Traction Alopecia Female

[LondonGirl2024]

Hi, I am looking to go to turkey for a HT as I suffer from traction alopecia (20+ years). I have gone to my GP in London and hair specialists and have all confirmed its traction alopecia. Can anyone recommend a good clinic that’s specialises in this type of hair loss? My budget is £3.5-£4k. Also as I am quite concerned with how much they will take from my donor area, will it be better to go with FUT surgery? As I don’t want a large area of my head shaven. The clinics I have looked in to are, in no particular order are:

Dr Cinik

Dr Rasul Yaman

Smile Hair Clinic 

Sule Hair Clinic

Cosmedica 

FUECAPILAR

[Melvin- Admin]

As a female, I think you need to go to a surgeon with experience in female hairlines. Do you have afro hair?

[LondonGirl2024]

@Melvin- Admin thank you… I have Asian (Indian) hair 

[Melvin- Admin]

13 minutes ago, LondonGirl2024 said:

@Melvin- Admin thank you… I have Asian (Indian) hair 

You might want to consider Absolute Hair Clinic in Thailand. Dr. Ratchathorn is a good option.

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

Most females choose FUT because they do not want to shave entire head to do the surgery which they always do in Turkey. Definitely go to clinic that performed many surgeries on females that have traction alopecia. the hairline is critical and your case is hairline and probably temporal area.

[Berba11]

17 hours ago, LondonGirl2024 said:

Hi, I am looking to go to turkey for a HT as I suffer from traction alopecia (20+ years). I have gone to my GP in London and hair specialists and have all confirmed its traction alopecia. Can anyone recommend a good clinic that’s specialises in this type of hair loss? My budget is £3.5-£4k. Also as I am quite concerned with how much they will take from my donor area, will it be better to go with FUT surgery? As I don’t want a large area of my head shaven. The clinics I have looked in to are, in no particular order are:

Dr Cinik

Dr Rasul Yaman

Smile Hair Clinic 

Sule Hair Clinic

Cosmedica 

FUECAPILAR

Can you share some photos of your areas of concern? Some of the very best female HT work that I've seen is actually by Dr Ball in the UK (Portsmouth).

I would very much avoid most of the clinics on that list.

[Gatsby]

The benefit of FUT is also, apart from not shaving your head as you would for FUE, that the density of your hair will remain the same. With the exception of a scar left in the donor area, the remaining hair will remain as full as it was prior to surgery. All the best. 

[LondonGirl2024]

15 hours ago, Dr. Glenn Charles said:

Most females choose FUT because they do not want to shave entire head to do the surgery which they always do in Turkey. Definitely go to clinic that performed many surgeries on females that have traction alopecia. the hairline is critical and your case is hairline and probably temporal area.

That’s correct it’s mostly on the temple area. It’s quite hard to find a clinic the perform on females as most don’t want to be on social media.

[LondonGirl2024]

2 hours ago, Berba11 said:

Can you share some photos of your areas of concern? Some of the very best female HT work that I've seen is actually by Dr Ball in the UK (Portsmouth).

I would very much avoid most of the clinics on that list.

I have added some pictures below. I might request a consultation with them but really can’t afford a HT for £12k 

[LondonGirl2024]

2 hours ago, Gatsby said:

The benefit of FUT is also, apart from not shaving your head as you would for FUE, that the density of your hair will remain the same. With the exception of a scar left in the donor area, the remaining hair will remain as full as it was prior to surgery. All the best. 

I’ve just had someone call me form Dr ***** and basically said I would would have to have an undercut, which I am not willing to do lol I heard that the FUT method is quite outdated, is this preferred over FUE as some people don’t want to shave?
 

thanks for replying  

[Patrick_Joyce]

2 hours ago, Gatsby said:

The benefit of FUT is also, apart from not shaving your head as you would for FUE, that the density of your hair will remain the same. With the exception of a scar left in the donor area, the remaining hair will remain as full as it was prior to surgery. All the best. 

I never knew this, I always assumed because they have to stretch the two sides of the scar together to close it, that it would pull the scalp and effect the density.

Edited February 16 by Patrick_Joyce

[Berba11]

9 minutes ago, LondonGirl2024 said:

I have added some pictures below. I might request a consultation with them but really can’t afford a HT for £12k 

Yea I understand there would be a price difference. That said, Turkey remains a risk. The majority of the clinics in Turkey are not using microscopes, meaning we often see hairlines populated with double and multigraft hairs instead of sofer single graft hairs.

Female hairlines tend to be even softer in appearance (men can often get away with a little bit of plugginess), so it's extra important that the hairline work is carried out to a high standard. Among the best female work I've seen is @Ilonaa's surgery at Eugenix in India. You might find this to be more cost effective than the UK and comparable to Turkey (but with better, higher quality surgical outcomes).

I would say it's worth getting in-person consultations with Dr Ball, and also with Dr Mani (London) seeing as they're on your doorstep. At the very least they should be able to give you a proper assessment, tell you what's possible and how many grafts you'd need. You may even find that the total cost isn't as high as you imagine, but at the very least you'll have had a couple of excellent surgeons give you an expert opinion and you can go from there. I'd certainly not focus on Turkey for now. There are a small number of good clinics, but it is a minefield and a bad HT will be 1000x worse than what you're going through now.

[Al - Moderator]

If a Dr does both FUE and FUT, the cost for FUT is usually lower per graft than FUE, so the cost may not be as high as you are thinking. 

 

[Al - Moderator]

One thing that needs to get asked is have you stopped doing whatever it is that was causing the traction alopecia? If you continue to do the same thing after a hair transplant then the same thing is going to happen and you are just wasting your time and money. Also if you just recently stopped then you may get a small amount of growth back. I would try using minoxidil on the areas for a few months while you are researching Drs and see if that helps any.

 

[Melvin- Admin]

Please take a look at our gallery for females.  You’ll be able to see some physician work on female patients.
https://hairtransplantnetwork.com/latest-patient-photos

[LondonGirl2024]

6 hours ago, Berba11 said:

Yea I understand there would be a price difference. That said, Turkey remains a risk. The majority of the clinics in Turkey are not using microscopes, meaning we often see hairlines populated with double and multigraft hairs instead of sofer single graft hairs.

Female hairlines tend to be even softer in appearance (men can often get away with a little bit of plugginess), so it's extra important that the hairline work is carried out to a high standard. Among the best female work I've seen is @Ilonaa's surgery at Eugenix in India. You might find this to be more cost effective than the UK and comparable to Turkey (but with better, higher quality surgical outcomes).

I would say it's worth getting in-person consultations with Dr Ball, and also with Dr Mani (London) seeing as they're on your doorstep. At the very least they should be able to give you a proper assessment, tell you what's possible and how many grafts you'd need. You may even find that the total cost isn't as high as you imagine, but at the very least you'll have had a couple of excellent surgeons give you an expert opinion and you can go from there. I'd certainly not focus on Turkey for now. There are a small number of good clinics, but it is a minefield and a bad HT will be 1000x worse than what you're going through now.

@Berba11 thanks for all the above info, I have contacted Dr Ball, Dr Mani and a couple of other Drs recommended on here and will see how that goes.

if you were to recommend anyone from turkey, would u have any suggestions just so I have other options? 

[Berba11]

29 minutes ago, LondonGirl2024 said:

@Berba11 thanks for all the above info, I have contacted Dr Ball, Dr Mani and a couple of other Drs recommended on here and will see how that goes.

if you were to recommend anyone from turkey, would u have any suggestions just so I have other options? 

I’m struggling to think of any surgeons in Turkey that I’d feel confident recommending for a female traction alopecia case to be honest with you. 
 

What I would say is the same I’d say to anyone… If the ideal surgeon is out of reach budget-wise right now, could you spend more time saving up? Could you finance or part finance a surgery -such as a low interest bank loan or credit card (where you could just balance transfer your way out of paying any interest) - without hurting yourself financially in the long run?

Suppose you need around 2,000 grafts in total (which might not be far off), a good clinic is going to charge around £3-5 per graft (so let’s call it £4). So ideally you’d need around £8K in total. You’re already half way there with your current budget. You may need a lot more grafts though - it’s hard to say to be honest!
 

The challenge you have is that the number of surgeons known to be doing really great female HT work is quite low compared to male HT’s, and it’s generally the better regarded surgeons doing these cases. That means there aren’t many good options for you at the budget end of the spectrum. 
 

Id guess that your best budget options might be Eugenix in India and Absolute in Thailand, both of whom have leading female surgeons who are highly regarded. You don’t need your surgeon to be a woman of course in order to get a good female HT, but I think it probably has some advantages! 

Edited February 17 by Berba11