Very poor experience with Dr Rana Irfan in Pakistan

[00ahmedi]

I had my procedure with Dr Rana Irfan on October 7th 2019. I chose to go with this doctor due to him being certified with the American Board of Hair Restoration Surgeons and was quite convinced by some of his Youtube tutorials.

On the initial consultation which was a couple of days before the surgery the doctor advised that he will look to implant 5000 grafts via the FUT method. I was quite satisfied with this method as I know i would likely need more work in the future and wanted to preserve my donor area and not completely destroy it in an FUE mega session. The doctor convinced me that 5000 grafts was a lot of grafts and this would give me full coverage on the head. He also stated that the results would be better than i expected. I was not expecting a full head of dense hair and I was realistic with what i felt could be done. However, i still felt that 5000 grafts was a large enough number to give me decent density on the frontal band and the mid scalp and that i would need to have a second procedure to get the crown area done.

Looking back through some of the reviews on other sites it appears that the number 5000 is thrown around quite a bit with his patients without any assurance of whether he has extracted 5000 or not. Although i understand each patient is different, I have seen a huge number of examples of people with the same level of baldness who with less grafts have achieved a significantly better look. Even when the doctor was making the incisions i felt there is now way that is enough incisions for 5000 grafts.

The doctor himself removed the strip and created the incisions. I understand that doctors use technicians as part of the procedure and again I have no issue with this. However after the incisions were made I did not see the doctor for the rest of the procedure. I know technicians implant grafts but surely the doctor should be there to guide them and to give his input on the process. The implanting of the grafts was done by two young technicians who really didn't seem too experienced to me and again this was without the guidance of the doctor. My thoughts began to wonder that what could be so important that the doctor needs to be away for nearly the entire procedure of a patient of his? Surely he must have enough of an interest to not be absent for the whole day? The only thing I can think was that he must have been attending to other patients on the day who would have come in for various other treatments.

The process itself from the the beginning to end lasted about 10 hours. It was a long and uncomfortable experience which I was able to deal with as I was just interested in the results and a good result would have made the entire uncomfortable experience worthwhile. After the surgery I was given some painkillers, the saline solution to apply routinely and some final advice about the next 24 hours. I was again called in the next day for head wash, told i needed to buy some specialist shampoo along with finasteride and minoxidil. I will again say that after the incisions made by the doctor i did not see him again at all and flew back to the UK. This seems very strange that a doctor would not follow up with you after a surgery to discuss the next stages and what i would need to expect especially considering that I had flown there from another country. This final follow up along with recommending the hair supplements was done by his driver! Not even another technician or another doctor but by the man who had come to collect me from the airport. Again all this seemed to be very strange to me by a clinic run by a doctor who is registered with the ABHRS. It all seemed very unprofessional and had the feel of a hair transplant factory rather than a clinic.

Over the next few months the hair did slowly start to come back in certain areas mainly in small amounts around the front and the sides. However from very early on (about 4 or 5 months) after the operation i started to have some doubts about the quality of the transplant. Hair was not re-growing from the middle of my scalp and on a number of occasion i asked the doctor about this and he was always very optimistic that the hair is growing back good and that the final result will be very good. Things did not seem right to me though and i had my doubts. However I had little choice but to wait and hopefully things would get better.

I know some people grow slow and procedures can take up to 18 months to mature so i gave the doctor the benefit of the doubt. However then a year went past and it still felt like a poor result. I have text messages from the doctor after 5 months stating that after 12 months i will not be able to see gaps in the hair transplant and the skin would not be visible. However the density is very poor and i can see very little cosmetic benefit of having the hair transplant. In daylight hours when walking outside you can see my full scalp from front to back. Surely this shouldn't happen from a 5000 graft FUT session. To make matters worse the doctor texted me to say this was a very successful procedure and all 5000 grafts have grown and that I should be very happy with the results. If my surgery was a success then what would a failure look like? Again I will reiterate that I was realistic with my expectations and did not expect a full head of dense hair. But i certainly wasnt expecting the result to be as poor as this where a slight gust of wind shows my whole scalp. Having continued my research on hair restoration post-op it seems to me that two errors have been made. Firstly i dont believe 5000 grafts were used and secondly the doctor has tried to cover too much of the scalp with too few grafts which has resulted in a very thin look for the entire scalp. What good surgeons do is cover the scalp in stages starting from the front going back to ensure there is enough density to give a good cosmetic effect.

I have disputed my results with the doctor so many times and have now just accepted that i was one of the people to receive a bad result from a clinic that is not performing surgeries to a good standard. In my most recent discussion with the doctor (which i have saved in a message) the doctor said that anyone would be happy to have the result i had. I still feel like this is all one big joke. So i have posted the review here along with my before picture and 2 after pictures. I would not recommend this clinic and this doctor to anybody that is interested in getting a good quality hair transplant and would encourage you to look elsewhere.
 

[BaldDude]

Where’s the photos?