Choosing the correct clinic

[RODY94]

41 minutes ago, asterix0 said:

Here is some more for your edification:

 

Here the result is heavily combed over, you can't even really see what was accomplished:

 

However, here is a patient with a very dense, high quality donor. If your donor is this quality then yes you can obtain a good result most likely:

 

Thank you so so much Asterix, this is exactly the kind of argument and evidence I was begging for. I hadn't seen the botched donor thread yet, and I don't think a refund plus a short message on punch sizes is gonna cut it. Thanks for the information! Do you have similar cases for Vera as well? I'm mostly concerned with <4k graft cases and haven't found many poor results on Vera in that graft range. Could be due to the shady reviews, but they did get a european award for their work, so makes me think ...?

[asterix0]

8 hours ago, RODY94 said:

Thank you so so much Asterix, this is exactly the kind of argument and evidence I was begging for. I hadn't seen the botched donor thread yet, and I don't think a refund plus a short message on punch sizes is gonna cut it. Thanks for the information! Do you have similar cases for Vera as well? I'm mostly concerned with <4k graft cases and haven't found many poor results on Vera in that graft range. Could be due to the shady reviews, but they did get a european award for their work, so makes me think ...?

Well, for them I am looking at their Facebook page, for example this:

If this is advertised on their page as a good result, it would be worrisome.

For one, the hairline is obviously see through, even though the pictures are low quality and blurry, which should mask this effect. 

In person, or in sunlight outside, this would look very disappointing for 5,500 grafts used! That is a huge number, with the donor likely being over harvested.

Here also, a see through comb over for almost 5,000 grafts:

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Melvin- Moderator
Removed links

[RODY94]

18 minutes ago, asterix0 said:

Well, for them I am looking at their Facebook page, for example this:

https://www.facebook.com/VeraClinic.net/photos/pcb.1832990696898866/1832989043565698

If this is advertised on their page as a good result, it would be worrisome.

For one, the hairline is obviously see through, even though the pictures are low quality and blurry, which should mask this effect. 

In person, or in sunlight outside, this would look very disappointing for 5,500 grafts used! That is a huge number, with the donor likely being over harvested.

Here also, a see through comb over for almost 5,000 grafts:

https://www.facebook.com/VeraClinic.net/photos/pcb.1808721469325789/1808716389326297

 

Exactly my point! I've also seen lots of subpar 5k grafts, but hey seem quite decent at the <4k graft range. I'm getting some consults from Yaman and Bicer too ever since AEK rubbed me the wrong way. Your Yaman post really threw me off though, scary stuff for a low graft count too!

[asterix0]

40 minutes ago, RODY94 said:

Exactly my point! I've also seen lots of subpar 5k grafts, but hey seem quite decent at the <4k graft range. I'm getting some consults from Yaman and Bicer too ever since AEK rubbed me the wrong way. Your Yaman post really threw me off though, scary stuff for a low graft count too!

Well, I am not sure which low graft ones you are looking at, can you post some examples?

Everything I am seeing from the vera clinic is very high graft counts.

[RODY94]

8 hours ago, asterix0 said:

Well, I am not sure which low graft ones you are looking at, can you post some examples?

Everything I am seeing from the vera clinic is very high graft counts.

I found this that looked decent: 

And this one, although this is a NW3 front with really thick hair: 

But now that you mentioned it, I really don't like the fact that they have so little <4k graft cases. The transplant the whole kitchen and living room on!

Btw, any reasonably priced options in Mexico that stand out to people? If not going for Vera, Yaman or Bicer then I'd think there's no point in going to turkey at all, could save myself the money ang hit up Mexico (I'm from Canada).

Edited May 1, 2022 by Melvin- Moderator
Removed link

[Al - Moderator]

On 4/30/2022 at 1:48 PM, asterix0 said:

Here is some more for your edification:

 

To be fair, this person had 2000 grafts done somewhere else before going to Dr Yaman, so he had 4500 grafts total which is probably reaching the limit that his donor can handle without looking depleted. It looks like the 2000 grafts were probably done in the back, so perhaps Yaman only had the sides left to take from. I don't think you can blame this one on Yaman without more details of the first transplant in Russia which the poster did not seem to give.

 

[mafpe]

1 hour ago, BeHappy said:

To be fair, this person had 2000 grafts done somewhere else before going to Dr Yaman, so he had 4500 grafts total which is probably reaching the limit that his donor can handle without looking depleted. It looks like the 2000 grafts were probably done in the back, so perhaps Yaman only had the sides left to take from. I don't think you can blame this one on Yaman without more details of the first transplant in Russia which the poster did not seem to give.

true 6500 would deplete the donor, so it's normal to look sparse. Still, the extraction should be done looking at the donor condition to give "uniform" looks. idk if the thread starter is still looking for doctor but while there are several bad cases from dr yaman, he does operate on alot of patients, around 3 a day if i'm not wrong. he isn't as involved as other recommended doctor here, and alot of the work is done by tech. but he is able to focus better with only 3 a day.

No intention to smear nor praise dr yaman, but for his pricing, i think his work & risk rate is very fair, especially since at that price, you'd normally get only hair mill with wanton disregard to the patient. if people want more involvement and can afford to, i see people in the forum recommending other doctor, albeit at higher price, which does have a better ratio of success + result.

[RODY94]

So a little update: I'm almost 90% sure I'll be doing the procedure sometime in August. Had a very friendly email exchange with Dr. Konior and he really advised against anything more than 2-2.5k, and to focus mostly on the frontal region. I guess this is based on my age (26) and although the hairloss is stable with finastride now, it might take a turn over the course of the years. My #1 option right is Dr. Cortez in Tijuana, not as much patient reviews as the others but the work seems very good. His graft count was also 1.8-2k, which agrees with Dr. Konior's. Would love to hear from anyone who's been there, and what to expect. At $4.6k, it's not cheap but around the same <5k that I was hoping for. I'm from Canada, so Mexico is a much better destination than Turkey for me.

 

I've also been in touch with Dr. Gur, Yaman and Bicer. Dr. Gur and Yaman have both suggested 3.5-4k grafts, which I believe might be too much. The communication with Dr. Bicer's been more difficult, and I haven't been getting consistent feedback from her employees. But she's also one that I'd be looking forward to hearing from. Thoughts on the shortlist I've generated?

 

Lastly, I was thinking of doing SMP for my crown area which Dr. Konior said to not touch at this moment, but has significant scalp showing and thinning. Any thoughts on pre-transplant SMP? Should I consider doing the whole scalp, just to get that extra density before the transplant? I don't plan to lower my hairline that much, just reconstruct it and focus on frontal density. Would SMP pre-op be a good idea?

 

Thanks everyone, glad I've found this forum.

[Greenlantern2020]

On 6/2/2022 at 11:44 AM, RODY94 said:

So a little update: I'm almost 90% sure I'll be doing the procedure sometime in August. Had a very friendly email exchange with Dr. Konior and he really advised against anything more than 2-2.5k, and to focus mostly on the frontal region. I guess this is based on my age (26) and although the hairloss is stable with finastride now, it might take a turn over the course of the years. My #1 option right is Dr. Cortez in Tijuana, not as much patient reviews as the others but the work seems very good. His graft count was also 1.8-2k, which agrees with Dr. Konior's. Would love to hear from anyone who's been there, and what to expect. At $4.6k, it's not cheap but around the same <5k that I was hoping for. I'm from Canada, so Mexico is a much better destination than Turkey for me.

 

I've also been in touch with Dr. Gur, Yaman and Bicer. Dr. Gur and Yaman have both suggested 3.5-4k grafts, which I believe might be too much. The communication with Dr. Bicer's been more difficult, and I haven't been getting consistent feedback from her employees. But she's also one that I'd be looking forward to hearing from. Thoughts on the shortlist I've generated?

 

Lastly, I was thinking of doing SMP for my crown area which Dr. Konior said to not touch at this moment, but has significant scalp showing and thinning. Any thoughts on pre-transplant SMP? Should I consider doing the whole scalp, just to get that extra density before the transplant? I don't plan to lower my hairline that much, just reconstruct it and focus on frontal density. Would SMP pre-op be a good idea?

 

Thanks everyone, glad I've found this forum.

I have been to Dr. Cortez and this is what I will say: Make sure you are not double-booked with another patient and tell him exactly how you would like your hairline to look like (hair follicle direction included). If not, you will likely end up with a very horizontal/ flat hairline that favors one side (comb-over design). It just depends what you like, but keep these small details in mind.

Edited June 18, 2022 by Greenlantern2020

[Al - Moderator]

On 6/2/2022 at 2:44 PM, RODY94 said:

Lastly, I was thinking of doing SMP for my crown area which Dr. Konior said to not touch at this moment, but has significant scalp showing and thinning. Any thoughts on pre-transplant SMP? Should I consider doing the whole scalp, just to get that extra density before the transplant? I don't plan to lower my hairline that much, just reconstruct it and focus on frontal density. Would SMP pre-op be a good idea?

 

If you are planning a hair transplant then I would forget about SMP for now. You can think about it again later if you feel you need more density after the hair transplant and don't want to use up any more donor hair with additional transplants.