A few questions about Female HT

[Lexa]

Hey y'all! I'm a 28-years-old female and I'm looking into a hair transplant in the frontal hair line. I'm still really early in the research process and I have a few questions:

• What would be your top 3 recommendations for clinics/doctors based in Europe? I prefer Turkey since it's more affordable and pretty close to where I currently live, but I've read enough to understand that doing your HT in Turkey could be quite risky, so I'm definitely open to other European options as well.
  • I read good reviews about Dr. Bicer here on the forum, but I'm wondering if she has enough experience with female HT - I found 1 post here and just one example on her website.
• What should I be wary of when looking into different clinics? Are there any specific "quality signals" I should be looking for (i.e. having 1 or just a couple of patients per day; the doctor doing the procedure themselves, etc)?
• Any thoughts about FUT vs. FUE? My hair is rather thin and I don't think I'll feel comfortable getting a decent part of my donor area hair getting shaved. I have long hair and I don't mind having a small scar in the donor area from FUT, but from what I understand, the healing process in that case is longer and more painful. While I can deal with the pain, I'm hoping to be able to go back to work (home office) after a week.
• Are there any specific resources (articles/videos) you would recommend for someone who's in the beginning of the research process?

[deeznuts]

Personally, I don't really feel easy about going to Turkey. I feel like Europe has more consumer protections, and with you being from Europe, you might find it easier to recuperate at home or somewhere you feel safe. Which country are you from by the way?

Benefits of FUT: It's cheaper, women don't mind the scar so much and it's pretty easy to just cover it with your hair. However not every doctor will do FUT. Turkey for example does a lot of FUE.

With FUE, more expensive, more doctors do it, no scar (or rather the scars are just a bunch of white dots), less recovery time and less invasive, able to cherry pick grafts

I'm not sure if you need to shave for FUT either. You may need to but I haven't really found myself interested in FUT

But really you'll have to weigh the pros and cons with FUE/FUT and do more research.

As for top 3, I'm kind of a fan of the Portuguese/Spanish doctors since they offer affordable transplants while not compromising on quality at all. There's a lot of great doctors though and you should find a doctor that works well with other people like you (i.e. hair characteristics, degree of loss). I don't want to rank doctors but I personally chose Dr. De Freitas and I think he has a few examples of female hair transplants.

The biggest thing in my opinion is to get a consultation with a doctor, discuss your concerns, your questions, and have them talk you through what will need to happen. My first consultation was with the H&W rep and he was very helpful and answered a fair number of questions for me. Not really a resource but it's nice to talk to someone who knows the process

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by deeznuts

[Lexa]

26 minutes ago, deeznuts said:

Personally, I don't really feel easy about going to Turkey. I feel like Europe has more consumer protections, and with you being from Europe, you might find it easier to recuperate at home or somewhere you feel safe. Which country are you from by the way?

Benefits of FUT: It's cheaper, women don't mind the scar so much and it's pretty easy to just cover it with your hair. However not every doctor will do FUT. Turkey for example does a lot of FUE.

With FUE, more expensive, more doctors do it, no scar (or rather the scars are just a bunch of white dots), less recovery time and less invasive, able to cherry pick grafts

I'm not sure if you need to shave for FUT either. You may need to but I haven't really found myself interested in FUT

But really you'll have to weigh the pros and cons with FUE/FUT and do more research.

As for top 3, I'm kind of a fan of the Portuguese/Spanish doctors since they offer affordable transplants while not compromising on quality at all. There's a lot of great doctors though and you should find a doctor that works well with other people like you (i.e. hair characteristics, degree of loss). I don't want to rank doctors but I personally chose Dr. De Freitas and I think he has a few examples of female hair transplants.

The biggest thing in my opinion is to get a consultation with a doctor, discuss your concerns, your questions, and have them talk you through what will need to happen. My first consultation was with the H&W rep and he was very helpful and answered a fair number of questions for me. Not really a resource but it's nice to talk to someone who knows the process

 

I'm from Bulgaria and I would definitely prefer doing the procedure close to home, but there are not a lot of options here and it's hard to find genuine reviews.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check De Freitas!

[JDEE0]

1 minute ago, Lexa said:

I'm from Bulgaria and I would definitely prefer doing the procedure close to home, but there are not a lot of options here and it's hard to find genuine reviews.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check De Freitas!

Try to get in touch with Dr. Zarev - he is in Sofia and is a very good doctor. 

[digi23]

1 hour ago, Lexa said:

I'm from Bulgaria and I would definitely prefer doing the procedure close to home, but there are not a lot of options here and it's hard to find genuine reviews.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check De Freitas!

I would suggest also to get a consultation with Dr Zarev.

[Al - Moderator]

You do need to find someone who has experience with female hairlines because female hairlines are shaped differently than male hairlines. With FUT the Dr will only need to shave a thin strip that is wide enough to remove the strip of grafts, so that should be easily covered while it's healing if you have some length to your hair which most females do. If you do FUE then they will need to shave a much larger area of the donor. If you keep the hair above it long enough you may still be able to cover that as well, but it's not as easy as FUT.