Partly un-shaven FUE at Akacia Medical (After Demirsoy mess up)

[jonathande]

Hi,

 

MY STORY

A few months ago I made a post describing my results from 3000 grafts  crown surgery at Demirsoy 2016. Unfortunately, after now 4 years have passed half of the grafts seem not to have survived either directly from the surgery or as a result of bad post-care routine. Either way, it seems difficult to determine but could be the result from  exposure to sun, heating, nicotine, exercising etc months after. Although it is surprising that as much as 50% has fallen off either way which leaves me in suspicion that it was a sloppy surgery from the start and especially the large bald patch following immediately after the surgery that was left on my crown.

PRE-SURGERY RESEARCH

Anyhow, I decided to do to finally do an un-shaven FUE to repair my crown and initiated contact with many surgeons (some of them recognized here at hair transplantation network). Most surgeons assessed, based on the pictures, that I would need around 2000-2500 extra craft on my crown area for a satisfied result. Of course, Dr Koray argued for 3000 grafts...

However, I was also in contact with Akacia Medical which was the Clinique I finally ended up choosing and in which I could do a personal consultation where the doctor assessed that 1500 grafts was enough and also suitable for the un-shaven method. I was a bit hesitant choosing this Clinique as it is not international recognized and due to the fact that the un-shaven FUE method requires extra skill. 

FINAL CHOICE

What influenced my decisions to go with Akacia over international recognized Clinique could be broken down into the falling factors:

1. I am also balding in the front and I did not wanna spend my grafts to get a perfect "marketing picture" for the top-surgeons. They care to much about reference pictures and is not always founded in what is most suitable for the patients depending on his condition (grafts, goal, symmetry of the "balding process" etc.

2. Akacia had an extremely professional yet personal approach - they were honest about conditions and gave concrete solutions on how I could do the surgery to fit with my other life.

3. Akacia has existed since 2011 and yet - has only positive reviews on local Scandinavian forums

4. The price was on pair with "hair shops" such as Dr. Cinik etc. but less expensive than  more experienced Belgian and West-European surgeons. 

 

THE DAY

I arrived at 8.00 to the surgeon and had a warm welcome. The doctor was a true people-person and easy to interact with, ask questions etc. The surgery was nearly painless and lasted for around 4 hours in total.  The surgery ended with a PPR treatment which does not seem very discussed at this forum surprisingly. 

Afterwards I was given extensive care instructions and package of  medicines/shampoo/painkillers etc with detailed instructions for each day and coming year. 

 

DID I MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE

Time will tell if I did the right choice to go with this doctor instead of the renowned surgeons. I felt that for the crown-area the work is supposed to be quite straight forward as long as the graft survival can me maximized and the surgeons can handle the "swirl". 

As I just came home - I have no idea if this was accomplished but will give you updates on the progress.

 

MY OPINION ABOUT DEMIRSOY

Finally, how did the surgery compare to Demirsoy? Well, I must say it was day and night. Everything from the consultation, surgery and after-care instructions seem much more rigorous, smoother and superior to be honest. I felt kind of like this is how a hair transplant should be going. 

The only thing I cannot tell now is the result, since Demirsoy left a quite large bold patch on my crown - I really hope Akacia Medical can give me that crown that was intended in the first place.

The doctor said that 3000 grafts had been extracted earlier but that my crown maximum had a density of 1500 grafts. He could not tell me the reason though so investigation continues.

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by jonathande

[Melvin- Admin]

Can you share some pictures.