Dr. Keser | May 2023 | 2,500 grafts

[rolaba]

I've just completed a procedure with Dr. Keser in Ankara, Turkey, and I'll provide below some details of how it went as well as updates on progress.

Background
I'm 36 years old, have been experiencing hair loss for just over 15 years, and at this point have a very receded hairline as well as some crown thinning - a pattern that's remained stable for the last 5 years. 

This was my first HT, and I was aiming for restoration of the frontal hairline area only. I plan in future to have further procedures for further crown thinning and any mid-section loss I may see in future (if this occurs), but focused only on the frontal region for this procedure.

I selected Keser since I've seen consistent results from his clinic, since he tends to get high growth yields from grafts, and since he's particularly effective at hairline/frontal restoration. I also valued the fact that the doctor himself is leading the procedure throughout the process.

The procedure
We transferred 2,500 grafts in total, over the course of four days.

As expected, Dr. Keser was involved throughout the process for extraction and implantation, and at any point in time there's only one patient being treated in the clinic. He gives plenty of time to the process, which means it takes place over several days for anything but a trivial procedure.

He does have two technicians supporting, and I found the whole team warm, supportive, and effective. They've worked together for quite some time and clearly work well as a team.

We also had a translator throughout the process. I do speak some Turkish and was able to communicate to a basic level with the team, but the translator supported throughout for the detailed communication.

The procedure was largely pain free, except for the anaesthetic injections themselves. While doing a procedure over four days in some ways makes it more tiring, no single day was particularly intense - so I didn't experience much pain after any of the days (and still don't).

Overall the procedure seemed to go well. My main concern remaining has to do with my donor hair: I have fairly thick donor hair in number of grafts (which is good), but also in terms of graft size, with lots of triple grafts, some double, and relatively few singles (which is a mixed blessing). This graft mix helps the appearance of density, but means there are fewer single hairs to play with for a hairline. That said, the doctor did a good job of using the grafts effectively, and also touched up the hairline further on the final day, which gave me confidence in the results shaping up as well as possible.

Overall it was a very good experience, and I felt well taken care of throughout the process. I'll share below pre-op and immediate post-op photos.

 

 

[rolaba]

See below for the immediate post-op photos.

 

 

[shiba1985]

very nice. 

How long was each day? Do you have any pics in between days, like after day 1 , day 2. Did he break it down between each day - front and back or middle and sides?

[Melvin- Admin]

The work looks really clean. Does Dr. Keser use microscopes now?

[rolaba]

Quote

How long was each day? Do you have any pics in between days, like after day 1 , day 2. Did he break it down between each day - front and back or middle and sides?

Duration of each day varied somewhat, but was typically 5-6 hours each time.

We tended to move from the right side on Day 1, gradually through to the left side. Part of the last day however was final touch-ups to any areas that needed it.

I don't have great pics for the 'in progress' period, but below is one - this is from after Day 2.

Quote

The work looks really clean. Does Dr. Keser use microscopes now?

I actually didn't check to confirm 100%, but I'm pretty sure it was still based on high-magnification loupes rather than microscopes. That would be consistent with other recent cases I've seen too. 

 

[Melvin- Admin]

1 hour ago, rolaba said:

Duration of each day varied somewhat, but was typically 5-6 hours each time.

We tended to move from the right side on Day 1, gradually through to the left side. Part of the last day however was final touch-ups to any areas that needed it.

I don't have great pics for the 'in progress' period, but below is one - this is from after Day 2.

I actually didn't check to confirm 100%, but I'm pretty sure it was still based on high-magnification loupes rather than microscopes. That would be consistent with other recent cases I've seen too. 

 

Thanks for clarifying. I've been impressed with Dr. Keser's work as of late.

[duckling]

Nice hairline design.  Impressive work.

Really appreciate you not doing crown and delaying it until it progresses more. Normally people try to fill in crown to just be done with it.

[rolaba]

It's now one week post-surgery, and I'm sharing photos below of how it's going.

Not much to report yet, but scabs are mostly off, and the donor and recipient areas seem to be healing OK. I do still have some scalp numbness, but this seems to be fading gradually.

Now it's a waiting game for the implanted hairs to start shedding :) 

 

[Britanium]

Really nice work by Dr Keser, looks like you’re healing up nicely👍🏽

[Turkhair]

Looks really good and dense. I have not seen this doctor’s work before. What was the price?

[rolaba]

9 hours ago, Turkhair said:

Looks really good and dense. I have not seen this doctor’s work before. What was the price?

It was €3.5 Euro per graft, so about €8,750 overall.

[Met]

can we classify this hairtransplantation as dense packing?

im not sure?

[A_4_Archan]

Excellent clean work by the doctor ...he is an excellent surgeon ...hairline design is good..have seen many cases by him and his hairlines are always great  and yours will be the same....and density is also looking good ....you will be going to have a great outcome ...i hope hope you are on medication ....Happy Growing And Keep Updating 

[duckling]

3 hours ago, Met said:

can we classify this hairtransplantation as dense packing?

im not sure?

yes its dense enough.. 2500 is pretty big graft count for the area size covered. he had norwood 3 hairline at 36 so thats why he could use this much grafts just to get nw2 hairline. and he got a nw2 hairline probably so that dense packing could be done. if he opted for a nw1 hairline then 2500 grafts would look sparse.

yes 200-300 more grafts could have been added but he wanted to save them for later. as his crown is already thinning.

Edited May 21, 2023 by duckling

[Met]

3 hours ago, duckling said:

yes its dense enough.. 2500 is pretty big graft count for the area size covered. he had norwood 3 hairline at 36 so thats why he could use this much grafts just to get nw2 hairline. and he got a nw2 hairline probably so that dense packing could be done. if he opted for a nw1 hairline then 2500 grafts would look sparse.

yes 200-300 more grafts could have been added but he wanted to save them for later. as his crown is already thinning.

I see large areas in the front central area. there the density will be missing. it would have been better to use the mentioned 300 gfts. you probably have a lot more reserves? how many maximum grafts does he still have?

if he also has thin hair, it won't be dense enough.

if he is someone who pays attention to details, then he will definitely need a second ht in the future, where he has to condense. that is too bad. why don't you do it right from the begin.

apart from the density, I think the work is great

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Met

[duckling]

1 hour ago, Met said:

I see large areas in the front central area. there the density will be missing. it would have been better to use the mentioned 300 gfts. you probably have a lot more reserves? how many maximum grafts does he still have?

if he also has thin hair, it won't be dense enough.

if he is someone who pays attention to details, then he will definitely need a second ht in the future, where he has to condense. that is too bad. why don't you do it right from the begin.

apart from the density, I think the work is great

 

i agree that in his front central area density might come lower but with certain hairstyles it wouldnt matter. some people also have thinning in mid-partition in their hairline which is only visible when they comb hair back. 

saving those 300 odd grafts will give him opportunity to fill in more area behind hairline. Which is better than strong hairline with low density mid-scalp and crown. if his grade doesnt increase much then as you said in 2nd seating he can fill in.  its always better to be prepared for worst by saving grafts.

I assume he will have 3000-3500 grafts left as average is around 6k for most people. 

[Met]

15 hours ago, duckling said:

i agree that in his front central area density might come lower but with certain hairstyles it wouldnt matter. some people also have thinning in mid-partition in their hairline which is only visible when they comb hair back. 

saving those 300 odd grafts will give him opportunity to fill in more area behind hairline. Which is better than strong hairline with low density mid-scalp and crown. if his grade doesnt increase much then as you said in 2nd seating he can fill in.  its always better to be prepared for worst by saving grafts.

I assume he will have 3000-3500 grafts left as average is around 6k for most people. 

Thank you for the good explanation. I am learning.
I also ask you for an opinion on the comparison between these two doctors as in the title of the article..

 

edit: sry. i change it with my other post. i compare there dr.freitas with dr. keser. what is your opinion?

Edited May 22, 2023 by Met

[rolaba]

Good discussion. For what it's worth, as Duckling said, my aim was to create a stable frontal region while retaining enough grafts for future use.

It's important to take a fairly conservative view here. Supposedly I have moderate-to-high donor grafts to use: I've had estimates of 7,000 - 9,000, depending on the doctor. But it's best to plan for a more pessimistic outlook: you cannot know up front whether you'll experience reduced donor over time (via donor shock loss, or some donor being susceptible to DHT), and you should plan for the eventuality of growth yields being low in one or more procedures you have.

Primarily for this reason, I did not seek out a super-high density outcome for this procedure. It's also one of the reasons I chose Keser, since his growth yields seem to be quite good (which corresponds with the high amount of time allocated to each procedure). I still think the density is pretty good! But clearly there are procedures where doctors will cover a much smaller area with a similar number of grafts, if a patient wants a higher density outcome.

I already planned on having multiple procedures, and if grafts make it available there may be options to touch up (if required). But it's not yet clear if there'll be a need for that IMO. 

I don't personally see low density in the front central region more pronounced than elsewhere: perhaps it comes across that way in some photos since this region is closer to the camera, and may be getting more light on it. When I observe it in person the density is fairly consistent across the frontal area. It's hopefully more than dense enough for coverage IMO, even if procedures can be even denser. 

[baldfighter]

density looks pretty good to me

[duckling]

6 hours ago, Met said:

Thank you for the good explanation. I am learning.
I also ask you for an opinion on the comparison between these two doctors as in the title of the article..

 

edit: sry. i change it with my other post. i compare there dr.freitas with dr. keser. what is your opinion?

de freitas is better but also is costly comparitively. keser is good option in budget. If you have the money then go freitas

[duckling]

@Met i will update more about freitas in your thread. 

@rolaba you have a great donor . 7k-9k is really good. and good on you to still go conservative. and i agree with the camera light making it look less dense. when i zoomed in i could see some single hair grafts.

Edited May 22, 2023 by duckling

[rolaba]

I'm at 4 weeks post-surgery, so I'm sharing a quick update. Naturally there's not much to report on at this stage, so I'll keep it brief!

Shedding has kicked off, with a large amount occurring soon after week 2. A small % of transplanted hairs are yet to shed, but it's mostly thinned out, giving it the ugly ducklig look. 

The recipient area remains quite red. This is something I expected, but probably the most difficult challenge at the moment. It can be concealed in certain ways, but I expect this to be noticeable for at least another month given the progression. Numbness has diminished, however - there's still a little in the recipient area, but nothing like what it was at week 2.

The donor area meanwhile has healed up pretty well. There's no numbness, no noticeable shock loss, and it's blending in OK even on a very short cut.

Most likely it'll look pretty similar to this for another couple of months - looking forward to seeing where things go after that! 

[TheDarkHour]

I've been considering Keser since he's one of the more affordable surgeons when it comes to doing temple restoration. Unfortunately, he hasn't responded to my emails despite me emailing him twice. Is there an alternative way to contact him besides using the info@drkeser.com email?

[rolaba]

I was corresponding with one of his team (Ozgur), who picked up on that email address. You could try messaging him directly too: +61437799111 

Edited June 8, 2023 by rolaba

[Spring15]

Good luck, Keser is a great surgeon