Butchered?

[PreviouslyAFool]

Did the classic mistake about 5 years ago of being tricked by a surgeon in Turkey who dabbles in transplants. You know the story, promises of naturalness and so on. Well, they placed all the hairs in a row like marching soldiers, gave a strong norwood 1 hairline even though i was about 25 years old at the time, multis in the hairline, strange angles, no mentioning of finasteride and so on. This has ofcourse caused me distress.

 

I am now wiser from having lurked in this forum for a year or so. And I have now been to various consultations, amongst some being Konior, Wong, Rahal and will be having one with Bisanga too. I will probably choose Bisanga since he is great with repairs and the travel distance is short. Travel should usually not play a role in choosing a surgeon but I will probably have to do extractions from the recipient and many visitations untill this mess is repaired. Bisanga is also an excellent doctor based on results I have seen so location is not a huge determining factor in choosing him.

 

I do not worry too much about the recipient, I am sure he will be able to do some extractions and implant a more elegant hairline. What worries me is my donor. I know it is overharvested, but I am worried that this overharvesting has lowered my lifetime supply of grafts. Say I started out with 6000, and did this transplant of 1000 grafts, I should remain with 5000. But since they extracted so poorly, do I now have even less usable grafts during my lifetime?

I also don't understand why it looks like this? One reason is ofcourse that they extracted too many grafts from a too small of an area. But, did they also use a large punch or something? I have studied the extraction sites of better surgeons and it seems they can extract 1000 grafts from a similar size area without leaving this much scar tissue and empty spaces.

 

Can some of the wiser people on this forum help me understand what could have happened? Do I now have a smaller number of lifetime grafts, and why did it end up looking like this from a small 1000 graft session?

 

Thank you!

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Melvin- Moderator
Removed photo per member request

[Melvin- Admin]

Dr. Bisanga has a lot of repairs just like yours under his belt. The donor looks like you may need some BHT or donor farming. 

[PreviouslyAFool]

Yes i was considering BHT. Never thought the day would come where i would be happy about having a somewhat rather hairy body.

[Doron Harati]

I myself was botched by Arenamed a hair mill in Turkey Istanbul, then I had 2 repairs.

Overharvesting and big scaring trauma over the donor have several reasons: 

1) Punch are were taken too close or even worse like my case punch over punch, usually correct punch made with 5 grafts space most of the times (not always), this is what creating overharvesting to the donor.

2) Punch work was too aggressive, gone too deep with aggressive touch, this is how those clinics do mega sessions in 1 day, usually big sessions take 2 days of surgery.

3) Know this.. there's is chance that some of current grafts you have may survived but also may not be suitable for punch job because the roots under the grafts are deformed from previous aggressive work, as far as I know you can't diagnose these deformed exisiting grafts before the surgery, only when the doctor starting the punch job he'll use magnification glasses to see which grafts may be suitable to use with.

* It doesn't mean it's your case but something that has to be considered before surgery 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Doron Harati

[PreviouslyAFool]

1 minute ago, Doron Harati said:

I myself was botched by Arenamed a hair mill in Turkey Istanbul, then I had 2 repairs.

Overharvesting and big scaring trauma over the donor have several reasons: 

1) Punch are were taken too close or even worse like my case punch over punch, usually correct punch made with 5 grafts space most of the times (not always), this is what creating overharvesting to the donor.

2) Punch work was too aggressive, gone too deep with aggressive touch, this is how those clinics do mega sessions in 1 day, usually big sessions take 2 days of surgery.

3) Know this.. there's is chance that some of current grafts you have may survived but also may not be suitable for punch job because the roots under the grafts are deformed from previous aggressive work, as far as I know you can't diagnose these deformed exisiting grafts before the surgery, only when the doctor starting the punch job he'll use magnification glasses to see which grafts may be suitable to use with.

* It doesn't mean it's your case but something that has to be consider before surgery 

Thank you so much! I tried finasteride for 1 year, both oral and a weaker homemade topical but could not stand the sides, so my donor is very precious to me. I am a NW2 but will probably be a norwood 3 in 5-10 years, so I need to be strategic. Which is why I am wondering if my maximum amount of usable grafts have been lowered more than the 1000 they extracted.

[asterix0]

@PreviouslyAFool You weren't over-harvested in the sense of too many grafts were taken, but what they did was they caused significant trauma with their method of extraction to your donor. 

Thus, your donor "appears" over harvested, in fact it is the same end result of a donor that was probably of 4000 grafts from such a concentrated area from a competent surgeon.

Of course, a competent surgeon would never extract in such a narrow pattern for such a large number of grafts, but I am only using that as an example of what the equivalent over harvested case would look like.

In your case, whoever was doing the surgery did not know how to use the tools properly, assuming they were about a 0.8mm punch size, in which case there is no way the scars should be that big if done correctly. They have caused shock loss to the other parts of your donor that unfortunately will not grow back because of the trauma to the extraction site.

You absolutely have less available grafts now unfortunately.

However, you have picked an excellent list of doctors to repair you, I wish you success in choosing one of them and hopefully fixing your situation. 

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by asterix0

[PreviouslyAFool]

6 minutes ago, asterix0 said:

@PreviouslyAFool You weren't over-harvested in the sense of too many grafts were taken, but what they did was they caused significant trauma with their method of extraction to your donor. 

Thus, your donor "appears" over harvested, in fact it is the same end result of a donor that was probably of 4000 grafts from such a concentrated area from a competent surgeon.

Of course, a competent surgeon would never extract in such a narrow pattern for such a large number of grafts, but I am only using that as an example of what the equivalent over harvested case would look like.

In your case, whoever was doing the surgery did not know how to use the tools properly, assuming they were about a 0.8mm punch size, in which case there is no way the scars should be that big if done correctly. They have caused shock loss to the other parts of your donor that unfortunately will not grow back because of the trauma to the extraction site.

You absolutely have less available grafts now unfortunately.

However, you have picked an excellent list of doctors to repair you, I wish you success in choosing one of them and hopefully fixing your situation. 

 

4000 grafts!? What the hell.. that really bums me out.

[asterix0]

7 minutes ago, PreviouslyAFool said:

4000 grafts!? What the hell.. that really bums me out.

Yes, it is criminal what was done to you, unfortunately it happens all too often because people get fooled by false advertising/marketing.

[Z--]

Would you be so kind as to name this clinic? It’s over harvested but if they didn’t take too many grafts a good repair surgeon will take good care of you. The ones on your list are all brilliant. I would lean toward Bisanga and Konior. Check out Mwamba too — he has many very good repairs. 

[RTC]

Yes, please name the clinic. Sadly, a classic Turkish hair transplant story..

[PreviouslyAFool]

I would like to name him. But he filmed me and took photos of me even though I asked not to, but he promised it was "just for him" but later added them to his website. Upon my request, he did remove them but if he finds me trashing him online he may very well post them again.

[RTC]

You should not give power to such a scumbag

[Bb111]

Do you think he can recognize you from the 1 picture you have shared? 

[PreviouslyAFool]

37 minutes ago, RTC said:

Yes, please name the clinic. Sadly, a classic Turkish hair transplant story..

You are right. I would like to. And it may save someone else from going there. I'm going to think about it.

[asterix0]

13 minutes ago, PreviouslyAFool said:

You are right. I would like to. And it may save someone else from going there. I'm going to think about it.

Don't share the name if you don't feel comfortable. The point is that it doesn't really matter where it is, because it falls under the umbrella of places to never go, namely, most of the clinics in turkey except for the few recommended on here.

If it is one of the recommended clinics here then yes it would be very valuable to know which one, to save future patients potentially. 

[Pbaird98]

Sorry to see this bro, you mentioned it was someone who “dabbles” In transplants? Could you clarify this? 
So much good advice already, and yeh Dr Bisanga or Dr Mwamba would be all over this repair. 
Who knows exactly how many grafts were taken, such a unusual extraction pattern and In such a concentrated area. 
Don’t share the Drs name unless you are totally comfortable with doing so. Good luck with your repair, goin to be following 👍🏿

Edited October 19, 2022 by Pbaird98

[general-etwan]

Good comments by others so far. Do you have any specifics on finasteride "sides" being too unbearable? If you're only a NW2, finasteride would be the most useful tool available to prevent more future hair loss...without it you might have to contend more with repeated procedures as more hair is loss over the years...I'm sure you already know this but I just always feel it's one of the most important things in hair retention.

[Dillpickle123]

How does the hairline look now? Do you have preop pictures ? 

[Gatsby]

This is very disappointing but sadly so regular. I know you don't want this in your life now but if you go with someone like Dr Bisanga you will be in good hands. Don't let the multiple repair surgeries put you off. At the age of 19 I started on a course of five years of surgerical repairs and their was still another one five years after this. All that did was leave me with scars. My last transplant in January took six straight days to finish and I am heading back for hopefully my final one in a few months. You will get through this @PreviouslyAFool. There are beard grafts options now, etc. Feel free to DM me if you want. All the best.

[Alexx]

I am "buchered" aswell in a different way. I still have some grafts somewhere under my skin in recipient area that are creating bumps, inflammation and pain. Those might become cists if unlucky. The hair restauration results are not particulary very good at 4 month but there is an improvement. I admit donor area seems ok.

 

I am in the same situation and willing to write bad review about them (based on written facts) in all available forums at 12 month mark. The lawyers I talked to are reluctant in my case to help me suing them due to not enough direct evidence to  point without any doubt towards a medical error yet but things are developing as we speak.

 

I need an advice, why are you so unconfortable to tell the name of the clinic ? You are afraid they are suing you for bad publicity or what ?

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Alexx

[PreviouslyAFool]

I will try to answear each question posed.

1. @asterix0 No, he is not recommended on this clinic. Yes, one should avoid random doctors in Turkey. Or anywhere for that matter.

2. @Pbaird98 By dabbling, I meant that he does not do hairtransplants full time or even half the time. He is a plastic surgeon who thought he could get some extra money by doing hair transplants every once in a while it seems. He just brought in two freelance nurses who did the whole procedure for him. He took the money I paid and gave 1/8th of that to split between the nurses. The rest was for him.

3. @general-etwan The side-effects from fin was lethargy, hard to focus, lowered libido(had trouble keeping it up with my girlfriend, even with viagra), trouble with memory (which I noticed since I work with intellectually demanding tasks daily). I first noticed side effects about 2 months in, but you get used to it and forget what you were like, but once you get off it you feel supercharged for a while and then like yourself again. Atleast, that was my experience. I know I will have to do repeat procedures, which is why I'm so interested in the question of whether I have lost usable grafts because of the way they extracted. They extracted 1000, but perhaps they rendered 700 more grafts unusable due to weird extraction patterns or damage to the follicles. It is usually said that one can lose 50% of hair before thinning is noticeable, but perhaps due to the excessive scarring, in my case it  might be closer to 35% now in this area, meaning I have less total number of grafts that can be extracted during my lifetime. I don't know much really, im just trying to understand my situation and device a long-term gameplan. If verteporofin works well, I believe my problems will be solved.

4. @Gatsby Im so sorry to hear that. Were the first 5 years or repairs in vain? Are you happy with your hair now? I'm going to check our your posts to learn what steps you took. What are some issues or drawbacks you have experienced regarding your hair from having to do repairs, outside of time, energy and money spent? Did you for example have less grafts to work with so you are now a higher norwood than you would have been if you had done it right from the beginning? How did you deal with the scarring, you must have an excessive amount?

5. @Alexx Yeah suing is very difficult unless you have documented properly. And even then, most clinics do not gurentee anything, and they can just state that the bad transplant is how THEY do it and it is up to the patient to do their research.

[PreviouslyAFool]

Luckily, I can cover it decently with longer hair, if I comb it in a covering way. These were all taken under harsh light. I am unsure whether my crown is thinning. I had a good transplant doctor inspect the crown  and he concluded that there was no thinning there. Lets hope I am one of those with only frontal loss.