles. And yes there are more attractive women everywhere (Wtf is this place lol).

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You are brought into the drawing room where pre photos are taken for ASMED, and Koray comes in to design the final hairline. He uses lasers to measure the frame of your face to get your hairline as asymetrical as possible. It took a few minutes, i looked in the mirror and gave him the okay on the first attempt. I was a bit unsure about my corners being a little square, and had the intuition that they probably should recede more back, but apparently from front of the design he gave me framed my face the best, so I just let the pro do his thing.

 

THE DESIGN

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Surgery

I was sent back to the Radisson Hotel, and told to be up by 7 am for Surgery. Don't worry guys you won't need an alarm, 6 am you are woken by Muslim prayers which are played throughout the streets of Istanbul. I had a big breakfast in the morning, jumped into the shower and headed down stairs where the ASMED drivers were waiting for me along with the other 2 candidates who were getting hair transplants as well. One was swedish (avicii) and the other Italian, both cool guys. They were on their second day.

 

I arrived at ASMED, where you get changed into your gown, you are brought into the kitchen where everyone is eating breakfast (one big happy hardworking family lol) I took my Xanax, and went into theater. You have a translator who is on-site 24/7 throughout the entire operation. The xanax really relaxed me, I kind of found everything pretty funny.

 

 

Extraction Phase

Nonetheless, extraction process began where the real fun begins. They inject anesthesia into your donor region. The injections are actually pretty painful but only momentarily, the best way I could describe the pain is short sharp bee stings. 7/10 pain in the threshold imo (I've had tattoo sleeve done that's about a 9/10 pain). But don't stress too much once the first few are in, the rest feel like little pinches (3/10 pain)

Each hair follicle is extracted into a special Hypothermosol solution. This apparently preserves the biological function for the graft while it is outside the body.

You are offered to watch a movie, but I just listened to music and tried to relax. You are in a upward position, but I was comfortable throughout it all. (You also receive a Thai foot massage).

Each donor section (left,mid,and right) takes about an hour to extract 1k grafts.

Each graft is also counted , and you get to view the countings with the screen infront of you. You are pretty much just waiting for the quadripples and quantiples (and sextuples if you're lucky!)

 

Here are my Extraction Results:

3207 grafts // 2.19 Hair:Graft ratio (HGR)

Temporal 507 grafts // 1.91 HGR

Parietal 1155 grafts // 2.30 HGR

Occipital 1545 grafts // 2.19 HGR

 

Singles - 527

Doubles - 1661

Triples - 915

Quadruples - 100

Quanitles - 3

Sextiples - 1

 

Incision Phase

After this is done Koray enters the room like a king for the Incision phase. The incisions are implanted using a Sapphire blade via the Lateral Slit Technique. The best way I could describe it was like the sound of dirt being scraped on top of your head exemplifying crunching sounds. I found it quite relaxing, and I felt no pain in the recipient area as it was administered with local anesthesia.This takes about 30-40 minutes,

We shook hands and he assured me that I was going to have a great result.

 

 

Implantation Phase

The implants are performed by the Technician Team using Erdogan's new KEEP method.

The technicians all have six years experience aswell which is reassuring.

In the end 3207 grafts were implanted. We ended up finishing at 5:30 (7-8 hours) Final result was 3207.

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After the completion you are brought up stairs where they place a Lazer therapy helmet over your head. This treatment is suppose to stabilize the grafts. Koray comes into the room to evaluate everyone results, and gives the final okay. After all this, you are mentally so tired. I went upstairs into my room, and crashed straight away. I felt a little sick when i got into my room and had some nausea, and a faintness feeling. So I just slept it off. Each hour you are told to use the ATP spray for the first few days and once every three hours after.

 

THE RESULT

 

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2 Hours Post

 

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Post Operation

You are told to wake up by morning 9 am, and you are given your first wash. First ASMED foam is applied to your recipient area for 15-20 minutes, and is washed with ASMED shampoo by one of the employees. It's funny how temperamental your instincts are for the washing phase, because when they wash, they do it very firm. (You'll be like what the hell are you doing you're going to screw up my HT!) But i guess this goes to show that over night the grafts really do seal in. The recipient area is washed twice and everyone says there final goodbyes.

 

I decided to stay at ASMED overnight by myself on the Sunday (was quite lonely lol) I spent the day resting which was a mistake, because by the time I left on day 2 , swelling began, and I entered the Attaturk, and the Dubai airport looking like a mutant with an extra chromosome. I highly recommend that you bring sunglasses post op if you have a long flight. I had lots of flight delays, which made the process even more grueling and found myself doing my second day wash inside a airport toilet which wasn't a great experience lol. But you're face pretty much gets raped by the swelling and you get some pretty awkward stares from the public.

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After 46 hours of travelling with delays I finally arrived home. On day 2 the numbness begins to ware off and it is extremely painful to sleep on my donor. I would rate the pain 8/10 (note some patients do not experience any pain post op) I had to drop 2 Iburofens before bedtime to ease the pain. You are also given a neck pillow which sucks at first, but you'll get use to it.

 

PROGRESS:

Day 3

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I was extremely careful with my washing, as I didn't want to effect my result or lose any hairs

 

Day 4

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Day 6

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Day 8-12

You are asked to wash extremely firmly in circular motions. I didn't start washing firmly until day 10 to be on the safe side.

 

I returned to work 14 days post op, and no one could tell i had a transplant. I don't like to lie, and travelling to europe for a week sounds pretty fishy if you're from Australia, so I was just upfront about my operation and told all my co-workers that I had a Hair Transplant.

 

Day 28

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I'm currently on day 30 and have only started losing hairs in the shower from Day 28 onwards.

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I'm over a month now, and I still have my transplanted hairs, I guess over the next two weeks they are expected to completely drop off.

 

Let me know what you all think!

 

-Vanism

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Wow looks great! I am here in Istanbul and will be going in today for the first day checkups. I'm still nervous to shave my head haha. I think that's what I'm most worried about. It looks like you will have a great result! Congrats!

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Wow looks great! I am here in Istanbul and will be going in today for the first day checkups. I'm still nervous to shave my head haha. I think that's what I'm most worried about. It looks like you will have a great result! Congrats!

 

Thanks man! how'd your surgery end up going?

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Thanks man! how'd your surgery end up going?

 

It went well! I definitely don't like washing the recipient area right now. I thought I saw a graph or two fall out but I'm not sure. Did you see anything fall out in your first week of washngs?

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It went well! I definitely don't like washing the recipient area right now. I thought I saw a graph or two fall out but I'm not sure. Did you see anything fall out in your first week of washngs?

 

Yeah the first week is pretty stressful with the washings, after day 9 I felt comftable applying really firm pressure. And yes i started finding lots of hair falling out after day 5. What type of design did Koray end up giving you?

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Yeah the first week is pretty stressful with the washings, after day 9 I felt comftable applying really firm pressure. And yes i started finding lots of hair falling out after day 5. What type of design did Koray end up giving you?

 

I'll post a couple pics. I am actually having nerve pain in the donor area. I have been up all night the last few nights because of the pain. Is this something that happened to you?

http://www.hairrestorationnetwork.com/eve/186536-4500-grafts-dr-koray-asmed.html

 

That's the link to my forum. It will have some pictures of the design. Here is one from today also.

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Looks amazing bro! Hahaha we got similar design :) Koray loves the aggressive hairlines hey!

 

Man from Day 3 on wards, I had excruciating pain in my donor region to the point where i couldn't even bloody sleep... it lasted from day 3 to day 8. After day 8-12 it was bearable to the point where i could sleep without medication. After day 13 I felt no thorough pain. My best advice for you is to double drop pain killers before you go to sleep, because i found before bed time is when the pain was the worse.

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Looks amazing bro! Hahaha we got similar design :) Koray loves the aggressive hairlines hey!

 

Man from Day 3 on wards, I had excruciating pain in my donor region to the point where i couldn't even bloody sleep... it lasted from day 3 to day 8. After day 8-12 it was bearable to the point where i could sleep without medication. After day 13 I felt no thorough pain. My best advice for you is to double drop pain killers before you go to sleep, because i found before bed time is when the pain was the worse.

 

That is exactly how it is with me. I haven't been sleeping at all because of it. I thought maybe I had something wrong with me but the more I research the more I find it does happen to allot of people. I am really hoping for a great result! I love the aggressive hairline! I hope the Fin kicks in and helps the process along.

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That is exactly how it is with me. I haven't been sleeping at all because of it. I thought maybe I had something wrong with me but the more I research the more I find it does happen to allot of people. I am really hoping for a great result! I love the aggressive hairline! I hope the Fin kicks in and helps the process along.

 

The pain in the donor area lasts for at least 10 days.. I took 2 or 3 strong painkillers everyday at that time. It was really annoying and painful without the painkiller. 4700 grafts from Erdogan.

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The pain in the donor area lasts for at least 10 days.. I took 2 or 3 strong painkillers everyday at that time. It was really annoying and painful without the painkiller. 4700 grafts from Erdogan.

 

It's relieving knowing that it's not just me and this fairly common for people. How was your result SanDiegan? Are you happy with it?

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It's relieving knowing that it's not just me and this fairly common for people. How was your result SanDiegan? Are you happy with it?

 

It has been 45 days, in the ugly duckling phase. Waiting with patience :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Great write up Vain! I'm considering going with Koray myself and I'm from Australia.

 

Any tips you could give me regarding travel,flights times,recovery etc would be appreciated greatly. I hope you get the results you are after cos 20 hour flight is hard work man.

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Yeah any side effects from fin eddie?

 

I'm day 38 and i still have well over 60 percent of my transplanted hair

 

That's awesome! No sides from the Fin. I started about 2 weeks before my HT. How's the transplanted hairs? Still have a good majority of them?

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Great write up Vain! I'm considering going with Koray myself and I'm from Australia.

 

Any tips you could give me regarding travel,flights times,recovery etc would be appreciated greatly. I hope you get the results you are after cos 20 hour flight is hard work man.

 

Thanks bro :)

 

In regards to immigration, when checking in they asked me specifically why im going to Istanbul, i told her straight out that it was for a hair transplant, she looked at me pretty weird.I guess she then sends a radio message to all security and you get sussed out pretty hard!

 

I got pat down through surveillance section, then got drug tested. Then once i went through immigration, I got CAT scanned, and pat down again. Then once i went to scan my passport, i got pulled aside by 2 custom officers into a secluded room for questioning.

 

For about 5-10 minutes they were asking me about my hair transplant and if i had any evidence supporting my claim. I just showed them my emails with Sevinj from ASMED, and they pretty much browsed through it all. Was pretty nerve racking, but they just thanked me for being honest, because of my low-luggage they said it would have been really awkward if i lied about it. I'm not sure if it's always this strict, but i was departing the airport on a Tuesday so it was really dead, and they must had been bored.

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2 month update tomorrow man!

 

Awesome. They really put you through the ringer at the airport. I pretty much walked through customs and security. Just the normal scans and pat downs. They did ask why I was there and I told them the truth and they didnt really react, just said ok. And I was on my way. I'll be looking out for that update.

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Awesome. They really put you through the ringer at the airport. I pretty much walked through customs and security. Just the normal scans and pat downs. They did ask why I was there and I told them the truth and they didnt really react, just said ok. And I was on my way. I'll be looking out for that update.

 

Mate they raped me lol . Even on my way back when my face was swollen as I got a 10 hour delay in Istanbul (flight over booked) then in Dubai I missed my connecting flight and had to wait another 15 hours in Dubai looking like a mutant lol . I had to do my first wash in a public toilet it was pretty distressing lol

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2 month update guys! :-)

 

Ugly duckling stage has well and truely begun !

Only losing a small amount of hairs in the shower and I have some pimple like cysts on the back of my donor which has minor pain if any physical pressure is induced.

 

Without any lighting the hairline still looks great... so the ugly duckling stage isn't really bothering me at all

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  • 5 weeks later...
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3 Month update

 

Pros:

-hairs are beginning to sprout

-hairline design has begun

-fin is making my native hair look really dark like i was 18 again

 

Cons:

-hair growth in general is slower then normal

-slight gynocemastia on left nipple is tender & sensitive

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