Hair Transplant with Dr. Koray Erdogan 2000-2400 Grafts, June 28th 2019 ASMED

[JPEGMAFIA]

Hey guys

I started losing some hair in my early twenties, not a lot, but some loss on my temples and on the sides. I'm not sure if it was M.P.B. or just a maturing hairline. However, airing on the side of caution I started with finasteride a year ago. The hair loss has since subsided, which I'm happy about, but I would like to have the hair I lost restored. Furthermore, I would like to lower my hairline a bit,  because I have always had a naturally high hairline(5HEAD).

I researched hair transplant surgoens a few years ago. At that time it seemd like there was an unanimous consensus everywhere that Dr. Koray Erdogan is a quality HT surgeon. So chosing Erdogan was an easy decision. However,  after I made the booking and paid the deposit, I have seen a few concerning results from ASMED on this forum. I have also seen good results this past year, so it's not like it has been all bad.
However for the price I pay, I don't want it to be a coin flip. In spite of this, the thing that makes me confident to go trough with the surgery is the ASMED warranty,
 

Quote

ASMED WARRANTY

 

ASMED offers a guarantee of 90% regrowth of the transplanted grafts (Note: The growth rate for ASMED procedures is normally higher).  The exception is with special cases that include, for example, health problems that may limit growth, unrealistic expectations or poor predisposition for the surgery. These issues will, in any case, become apparent during the pre-operative consultation with Dr. Koray Erdogan. The clinic is committed to assist and monitor the development and evolution of the surgery for at least 12 months after it takes place. The assistants are always available for any information and will contact the patient periodically to evaluate transplant performance and to facilitate communication with the clinic.     

, which I assume guarantees a free touchup if you don't experience 90% regrowth(please correct me if I'm wrong).

Hopefully ASMED has taken steps to fix their issues, so a touchup will not be nececarry. We will see.

 

The surgery is in 5 days. I Will update this post with pictures and information once i get to Turkey. For those wondering, my ethnicity is 50/50 black white.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by JPEGMAFIA

[hairlossPA]

good luck man. how old are you?

[JPEGMAFIA]

15 minutes ago, hairlossPA said:

good luck man. how old are you?

Thanks fam. I’m 25.

[jonnyalex]

3 hours ago, JPEGMAFIA said:

Dr. Koray Erdogan is a quality HT surgeon.

This may or may not be true, but Koray Erdogan doesn't perform the surgery, he just spends a few minutes making slits in your head and then he's gone. I should know. 

Edited June 23, 2019 by jonnyalex

[JPEGMAFIA]

2 hours ago, jonnyalex said:

This may or may not be true, but Koray Erdogan doesn't perform the surgery, he just spends a few minutes making slits in your head and then he's gone. I should know. 

Oh boi. Bad results?

[CosmoKramer]

Best of luck with your procedure and recovery! 

[munich]

good luck 

[JPEGMAFIA]

18 hours ago, CosmoKramer said:

Best of luck with your procedure and recovery! 

 

9 hours ago, munich said:

good luck 

Thank you friends

[JPEGMAFIA]

 

Day before travel:

My patient coordinator, muge, contacted me about any medications i take. I told her about my sleeping pills and asked if they were an issue(I have chronic insomnia). She later informed me that ideally, due to an interaction with IV medication, i should discontinue my usage of the sleeping pills a few days before the surgery. However, if i can’t, it’s not a big deal. 

I tried not taking them the night before the trip. It resulted in staying up all night. Yikes. 

Travel:

I traveled from Norway to Turkey with a connecting flight in Frankfurt Germany. Total travel time was around 14 hours, due to delays and the 5 hour gap between connecting flights. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that i was a zombie, going on 24-40 hours without sleep. I finally ended up in the airport and was at the ASMED hotel by 3am. Needless to say i took my sleeping pills and had the best sleep of my life.

Day 1 - consultation and pre-surgery routine:

Had blood pressure, ekg and bloods taken. After that we took some pictures(which I dont have access to yet), and then I was sat in the lounge to sign the contract. They literally had a concert pianist and another woman playing cello there. That caught me off guard, I’m not gonna lie. They were so skilled. Got to hear live music from Game of thrones(Sept of Balor), Lord of the Rings,  Harry Potter and some classical music I can’t name. 

Anyway, after some wait I got to meet Dr Erdogan for my consultation.  

The bad news first: he noticed miniaturization of hairs on the part between my crown and my hairline, far behind my hairline actually. He told me that I would eventually lose the hair, edpecially if I stopped using Finasteride. I didn’t expect that. If Finasteride doesn’t stop the hair loss, then I’m going for the nuclear Dutasteride option ☢️ .

The good news: I have pretty decent donor capacity. It’s over 9000! Which is above average. Also because curly hair covers more surface area, it means I don’t need as many grafts as people with staight hair do. Yay. Dr. Erdogan went for for the low end, 2000, of the grafts i was initially quoted, 2000-2400, which makes me 1000 euro richer. Or 1000 euro less poor. 

He drew the hairline and asked me if i liked it. Sure, it looked cool I guess? But it’s honestly pretty hard to gauge the final outcome based on a purple line on your forehead. The consultation was rather brief, but I wasn’t left with any unanswered questions

One thing I was not happy about was my talk with the anesthesiologist. He didn’t seem very prepared for our talk, and mixed up a lot of things. He told me not to take sleeping pills before the surgery, and gave me Xanax instead. Whatever, that stuff never puts me to sleep, but at least i will have a pretty chill night. The odd part , however, was that he didn’t want me to take sleeping pills for 5 days after the surgery. Not because of any interaction, but simply because if I fall into deep sleep then i might scratch my head or something? What? I don’t think drug induced sleep is any different from regular sleep in that respect. Furthermore, I will be using a neck pillow to keep me from turning over anyway. If i don’t take the pills for 5 days, then I won’t get any sleep for the first 3 days at least. Obviously lack of sleep increases the risk of infection and negatively impacts the bodys healing process, and most importantly puts me in a shit mood. So I will tell him tomorrow that i need those pills.

Finally, I met some fellow Scandinavian patients at dinner. Luckily for me they were not danish. For one of them this was his 3rd time coming to Erdogan. Funny enough, each time he had come to Erdogan for a HT,  the clinic had changed. His first time was back when the clinic was only a small apartment. Well, it’s not small anymore, I can tell you that much. The guy said that, even though the location had changed, the HT procedure was still the same as ever. So that’s pretty reassuring to me. 

Ok, thats all for today.

Edited June 28, 2019 by JPEGMAFIA

[DEB1982]

Good luck for your procedure today. 

I would agree about the deep sleep concern as I lost a graft myself on the first night after my second procedure due to this. Whatever the doctor tells you, they are doing so to optimise your results so trust them. 

[JPEGMAFIA]

6 hours ago, DEB1982 said:

Good luck for your procedure today. 

I would agree about the deep sleep concern as I lost a graft myself on the first night after my second procedure due to this. Whatever the doctor tells you, they are doing so to optimise your results so trust them. 

 

Thanks!

Yeah, you’re right, after talking with some other patients about it, I see why. Your body knows something is wrong up there, so you might unconsciously touch it in your sleep. 

Edited June 28, 2019 by JPEGMAFIA

[JPEGMAFIA]

Here are some pictures:

 

 

After haircut:

After sugery:

 

Day 2 - surgery:

Ill keep this brief, might expand on it later.

Didn't sleep anything the night before surgery, because of an interaction with IV medication and my pills.
The day started with the extraction phase. The main technician had worked for Dr. erdogan for 5 years, so I was in good hands. The extraction phase was rather uncomfortable. There was little to no pain, except for whenever they injected anesthesia into your head with needle. But you had to sit still in a somewhat upright position. Extracting the 2000 grafts took 4 hours. 

The next two parts of the procedure were much more comfortable, since i got to lay down on the surgery bed.
First Erdogan came in and made 2000 incisions into my forehead. That took him around 30 min I think. And after that the team used the KEEP tool to insert my follicles into the incisions Erdogan had made. That took around five hours I think. So total surgery time was almost 10 hours.  

Edited June 30, 2019 by JPEGMAFIA

[paddyirishman]

All the best Im sure you will have a great result with your hair characteristics and plenty of backup in your doner for later.

........Paddy.......

....

[JPEGMAFIA]

On 7/1/2019 at 2:02 AM, paddyirishman said:

All the best Im sure you will have a great result with your hair characteristics and plenty of backup in your doner for later.

 ........Paddy.......

....

Thanks!

 

3 Weeks:

This is my hairline right now. Pretty happy with how it looks. None of my family members or friends were able to tell that anything had changed. Today was the first day i started noticing some shedding, so i bet the transplanted hair will be gone by next week. Unlucky.

 

I'm hoping for a great result, but prepared for the worst. You never know.

 

 

[JPEGMAFIA]

2 MONTHS UPDATE:

Haven't cut my hair since my hair transplant. As you can tell i shed a lot of the transplanted hair, but not everything. The long hair you see in the frontal hairline never shed. Is this normal?

My hair looks like shit, but it is to be expected. Still have to wait 4 - 10 more months too see if the procedure was a success or not.

 

 

[Der3k7]

Hey man good luck I'm actually headed back there in 2 months for a warranty procedure because the first one didn't yield very well for me but hoping for better results the second time 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Der3k7

[JPEGMAFIA]

1 hour ago, Der3k7 said:

Hey man good luck I'm actually headed back there in 2 months for a warranty procedure because the first one didn't yield very well for me but hoping for better results the second time 

Thanks mate. Sucks it didn't yield well, but glad they kept their word about the warranty. How did you go about getting the warranty procedure? How long after the procedure did you have to wait before they agreed to it? Did you have to hassle them for it, or were they easy to deal with?

[Der3k7]

It was a very reasonable process I just constantly took revealing pictures at every angle to show the actual yield and for receiving 5000 grafts and what I looked like pre op it was just obvious that I am not going to be reverting 90% yield by any means when you see the powerful results of 90% yield of people with even less grafts than me like 3000. They're transformations are clearly better than what I had at 5000 grafts. I'd say around 8 to 9 months was when they became ready and willing to arrange something. 

I know they can get great results someone just posted a result of 3000 grafts in the hairline and his yield  was excellent 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Der3k7

[JPEGMAFIA]

2.5 months:

 

I got a mid fade haircut and kept to hair on the top to cover the HT hairline. This is the first time since the operation i feel like my hairline looks alright, and it's all downhill form here so that's cool 😄 Looks a bit wierd from the top, but I'm taller then most people so it's not that big of an issue.

 

Really wanna ditch wearing caps/bandana all together, but I gotta keep wearing it in the sun because ASMED instructed me to avoid the sun for 6 months. Sounds a bit excessive but it's all good - winter is coming. 

 

 

 

On 8/26/2019 at 6:23 PM, Der3k7 said:

It was a very reasonable process I just constantly took revealing pictures at every angle to show the actual yield and for receiving 5000 grafts and what I looked like pre op it was just obvious that I am not going to be reverting 90% yield by any means when you see the powerful results of 90% yield of people with even less grafts than me like 3000. They're transformations are clearly better than what I had at 5000 grafts. I'd say around 8 to 9 months was when they became ready and willing to arrange something. 

I know they can get great results someone just posted a result of 3000 grafts in the hairline and his yield  was excellent 

Great to hear that the process was reasonable. Hoping the best for your touch-up friend.
 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by JPEGMAFIA

[CosmoKramer]

Your recovery looks good and progress at 2.5 months looks as it normally should.

By the way....I think you mean that now it’s all ‘Uphill’ from here...not downhill, that wouldn’t be what you want 😳😉🙂

[JayLDD]

7 hours ago, JPEGMAFIA said:

2.5 months:

 

I got a mid fade haircut and kept to hair on the top to cover the HT hairline. This is the first time since the operation i feel like my hairline looks alright, and it's all downhill form here so that's cool 😄 Looks a bit wierd from the top, but I'm taller then most people so it's not that big of an issue.

 

Really wanna ditch wearing caps/bandana all together, but I gotta keep wearing it in the sun because ASMED instructed me to avoid the sun for 6 months. Sounds a bit excessive but it's all good - winter is coming. 

 

 

 

Great to hear that the process was reasonable. Hoping the best for your touch-up friend.
 

 

 

Thoughts on the new album? 

[JPEGMAFIA]

12 hours ago, CosmoKramer said:

Your recovery looks good and progress at 2.5 months looks as it normally should.

By the way....I think you mean that now it’s all ‘Uphill’ from here...not downhill, that wouldn’t be what you want 😳😉🙂

Isn't uphill more of a struggle than downhill? idk man english is hard 😅

10 hours ago, JayLDD said:

Thoughts on the new album? 

It's a masterpiece, Peggy is on fire. Only listened through the whole album once. 

 

Best songs imo:

* Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot - Absolute banger. His high pitch "for Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal" sound so good and the beat is fire. Slaps as hard as 1539 N. Calvert on Veteran

* JPEGMAFIA TYPE BEAT - GRIMEY WAIFU - I consider it as one song, because of the way they flow into each other. I'm in love with the spacey/cloudy beat at the end of both songs. And the guitar chords are clean as well. 

* Rap Grow Old & Die x No Child Left Behind -  Smooth hook

* All my Heroes  Are Cornballs 

* Thot Tactics

* BasicBitchTearGas

* DOTS FREESTYLE REMIX

What's your thoughts?

 

[CosmoKramer]

22 hours ago, JPEGMAFIA said:

Isn't uphill more of a struggle than downhill? idk man english is hard 😅

Haha, I guess it depends on viewpoint...I see “downhill” as ‘everything going down hill to shit’ haha...HT progress is most definitely an uphill struggle in terms of the waiting game and progress timeline and once your reach the peak of the results hill is when the struggle ends, imo.

 

 

Edited September 15, 2019 by CosmoKramer

[JPEGMAFIA]

Okay, it's been a while.

15th month update: 2000 grafts

I am happy i went through with the procedure, and have better hair now than before.
The picture above was me with fairly long hair(down to my eyes if i stretch). 

 

However, if i don't comb my hair forward, or keep my hair short, it's apperant that i haven't gotten 90%+ regrowth.
Blow are some pictures from today, after my haircut.
 

The middle part is okay

The left side of the hairline has a lot of gaps

left side

 

right side looks goods

left side again

 

I'm not stressed about this result, it's better than before and it's easy to hide the gaps in my hairline with a longer hairstyle. But given the price i payed, I am not satisfied with the result.
I will contact asmed and ask for a free touchup. 
I Will get back to you with their answer. 

 

If anyone wonders, I have been using fin for 6 months before the procedure and been using it every day post-op.

Edited September 26, 2020 by JPEGMAFIA

[Paulos12]

Asmed is not the good clinic that once was, it produces very bad results lately