AEK international, WARNING, do not go there!

[James Bond]

I am just back from a FUT session in Istanbul on Monday this week, 20/11 at the AEK International and just received the number of grafts that was 1976. Cost €5000 cash.
I am trying to gather my thoughts as I feel fooled completely. AEK international implanted grafts during 3 hours only.

I asked for the number of grafts before hand and they could not promise anything. In hindsight I am upset about this and they just babble about it will be better results with fewer but this is a proper scammer team. A lot of customers from the USA arrived there and I wonder if they even knew what was going to happen to them if they should get anything for the money.

In addition it was dirty and not clean at all there. I was lying on the table and stared straight into dirty operation table pedals. This is a surgery that should be clinically clean.

I made a similar session at Shapiro 2011 in Minneapolis in the USA. They worked with a whole team for a whole day from early morning till late night. We started 8 am and finished 9 pm. But I also had a head full of follicles.
The efficiency is vastly different also. On top of my head I had 8,000-10,000 grafts at Shapiro and the team worked all the time. Shapiro was extremely (!!) professional. Cost $9000 for a job that was more than 3 times in size.

AEK international was nice and friendly but in the hindsight when I now see the number of grafts I realise I have been properly screwed.

If I had stayed in London I could have had work done for the same money and had more than these guys did in Turkey.

Please do not go there!

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by James Bond

[Melvin- Admin]

Can you share any pictures. We need some proof to substantiate your claims. 

[James Bond]

  Of course. Adding them here.

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by James Bond

[jjalay]

I am surprised you only got 1972 grafts because you had a preety long strip and your donor area looks preety good. I would expect a much better yield. What was the plan before the surgery and how many grafts did you expected? AEK is a technisians driven clinik and the doctor there has a really weird persona, not focused on his patients.

[James Bond]

I expected about 4000-5000 grafts or so. But the thing was that I could never get a number from them. And I asked several times too.

But this is a joke. I was concerned all the time about how they worked as they did not push it at all. Shapiro even had one follicle left and said, make another punch so we can add this too. I am certainly not going to recommend this to anyone. It is a big warning flag.

I probably need another in a years time, but I am quite upset tbh.

Edited November 24, 2023 by James Bond

[KSA91]

Dr Karadeniz from what I gathered from his YouTube channel seems professional but overly arrogant. If what you say is true about cleanliness not being up to par with medical standards then that is a problem!

[Melvin- Admin]

I’m unsure what I’m looking at, can you share before and afters

[jjalay]

1 hour ago, James Bond said:

I expected about 4000-5000 grafts or so. But the thing was that I could never get a number from them. And I asked several times too.

But this is a joke. I was concerned all the time about how they worked as they did not push it at all. Shapiro even had one follicle left and said, make another punch so we can add this too. I am certainly not going to recommend this to anyone. It is a big warning flag.

I probably need another in a years time, but I am quite upset tbh.

Never heard of a clinic not be able to estimate how many grafts you have available and most important how many grafts you need, this is serious lack of planning for the procedure. As a said before the strip they took is preety long, i would not trust this number of 1972 grafts and would not be surpised if some of your grafts were simply thrown away.

[James Bond]

Yes, this is what I suspect too. But I cannot get them responsible for what they did. When you look at the strip area you can see it should certainly hold more than 1972 grafts. It is likely 4000-5000 at least. Shapiro did 8000 in the same strip 11 years ago so why could these only get 1972. clearly proper BS.

Shapior also used a double blade knife when he cut the strip. I mentioned this to the surgeon and he said it is not about speed. But the ones who knows something about simple cuts knows that if you have perfect paralell cuts the scarring is less than if you have uneven edges. Simple knowledge even I can think of was lacking.
He cut the strip manually on both sides.

what wasimportant also was that the procedure was a lot of waiting. I had to wait for the surgeon to do things. With Shapiro it was paced. He was doing the strip, he wasa doing the punches and he was there when they needed it. His team was on their feet. They cared for me as a patient. Here I was the bunch of money only. And they had charged another 20% more if I used my card.
What was also remarkable was that he made a set number of punches and then there weer no more. This confirms they threw away grafts since no one can make an exact number of punches before all grafts are cut from the strip. So they probably made 1972 and then threw the rest away.

I am now trying to recover from the emotional distress this has caused. It is horrible. This is clearly a scammer company are not serious at all. You should see their messages to me now. They say it is not about the grafts but the results.
Any idiot understand that if you do not have grafts you do not get any results either.

I am both upset and exhausted when I think of this. It was the biggest mistake in my life to go to Turkey and to AEK International.

Edited November 25, 2023 by James Bond

[Hairwolf]

Way back when I first looked into surgical options, I spoke to AEK. Dr Karadeniz was board certified so clearly a good surgeon and their YouTube channel was very slick. The price seemed great too. They did BHT and FUT so seemed like a great choice.

Had a ‘consultation’ with a rep and he was just a salesman. He was selling packages according to his impression of my pics and there was no mention of a Dr reviewing the pics, graft count, donor quality etc. I enquired and was told it’s a sophisticated’ topic. One of the packages was an ‘aggressive strategy’ of 5000 grafts. A lot red flags looking back, so didn’t take it any further and travel was practically impossible anyway with the Covid policies. 
 

Found this forum (thankfully) and discovered that these days it’s a tech-led clinic where the Dr supervises so dodged a bullet. If you go back 8-10 years the Dr indeed produced some great results.

@James Bond how involved was the Dr do you remember or where you to heavily sedated? I guess for FUT he must do it himself as the techs probably aren’t trained in the procedure? Where was he when the grafts were being sorted also? 
 

Anyway thanks for your post - it will serve as a warning to others and sorry for your situation. At least it’s not a botch job, but this is unethical to say the least. On the positive side you still have an FUE and BHT option open to you.

[James Bond]

Interesting you are mentioning this.

Dr Karadeniz was more or less preaching that he could use house wifes to do the job and no medically educated employees. He was adamant and even said he could have 100 surgeries going on in paralell and did not need to do any of them and use cheap house wives in all of them.
He said this was how the law was constructed. But I am sure there is more to the law than having lots of house wives doing the job.

He did the strip surgery itself, but I did not see the team being taht busy as they were at Shapiros. Shapiro had 5 people working for 8-10 hours. Here they were done after 2-3 only.

I think the message is clear about AEK.

Edited November 25, 2023 by James Bond

[RisinStar]

Usually I just read here, but I felt like I had to reply on this one. 

First of all, I understand what you experienced. I went to AEK 1,5 years ago and had a similar experience: Very kind people who work there that's for sure... But the doctor came in and drew my hairline while my mouth/beard was heavily sedated and I couldn't speak, which was a bizarre experience + the survival rate of the grafts wasn't at all what I hoped for (I would guess 20%). I really hope you will have a much better survival rate. 

So personally I think I won't go back to Turkey in general, after seeing other people's results here with other clinics (Eugenix, Couto). That's why I'm so happy this forum exists.

[James Bond]

Wow

This grows worse and worse.

I guess this is the house wife concept that he spoke about and wants to use that does not work... 🙄

I should perhaps just book a new FUE right away and forget about what I have done.

This makes me even more worried.

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by James Bond

[RisinStar]

Every doctor will tell you to you to wait 12 months and they are right. There's no need to worry, let's first wait for the result you get. 
Personally I didn't take finasteride after the HT (it destroys my libido) and that may explain the low survival rate I had. In the end results can vary from person to person. 

The way I see it, you're in a good position:

- You still have a good donor zone left

- You can even use Scalp Micro Pigmentation to cover up the donor zone if you plan a next HT (it's what I'm planning to do)

- With the knowlede you find here, from now on you'll be looking at the best doctors in the world

So I believe the best is yet to come 😉 

Edited November 26, 2023 by RisinStar

[Fred2023]

Hi James Bond,

I am reading you post and have just signed on with AEK for a combined FUT/FUE procedure ( thanks to this forum I avoided making the mistake of going with Blue Magic, I lost my deposit but I would rather lose a deposit than lose my hair). Anyway, I cannot afford to lose another deposit, so other than your disappointment with the number of grafts, how would you rate the rest of the overall process? My understanding and others more experienced on here can correct me, is that FUT is a lot quicker than FUE.  Also, when you say Dr Shapiro did 8,000-10,000 grafts, do you mean 8,000-10,000 hairs, which would be roughly 3,200 to 4,500 grafts? As RisinStar said it is only 2 months in so I hope it all works out for you.

Thanks

Freddie

[Electric]

Freddie, After reading James Bond's post, I would lose money rather than get a botched job. You only have so many hairs to use for life and then that's it. I cannot imagine the emotional trauma James Bond is experiencing and he shared so no one else has to feel traumatized.

[jjalay]

3 hours ago, Fred2023 said:

Hi James Bond,

I am reading you post and have just signed on with AEK for a combined FUT/FUE procedure ( thanks to this forum I avoided making the mistake of going with Blue Magic, I lost my deposit but I would rather lose a deposit than lose my hair). Anyway, I cannot afford to lose another deposit, so other than your disappointment with the number of grafts, how would you rate the rest of the overall process? My understanding and others more experienced on here can correct me, is that FUT is a lot quicker than FUE.  Also, when you say Dr Shapiro did 8,000-10,000 grafts, do you mean 8,000-10,000 hairs, which would be roughly 3,200 to 4,500 grafts? As RisinStar said it is only 2 months in so I hope it all works out for you.

Thanks

Freddie

Thanks to this forum you avoided blue magic and then you decided to go with Karadeniz?This doesnt make any sense mate.

[Fred2023]

1 hour ago, jjalay said:

Thanks to this forum you avoided blue magic and then you decided to go with Karadeniz?This doesnt make any sense mate.

Why? Technicians do all the work for Blue Magic and my hair design and FUT is being carried out by a qualified plastic surgeon who is a fellow of the IHRS and american board certified and is on Realself. Granted for my FUE he will only be doing the excisions which is a crutical element of the process but for my budget it is a big step up. Also I could find very few real world examples of bad work coming out of AEK.  However I am here to be educated so please share.