Dr. Kaan Pekiner FUE+BHT 3895 (2007 FUE + 1888 BHT) 28/12/2019

[Coady]

@Portugal25 Do you ever regret not going on finasteride after your first procedure? 

l

[Portugal25]

Just now, Coady said:

@Portugal25 Do you ever regret not going on finasteride after your first procedure? 

l

Ofcourse I do! if I had kept taking  Finasteride I would probably still have a full head of hair and wouldn’t need this second HT.

 

[Portugal25]

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for not posting last month but I saw no improvement so decided to skip a month.

I just hit the 10 month mark and it does seem like there’s still some new growth but I still have low density in some areas that need to be improved in the next month or I will require a new HT.

Looking forward to your comments.

[Coady]

That’s a good result. Can’t expect miracles with that level of hair loss. Do you have any grafts left for another one ? Also any other pics of the midscalp 

[giegnosiganoe]

Seems like good coverage for the amount of loss you had.

What's up with the middle of your crown though, where the hair is bunching up together?

[Abi28]

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Edited November 1, 2020 by Abi28

[Rolandas]

5 minutes ago, Abi28 said:

Looking at where you started from it looks great. From my own experience Pekiner tends to give you less estimates of how many available grafts you have in your donor, there is no way you only had 2000 grafts available.

When I went to Pekiner he told me multiple times that my donor was depleted and that I only had 400 grafts left for a future procedure and if I wanted to remove more grafts I would need SMP done. I was a bit devastated because I had a large area to cover so it wasn't enough. After my surgery I started consulting with other doctors to see if my donor was still good enough for another procedure, I contacted HLC and Demirsoy and I was told the same thing, I can still get around 2000 grafts from my donor, I was upset because I was told that my donor was finished, a few weeks ago I decided to go with Demirsoy and he was able to get around 2250 grafts from my donor and told me that I have some left for a future procedure and he also mentioned that I had areas in my donor that were not touched which was a big surprise to me. Obviously it's still a bit early but I am now a few weeks post op and my donor has recovered well and there is nothing alarming and everything seems on track.

Pekiner is obviously skilled but the diagnosis and estimates that he gives can be off compared to other doctors, he is very ethical and great at what he does and he did a lot of good things for my hair by removing old plugs etc

If I were you I would contact other clinics, even though you might not need another procedure since the crown usually takes longer to fill in, in a few months you might be satisfied but I would ask other doctors to see how many grafts you have available because I guarantee you there is another 1500-2000 that can be used. 

Overall I would still call your surgery a success, good luck!

Dr. Pekiner extracts only from the safest area of the donor, considering worst case scenario you would progress to NW6/7. This is not the case with most people, but that's his approach. He proposed to me 3000 grafts (2500 scalp and 500 beard) on my very first HT.
I went with Dr. Ferreira, and he estimated around 9000-10000 grafts available before donor depletion. No beard needed.

[Abi28]

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Edited November 2, 2020 by Abi28

[giegnosiganoe]

3 hours ago, Rolandas said:

Dr. Pekiner extracts only from the safest area of the donor, considering worst case scenario you would progress to NW6/7. This is not the case with most people, but that's his approach. He proposed to me 3000 grafts (2500 scalp and 500 beard) on my very first HT.
I went with Dr. Ferreira, and he estimated around 9000-10000 grafts available before donor depletion. No beard needed.

I don't think I've seen anything too conservative from Dr. Pekiner's extraction patterns. Sure he doesn't usually go as high as someone like Dr. Hasson (just picking an example), but I think he spreads out the extractions far enough. I'd be interested in finding out his reasons for suggesting BHT in your case. Maybe he just didn't realize you had so many grafts in your donor?

 

See this extraction pattern from @kiokbs, I don't think it was too conservative.

[Rolandas]

10 hours ago, giegnosiganoe said:

I don't think I've seen anything too conservative from Dr. Pekiner's extraction patterns. Sure he doesn't usually go as high as someone like Dr. Hasson (just picking an example), but I think he spreads out the extractions far enough. I'd be interested in finding out his reasons for suggesting BHT in your case. Maybe he just didn't realize you had so many grafts in your donor?

 

See this extraction pattern from @kiokbs, I don't think it was too conservative.

Perhaps if someone is NW3 or so then he goes wider.
I've been in touch with him for quite some time, and by the end his representative said "Dr. Pekiner thinks you need X amount of scalp grafts and X amount of beard grafts. He won't change his mind". I've tried to negotiate and say that i don't want to use beard grafts in the first surgery, but this response was the same "he won't change his mind", so this put me away.

Once I had surgery with Dr. Ferreira i was very thankful that I've decided not to go with Dr. Pekiner. Reason for this is Dr. Ferreira's assistants showed me my grafts under microscope, and guess what - they were short! I'm 100% sure Dr. Pekiner would abort my surgery as well.
During the surgery I asked Dr. Ferreira is this a bad thing to have short grafts, to what he replied - "no, it's quite rare, but nothing to worry about. All your grafts are just short".
This lead me to believe that Dr. Pekiner's diagnosis can be incompetent in certain cases.

Although I really like Dr. Pekiner and always suggest for people to look at his work and think for themselves, this thing just planted the wrong seed in my head. 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Rolandas

[Melvin- Admin]

@Portugal25

You’ve got an excellent result, I wouldn’t get any more HT’s, the crown is a black hole. Instead, use some fiber. A minimal amount will cover the weaknesses. 

[tony71]

I have to say your hair looks amazing. Going from a NW6 or 7 to this it’s very good.   Now I need to look into Dr Pekiner and BF.    🙂

[Baboon]

Looks geat Portugal👍🏻😊. I think you have achieved more or less spot on based on the size of area needed to be covered and with the grafts in range of 3900. 
 

As for next step, l would either go back for another 2000 beard/chest into that area and then be done. Or just use fibers as Melvin proposed. But l would be very tempered to get it done and then don’t need to use any concealers😊. But that just me

[giegnosiganoe]

Any update?

[OliverAtom]

On 10/31/2020 at 7:32 PM, Portugal25 said:

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for not posting last month but I saw no improvement so decided to skip a month.

I just hit the 10 month mark and it does seem like there’s still some new growth but I still have low density in some areas that need to be improved in the next month or I will require a new HT.

Looking forward to your comments.

This looks superb Portugal! Comparting the before-after photos, what a change! And you still have a few more months where that could improve.

Could you share some photos of your beard are "without" shaving for a few days? Would be interesting to see how it looks!

Many many thanks for sharing your amazing story. 😉

[Melvin- Admin]

Looks like Portugal is no longer worrying about hair loss 👏🏼👏🏼 

[ITA]

Too bad, he was a great resource for this forum.  😢

[RandoBrando517]

How much did you pay per graft for BHT? 

[BLE123]

11 minutes ago, RandoBrando517 said:

How much did you pay per graft for BHT? 

Pekiner raised his prices recently, now it's €2.70 per graft whether that's hair or beard/body.

[RandoBrando517]

1 minute ago, BLE123 said:

Pekiner raised his prices recently, now it's €2.70 per graft whether that's hair or beard/body.

Okay thanks good to know 

[Rolandas]

1 hour ago, BLE123 said:

Pekiner raised his prices recently, now it's €2.70 per graft whether that's hair or beard/body.

Holy shit, that's not great... But I guess he build his reputation, so he can...

[RandoBrando517]

On 10/31/2020 at 11:32 AM, Portugal25 said:

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for not posting last month but I saw no improvement so decided to skip a month.

I just hit the 10 month mark and it does seem like there’s still some new growth but I still have low density in some areas that need to be improved in the next month or I will require a new HT.

Looking forward to your comments.

Final update?

[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. 

Edited October 1, 2021 by Portugal25

[Britanium]

From where you used to be to now ? Night and day. And your showing us under the worse conditions, thanks for this 🙏 

To my eyes your donor still looks good 👍🏽 certainly enough for some grafts more if needed. 

[Melvin- Admin]

That’s an incredible result. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s top notch. If you look at your avatar it’s skin bald. I made this video for myself because no doubt I will think like you after I get mine done