HLC ANKARA 3580 Grafts for hairline and middle section

[Berba11]

24 minutes ago, FaganBecker said:

Sorry for the delay! Appreciate your response. Reassuring for sure. 
 

galling to know I may have another trip to Turkey with little over a year after my first one. 
 

just hoping it’s in their skill set to remove grafts from the front. I think mine looks kind of oddly low at the front wouldn’t you say?

 

it’s improved somewhat, but kind help but think it looks very far from natural 

In the absence of a clear plan from HLC I'd personally have reservations about going back to them.

I also think that camouflaging the multi graft hairline by lowering the hairline is probably ill-advised in your case as your hairline is already quite low. You'd run the risk of having hairs attached to your frontalis muscle which is bit no-no.

What your hair line needs is more irregularities and more singles. You can actually achieve this by reverse engineering the hair line, so to speak. Dr Sever from Hattingen does this - extracts a load of multi's in a broken up, 'irregular' fashion and add a few strategic singles. It's something I'm strongly considering doing myself with Hattingen (I don't have multi's like you do, but my hairline does lack irregularities), and we have a really nice result from @RTCrecently that shows what can be achieved. I'd suggest having a look at @RTC's thread and reaching out to Dr Sever for a video consultation. You may still choose to go ahead with HLC, but it would be unwise to not at least get a few consultations & opinions in the bank before committing to booking flights to Turkey!

[FaganBecker]

16 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

In the absence of a clear plan from HLC I'd personally have reservations about going back to them.

I also think that camouflaging the multi graft hairline by lowering the hairline is probably ill-advised in your case as your hairline is already quite low. You'd run the risk of having hairs attached to your frontalis muscle which is bit no-no.

What your hair line needs is more irregularities and more singles. You can actually achieve this by reverse engineering the hair line, so to speak. Dr Sever from Hattingen does this - extracts a load of multi's in a broken up, 'irregular' fashion and add a few strategic singles. It's something I'm strongly considering doing myself with Hattingen (I don't have multi's like you do, but my hairline does lack irregularities), and we have a really nice result from @RTCrecently that shows what can be achieved. I'd suggest having a look at @RTC's thread and reaching out to Dr Sever for a video consultation. You may still choose to go ahead with HLC, but it would be unwise to not at least get a few consultations & opinions in the bank before committing to booking flights to Turkey!

Thanks for your response.

 

I think the thing I find tricky here is the idea of removing healthy multiple grafts would obviously thin it out a bit, and particularly on the left side the density is already poor. There are very few lightings in which it doesn’t look very sparse. 

 

The other issue is £££. I don’t have much of a budget for it, so if I don’t go back to HLC, I may have to wait years before I can justify another essentially optional cosmetic procedure, such as a hair transplant. HLC have guaranteed that there will be no cost if I go back.

 

However, the thing that does unnerve me is that they have refused to left me speak to a doctor and maintained that the only repeat ONLY way that they can gage what needs to be done, is with me sat in the hot seat with them in Ankara. Seems an awful expense in both time and money (getting there) to just be told that they can quite easily add a few singles in the front. Especially when the line is already so bold and unnatural looking. 

 

What do you think of the result so far? A glaringly unnatural result, or something that looks fine if you don’t look to closely at the line itself? 

[FaganBecker]

Part of me does just want to let the people who I’ve always paid £8K to make good on their initial promise. A natural hairline. 
 

but I agree. At this stage, it is more complicated then just adding singles at the front and a slight softening of the temple angle 

[Berba11]

6 minutes ago, FaganBecker said:

I think the thing I find tricky here is the idea of removing healthy multiple grafts would obviously thin it out a bit, and particularly on the left side the density is already poor. There are very few lightings in which it doesn’t look very sparse. 

The punch-outs would be re-used and placed into areas of weaker density, but even if you go down the HLC repair route, you're going to be using a) probably 200-400 singles hairs and softer doubles to recreate a new hairline and b) you're still going to have weaker areas that need to be addressed behind the hairline at some point in time (which HLC will probably do for you, to be fair).

8 minutes ago, FaganBecker said:

What do you think of the result so far? A glaringly unnatural result, or something that looks fine if you don’t look to closely at the line itself?

To me it looks poor but I'm not a HT laymen so I'm casting a more critical eye than the man on the street. Also different lighting will exaggerate or mask the issues. Personally I would not be happy with this outcome and I'd want to get the pluggy grafts removed and irregularities added for a more natural result without lowering the hairline further. But I understand that this comes with an unanticipated cost (I'm in a similar boat!).

What it's worth bearing in mind is that the HLC repair is not guaranteed to be a success. If you end up not happy with the repair then you've compounded the problem even further by having the hairline lowered. A good example of this is @Tommy1991. He had bad work initially, went to a reputable clinic for a fix, didn't get fixed and essentially just ended up with more grafts to be extracted later, and is now undergoing a total hairline removal at much bigger costs, time, hassle and worry than the initial work. These things can dominate a person's life for quite a while until they are resolved for good, so I understand how conflicted you probably feel right now.

Personally I don't think you need to go down the Tommy/Feriduni full hairline removal and start over approach. But equally I'm not massively convinced that bringing down your hairline another half cm with HLC is ideal either. The Hattingen 'partial removal'/create some softer breakup option that RTC underwent might be a nice middle of the road option that wouldn't cost the earth. At the very least, speak with Dr Sever and get his thoughts.

[Berba11]

14 minutes ago, FaganBecker said:

Part of me does just want to let the people who I’ve always paid £8K to make good on their initial promise. A natural hairline. 
 

but I agree. At this stage, it is more complicated then just adding singles at the front and a slight softening of the temple angle 

Yes, I get that fully. Repairs are tricky - no two cases are ever quite the same - and, conflictingly, sometimes the very worst HT's are the easiest to fix, whereas decent HT's (in terms of density etc), can be trickier to fix.

[FaganBecker]

I’m basically resolved to not get it lowered at all. Especially at the front anyway. I think HLC would be adding density to weaker areas as part of the deal. But how they intend to deal with the pluggy unnatural look, I really don’t know. 

 

however, you seem to doubt that the removal of grafts falls within their field of expertise? Do you? 
 

from certain angles I think the front of my hairline already appears to be too low. Far too close to the creases of my forehead so tactful removal seems to be the way forward 

Edited May 7 by FaganBecker

[RTC]

1 hour ago, FaganBecker said:

Thanks for your response.

 

I think the thing I find tricky here is the idea of removing healthy multiple grafts would obviously thin it out a bit, and particularly on the left side the density is already poor. There are very few lightings in which it doesn’t look very sparse. 

 

The other issue is £££. I don’t have much of a budget for it, so if I don’t go back to HLC, I may have to wait years before I can justify another essentially optional cosmetic procedure, such as a hair transplant. HLC have guaranteed that there will be no cost if I go back.

 

However, the thing that does unnerve me is that they have refused to left me speak to a doctor and maintained that the only repeat ONLY way that they can gage what needs to be done, is with me sat in the hot seat with them in Ankara. Seems an awful expense in both time and money (getting there) to just be told that they can quite easily add a few singles in the front. Especially when the line is already so bold and unnatural looking. 

 

What do you think of the result so far? A glaringly unnatural result, or something that looks fine if you don’t look to closely at the line itself? 

Then your best bet would be to do this over 2-3 sittings. Remove, wait a few months, then add. And yes, as Berba said, the grafts removed would be recycled further behind, i.e. in the sparse areas.

Edited May 7 by RTC

[FaganBecker]

4 minutes ago, RTC said:

Then your best bet would be to do this over 2-3 sittings. Remove, wait a few months, then add. And yes, as Berba said, the grafts removed would be recycled further behind, i.e. in the sparse areas.

Not sure I follow sorry. Why would that be my best bet? 
 

obviously need to take into account practicality too. Travel back and forth to Turkey like that is expensive and hard to fit in with my work life 

[RTC]

Because you're worried that removing grafts would be counter-intuitive as it's already thin, but in order to fix things sometimes you have to take a step back. Removing some grafts now would leave things thinner yes, but then you can go back and re-implant properly in a few months

Taking half measures with a repair does not work out well, take it from me

[Berba11]

1 hour ago, FaganBecker said:

however, you seem to doubt that the removal of grafts falls within their field of expertise? Do you?

On the basis that I’ve never seen any such case from them, never heard anyone have this done with them and that they seemingly haven’t talked about this with you. In fact, it’s extremely rare for any clinic in Turkey to do hairline punch outs. Most people who get hairline punch outs do so because they went to Turkey the first time around! Unfortunately Turkey is the place that people tend to get botched - the repair job will usually be somewhere more expensive in Europe. 

[RTC]

10 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

On the basis that I’ve never seen any such case from them, never heard anyone have this done with them and that they seemingly haven’t talked about this with you. In fact, it’s extremely rare for any clinic in Turkey to do hairline punch outs. Most people who get hairline punch outs do so because they went to Turkey the first time around! Unfortunately Turkey is the place that people tend to get botched - the repair job will usually be somewhere more expensive in Europe. 

I would agree.

You don't even know which doctor at HLC will see you on the day.

With Dr Sever we discussed the plans months in advance.

Do not go to them

Edited May 7 by RTC

[FaganBecker]

47 minutes ago, RTC said:

Because you're worried that removing grafts would be counter-intuitive as it's already thin, but in order to fix things sometimes you have to take a step back. Removing some grafts now would leave things thinner yes, but then you can go back and re-implant properly in a few months

Taking half measures with a repair does not work out well, take it from me

But why would you advise against doing these things at the same time? 

[FaganBecker]

37 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

On the basis that I’ve never seen any such case from them, never heard anyone have this done with them and that they seemingly haven’t talked about this with you. In fact, it’s extremely rare for any clinic in Turkey to do hairline punch outs. Most people who get hairline punch outs do so because they went to Turkey the first time around! Unfortunately Turkey is the place that people tend to get botched - the repair job will usually be somewhere more expensive in Europe. 

HLC seem very confident they can clean this up easily and give me a result that will “make me happy”

 

but they also seem very reluctant to give any information about how his will work until I book and go back in person.

 

they have said that they can do punch outs and moving multiple grafts, but they told me that in a 5 word text. It seems a little too much like, stop asking questions just trust us! 

[RTC]

13 minutes ago, FaganBecker said:

But why would you advise against doing these things at the same time? 

Repairs are tricky, and trying to do everything at once is not optimal.

If I am honest I haven't really read through the thread properly, but trust me, doing things slowly is better. Break down the hairline and then rebuild it.

[CoolngMist]

So I have been back twice in the past six weeks and they want to see me again in six weeks. I appreciate this is not for everyone and its easy for me to get to Turkey.

My experience is they want happy customers and will do what is needed to achieve that, its not about the money side.

When I had the transplant, on the final day which was just for checks, they took me back in to the surgery room to move a few grafts on my hairline, this was something I never noticed but they did on my last day, extraction and moving was no issue at all.

Personally for me, I would say go, be prepared and write down all your questions and spend as much time as you need with Dr Özgür Öztan, he will also have the rest of the team in the room.

[Berba11]

44 minutes ago, FaganBecker said:

HLC seem very confident they can clean this up easily and give me a result that will “make me happy”

 

but they also seem very reluctant to give any information about how his will work until I book and go back in person.

 

they have said that they can do punch outs and moving multiple grafts, but they told me that in a 5 word text. It seems a little too much like, stop asking questions just trust us! 

I would do two things in your situation:

1. Strongly request to speak with one of the HLC doctors as you want more information in advance - in particular about punching out multi graft hairs. If they're happy to do this then that's a positive. But you really need more information up front than a five word text message

2. In the meantime, speak to a couple of other surgeons who do repairs just to get other ideas and eyes on your case

They key here is to not rush or do anything too hastily or without good information in advance.

[FaganBecker]

Appreciate all the advice here - I definitely have a lot to think about. 
 

will try and get more information from HLC in the meantime and probably take it from there