Help on choosing the surgeon

[Cristero]

6 minutes ago, MachoVato said:

I'm scheduled with Keser in April. I'm doing about 2,000 grafts over 4 days. I selected him because of this. He's known for density with fewer grafts (other clinics quoted up to 3,500). My number one requirement is a natural hairline and Keser's hairlines are brilliant. The fact that he only does 500-700 grafts per day, does the whole procedure himself, and only one patient per day... that sold me!  

 

For the OP, you don't need many grafts for your hairline. I'd recommend Keser and HLC (also Ankara, Turkey). But I also think you shouldn't touch your crown yet. Wait until later, save your donor area.

This is Keser's representative message:

"You will not experience shock loss with dr keser but this is also because he will not implant too close to existing thin hair. Therefore the final result will not look dense and volumed. 

Another clinic may offer you a dense packing in the crown but you may experience shock loss and loose most of the existing thin hair so the final result will not be good either."

 

A full crown is main reason for a transplant, so Keser seems not to be able to provide that. Crowns reconstructions are more complicated apparently and many surgeons are not experienced with that.

I'm waiting for Dr. Freitas opinion as well, his work looks brilliant.

[Cristero]

Who's the surgeon at HLC by the way? 

How is the procedure? All done by doctors or tech?

[MachoVato]

Interesting. But even if it your native hairs suffer shock loss, shouldn't they regrow after 3-4 months?

[Portugal25]

1 minute ago, Cristero said:

Who's the surgeon at HLC by the way? 

How is the procedure? All done by doctors or tech?

HLC has 6 doctors and one of them will do your whole surgery without delegating tasks to techs. They use the same technique as Pekiner and Keser - manual extraction and implant using stick&place. HLC doctors are very good but you don’t know which Doctor will be doing your surgery. 

[MachoVato]

1 minute ago, Cristero said:

Who's the surgeon at HLC by the way? 

How is the procedure? All done by doctors or tech?

There are a few doctors but they do the entire procedure, too (as I recall).

They have a few videos on YouTube but here's a good walk-through of their process (the guy is from my hometown Houston, Texas!)

 

 

[MachoVato]

3 minutes ago, Portugal25 said:

HLC has 6 doctors and one of them will do your whole surgery without delegating tasks to techs. They use the same technique as Pekiner and Keser - manual extraction and implant using stick&place. HLC doctors are very good but you don’t know which Doctor will be doing your surgery. 

Interesting! I thought maybe you could choose a specific doctor. In that video, two doctors work on him. Stick and place is my preferred method but not many places do it.

[Portugal25]

5 minutes ago, MachoVato said:

Interesting! I thought maybe you could choose a specific doctor. In that video, two doctors work on him. Stick and place is my preferred method but not many places do it.

Good thing about having 6 doctors is that they can help each other out and discuss approaches. Also manual FUE is quite exhausting for the surgeon so it’s nice to have another Doctor (rested) than can take over if necessary. However, it does make it impossible to be able compare results from this type of surgery (several unknown doctors) with a specific doctor. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by Portugal25

[Cristero]

I've sent them pictures to understand their opinion. I saw a crown reconstruction on their website which was pretty good.

Hoping to hear back early next week from Ferreira and Vila.

I'm curious about shock loss as you mentioned it. Do the hairs regrow after 3 months?

[MachoVato]

1 minute ago, Cristero said:

I've sent them pictures to understand their opinion. I saw a crown reconstruction on their website which was pretty good.

Hoping to hear back early next week from Ferreira and Vila.

I'm curious about shock loss as you mentioned it. Do the hairs regrow after 3 months?

Let us know what they say.

Shock loss should return according to a quick search

https://gulfcoasthairrestoration.com/shock-hair-loss-why-does-it-occur-is-it-permanent/

 

[karatekid]

1 hour ago, MachoVato said:

I'm scheduled with Keser in April. I'm doing about 2,000 grafts over 4 days. I selected him because of this. He's known for density with fewer grafts (other clinics quoted up to 3,500). My number one requirement is a natural hairline and Keser's hairlines are brilliant. The fact that he only does 500-700 grafts per day, does the whole procedure himself, and only one patient per day... that sold me!  

 

For the OP, you don't need many grafts for your hairline. I'd recommend Keser and HLC (also Ankara, Turkey). But I also think you shouldn't touch your crown yet. Wait until later, save your donor area.

man, sitting 4 whole days on the surgery chair sounds unpleasant...

[MachoVato]

11 minutes ago, karatekid said:

man, sitting 4 whole days on the surgery chair sounds unpleasant...

To be fair, they are relatively short days. 500 grafts/day doesn't take very long.

But yeah, it's a lot of days. I'm staying in Ankara for 10 days for some much needed rest and Netflix binging, haha!

[LonelyGraft]

3 hours ago, Portugal25 said:

Good thing about having 6 doctors is that they can help each other out and discuss approaches. Also manual FUE is quite exhausting for the surgeon so it’s nice to have another Doctor (rested) than can take over if necessary. However, it does make it impossible to be able compare results from this type of surgery (several unknown doctors) with a specific doctor. 

From the videos I’ve seen the entire team gets together in the pre op to design the patients hair and give input with the lead doc (I believe ozgur) spearheading it. Seems pretty cool

[Portugal25]

16 minutes ago, LonelyGraft said:

From the videos I’ve seen the entire team gets together in the pre op to design the patients hair and give input with the lead doc (I believe ozgur) spearheading it. Seems pretty cool

It would be amazing if it was 6 equally skilled doctors. Imagine that there’s 1 doctor out of the 6 that is not the same level as the others and that was the Doctor you were getting for your surgery.
There is no way of knowing who’s the best Doctor at HLC nor can we pick him if find out who he is. This was the reason why I didn’t went with HLC as they have the FUE approach I was wanted (manual FUE and stick&place) and great results with using beard grafts (also they were 30% more expensive than Pekiner). 

But maybe I’m wrong and having a surgery with a team of unknown Doctors at a clinic that is getting consistently great results is the best way to go.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Portugal25

[duchaine]

39 minutes ago, Portugal25 said:

It would be amazing if it was 6 equally skilled doctors. Imagine that there’s 1 doctor out of the 6 that is not the same level as the others and that was the Doctor you were getting for your surgery.
There is no way of knowing who’s the best Doctor at HLC nor can we pick him if find out who he is. This was the reason why I didn’t went with HLC as they have the FUE approach I was wanted (manual FUE and stick&place) and great results with using beard grafts (also they were 30% more expensive than Pekiner). 

But maybe I’m wrong and having a surgery with a team of unknown Doctors at a clinic that is getting consistently great results is the best way to go.

First of all, the analyze cases together. 
Second: Ozgur and the HLC hairline designer make the hairline for all the patients.
So, about the "artistic" part of the work, it doesn't make any difference if you get one doctor or another.

About extractions and implantations:
from what I saw, some doctors make the extractions and some others make the implantations. Every doctor there has a very noticeable curriculum vitae. All of them are aesthetic surgeons and HIRSH members/affiliate.
So, even the worst doctor is a very prepared and talented doctor with a strong background.
You know, a chain is strong as the weakest link and if only one of them was a disaster/imprepared/not talented doc, you should read hundreds of bad review. 
I do not know you, but I never read one.

They make very small sessions (500) and, at the end of each session, ozgur check all the works.
If something is wrong, the doctor stop his work and calls his colleagues to see what to do.

HT is not sending a shuttle on the moon. It is a very tech work and at HLC patients  have all that you need to assure a good result.
HLC is a 2 floor building: ground zero: reception, hall, free restaurant for patients and guests. first floor: plastic surgery (the doc making noses and lips are not the same docs performing HT). Second floor: hair restoration. 
HLC isa great clinic, an anesthestys doctor is there if something goes wrong. For me, safety is the first thing and that is the most important part of the story.

@LonelyGraft

[LonelyGraft]

7 minutes ago, duchaine said:

First of all, the analyze cases together. 
Second: Ozgur and the HLC hairline designer make the hairline for all the patients.
So, about the "artistic" part of the work, it doesn't make any difference if you get one doctor or another.

About extractions and implantations:
from what I saw, some doctors make the extractions and some others make the implantations. Every doctor there has a very noticeable curriculum vitae. All of them are aesthetic surgeons and HIRSH members/affiliate.
So, even the worst doctor is a very prepared and talented doctor with a strong background.
You know, a chain is strong as the weakest link and if only one of them was a disaster/imprepared/not talented doc, you should read hundreds of bad review. 
I do not know you, but I never read one.

They make very small sessions (500) and, at the end of each session, ozgur check all the works.
If something is wrong, the doctor stop his work and calls his colleagues to see what to do.

HT is not sending a shuttle on the moon. It is a very tech work and at HLC patients  have all that you need to assure a good result.
HLC is a 2 floor building: ground zero: reception, hall, free restaurant for patients and guests. first floor: plastic surgery (the doc making noses and lips are not the same docs performing HT). Second floor: hair restoration. 
HLC isa great clinic, an anesthestys doctor is there if something goes wrong. For me, safety is the first thing and that is the most important part of the story.

@LonelyGraft

What is HIRSH? I’ve never heard of it

[Cristero]

There are a couple of results from HLCin the Italian forum that are suboptimal to say the least:

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?f=2415055

 

[duchaine]

5 minutes ago, LonelyGraft said:

What is HIRSH? I’ve never heard of it

ISHRS sorry, wrong spelling!

[Portugal25]

@duchaine thank you for the detailed description of HLC. 
We spend hours analyzing and comparing hairlines from Doctors like Konior, Keser, Feriduni, etc, and when we chose one of them we known what results to expect from what we saw from other patients results. Therefore, my question still stands, how can we compare the results of each of these doctors with the results from a surgery comprised of a mix of 6 doctors that can vary from patient to patient. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by Portugal25

[duchaine]

2 minutes ago, Cristero said:

There are a couple of results from HLCin the Italian forum that are suboptimal to say the least:

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?f=2415055

 

can you attach the link of suboptimal cases, please?

[duchaine]

1 minute ago, Portugal25 said:

@duchaine thank you for the detailed description of HLC. 
We spend hours analyzing and comparing hairlines from Doctors like Konior, Keser, Feriduni, etc, and when we chose one of them we known what results to expect from what we saw from other patients and therefore, my question remains, how can we compare the results of each of these doctors with the results from a surgery comprised of a mix of 6 doctors that can be different for every other patient.

HT is a team work by definition.
As Sam lam says, the technicians play a very important role to select the grafts and to insert FU in the scalp.
So, wherever you go, you won't 100% sure that the people make a great work you saw online are the same people doing the work for you.
A clinic should assure a quality standard and should assure that the people working there follow a specific protocol.
INHO, if everything is on track, there is no reason to be worried.
that said, I'm not a big fun of HLC so I'm not trying to support the clinic. 

[Cristero]

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?t=75575118

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?t=70210123

[duchaine]

5 minutes ago, Cristero said:

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?t=75575118

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?t=70210123

I'm Italian so I can read what they wrote.

one cases is at 2.5 months. How can you judge the result?

The other case is a 6.5 out of ten. Not bad not great but his last pic is at 10 months so there is still time to improve.
The patient is not complaining about his result and the only comment is "wonderful" (I do not agree anyway).
Anyway, the hairline rebuilding was really hard, because the patient had lost all this hair (he had no tufty al all).

there are some clinics choosing only "WOW!" patients. HLC is not one of them.

[Portugal25]

15 minutes ago, Cristero said:

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?t=75575118

https://bellicapelli.forumfree.it/m/?t=70210123

The patient on the second link seems to have thin hair and a high norwood. I agree with @duchaine several other clinics like Pekiner would probably reject him but HLC accepted the challenge. 
HLC being able to achieve good results and having amazing facilities is something I don’t question.
I just don’t  think it’s possible to compare their results with other doctors because they post results as a clinic so I wasn’t sure what results to expect should I have chosen them. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by Portugal25

[LonelyGraft]

1 hour ago, Portugal25 said:

It would be amazing if it was 6 equally skilled doctors. Imagine that there’s 1 doctor out of the 6 that is not the same level as the others and that was the Doctor you were getting for your surgery.
There is no way of knowing who’s the best Doctor at HLC nor can we pick him if find out who he is. This was the reason why I didn’t went with HLC as they have the FUE approach I was wanted (manual FUE and stick&place) and great results with using beard grafts (also they were 30% more expensive than Pekiner). 

But maybe I’m wrong and having a surgery with a team of unknown Doctors at a clinic that is getting consistently great results is the best way to go.

You have a good point. If something goes wrong or results aren’t up to par, it’s not really one of the six doctors name that gets tarnished, instead it’s the clinic.

 

however, personally, if I were set on turkey and were a nw3 or higher, hlc would likely be my main choice for a few reasons:

 

- everything is in house. They literally do it all and use the top techniques as you mentioned. They also do smp, bht, scar repair etc etc. the facility has rooms for the patients and even food. You literally don’t have to leave if you don’t want to as you have everything there. The facilities are extremely modern

 

- they host conferences and training which means they actually care about the industry. They attend European conferences to continuously learn and perfect their craft

 

-their price is outstanding when compared to North America 

 

- they do repair work. In my opinion any clinic that does repair work will be inherently honest. Many clinics will not touch repair patients as they don’t have the skill or don’t want to do deal with anything that may go wrong including sub par results.

[Cristero]

The first one has results a 

6 minutes ago, duchaine said:

I'm Italian so I can read what they wrote.

one cases is at 2.5 months. How can you judge the result?

The other case is a 6.5 out of ten. Not bad not great but his last pic is at 10 months so there is still time to improve.
The patient is not complaining about his result and the only comment is "wonderful" (I do not agree anyway).
Anyway, the hairline rebuilding was really hard, because the patient had lost all this hair (he had no tufty al all).

there are some clinics choosing only "WOW!" patients. HLC is not one of them.

The first one is at 10 months and a half for the hairline, and 7.5 a half for the vertex.

So I don't know where you saw 2 months and a half.

The other one is 2 surgeries if I'm not wrong and years after the surgery.

I was getting that result I would have been quite pissed off. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by Cristero