Dr. Koray Erdogan Asmed - 5003 graft - 13/02/24

[salsazio]

Hello everybody

Here I am commenting on my personal experience in the ASMED clinic after a few weeks but I had already prepared it while I was in the clinic and in the following days to be as detailed and precise as possible
I'm writing it reluctantly because I expected something completely different after a 17-year wait and after having shelled out a whopping €15,200.
Regardless of the final result, the experience was partly superficial and "hasty" in some important steps of the operation which I will describe below
It is not my intention to offend anyone, discredit the clinic (there are reports for that) or make comparisons with others given that patients from all over the world go there every year, but since freedom of thought and expression should exist, I only report the facts that actually happened I repeat, this is a PERSONAL experience and has no general value.
Let's begin:

after the OK given by e-mail from the clinic to view the requested photos and complete with a video of the donor, I booked without hesitation because I have a working life that does not allow me to postpone any longer at the moment and the years pass inexorably (nothing to laugh at those who get transplants at 50 and over)
So I put myself totally in the hands of Asmed and their approval for the operation

I land with a direct flight at midnight, Istanbul airport is huge and beautiful, from which I leave and am accompanied by the driver (nice and kind) to my room in the clinic at one in the morning, where I sleep very little due to the time difference and the wake up early the next day at 6.20am
So totally stoned I meet the coordinator for Italians Cihan,
electrocardiogram and blood sample taken by a very young assistant who is the same one who will then shampoo me in the following days (I don't know whether or not the ECG results were given to the doctor to evaluate them)
interview with Cihan to give all the information on allergies, pathologies etc etc
Meeting with a dermatologist who diagnosed me with slight dryness of the scalp and dandruff, she told me to change shampoo and do thyroid and vitamin D tests after 1 month
Ultra professional photos first when dry and then when wet and then finally a live consultation with the doctor I've been dreaming of for 17 years

Unfortunately, the happiness of that moment soon turns into disbelief when he detects a hair gauge measuring 48 microns.
he didn't tell me the total donating capacity, the density per square cm, I wasn't asked about my expectations, where I wanted to intervene more, whether to treat one area more than another, the graft density etc etc everything very hasty in short
I recover for a moment and hear him tell me in front of the photo from wet and from above that I have many miniaturized on my scalp (obviously I know this otherwise I wouldn't have been there) and that in my case I take finasteride (absolutely original propecia) every day it is essential for the success of the operation
Also add oral minoxidil 2.5mg (original loniten)
In this state of confusion, always with long hair, he traces the obviously conservative frontal design for me, he doesn't lower the HL in the slightest), no temple peaks, he makes me look in the mirror to tell me if it's okay and I reply to him, I'm totally in yours hands
The whole consultation lasted just a few minutes
From then on my enthusiasm fades and I live the next steps passively
I underline that I did not have the classic 24 hours between the live consultation (which should be followed by a meticulous study of the operating plan) and the operation but it all happened in the same morning! Maybe if I had had the clarity and the necessary time to reflect (not the 10 minutes to sign the release) and I had been told, look, you only have 6k donors, I wouldn't have even had the operation or I would have had half the grafts placed on just one area and saved the rest for the future after having done a few years of therapy
(This is the biggest regret I had from the whole operation because there is only one donor,
anyway there were others that you will read later)

Shaving and interview with anesthetist,
shaved photos taken by the assistant who also draws me the lateral and upper drawing of the donor extraction and incision
the dr was not seen at this stage
therefore another oversight/mistake in not having retouched my hairline when shaved (in fact it does not join perfectly with the left parietal but a little further back and therefore underneath I find some hairline and a small step that I will have to cover with long hair)

Kebot scan,
operating room for extraction of the first 2500uf and prp (which I honestly thought I would at least receive as a gift given the amount paid but no)
the doctor arrives and shows me some grafts on the screen
He tells me that I have many miniaturized (38%) and telogen 18% (couldn't he have told me these at the consultation?!)

Off to the incisions made by the doctor himself, quick and painless, lasting about twenty minutes and then grafts, at the end of which I hear the assistants cutting into my scalp (I complained to Cihan that if I pay the doctor he has to be the one to make the cuts, I will be told why later)
It all ends around 6pm, when I'm taken back to my room, I collapse due to tiredness, both psychological and physical.

The next day I wake up more lively because I slept better
wake up this time at 7.30 am, extraction of the last 2500uf done by assistants some different from the first day,
the doctor comes and greets me... (this time no on-screen commentary of the extracted grafts) and explains to me the fact of the incisions made by the assistants the day before, saying that they needed to be enlarged because they were closing,
then off to the doc's recordings in the back, which also lasted about twenty minutes, during which he jokes and laughs all the time with his collaborators (and who counted the recordings? I don't know), he says goodbye to me and leaves...
the grafts this time were a little more painful, especially in the upper part, in fact I think they used more anesthesia in this phase, but the thing that disconcerted me is that I see the counter reach 52xx units, in fact one of the assistants tells me that they had grafted a hundreds of uf more, then her colleague who was operating the counter decides at the end of the operation with a few clicks to bring it back to 5003... I don't think this is normal!
Anyway at 4.30pm we had finished everything...
The assistants greet me with Toto Cutugno's "l'italiano" in the background and a gift of chocolate

Third day first wash
during which I enjoyed the cold water,
the girl on the ecg had a problem in removing some pus that came out from above, for which she called the dermatologist and after seeing her she prescribed me the antibiotic cefuroxime morning and evening for 7 days
Then the more expert assistant/shampoist intervened with golden hands, believe me, who removed it without difficulty and completed the wash
Final professional photos and new scan on the kebot, where there is a hint of color, I am perculated by the operator, because he asked me to lower my chin while he raised my chin rest, they have little fun I must say...
They do this second scan to count the actually implanted grafts that they don't share with the patients (why on earth I wonder?)
I spend the rest of the day wondering why the doctor had still agreed to operate on me instead of refusing, the fact that I wasn't told important data at the consultation such as donor capacity, % of miniaturized, graft density per cm2 etc etc
so I ask Cihan for a clarifying meeting with the doctor the next day, the day of the restart

Fourth and final day
Second wash
and here, due to my negligence as my head was still paranoid, the absence of Cihan who was downstairs with another patient, I didn't immediately notice that the “ecg” girl was washing me in the opposite direction to that foreseen by the my design, when I realized it unfortunately it was already too late (and I couldn't say whether this maneuver could have damaged the delicate single grafts of the first line or something else)

I am therefore waiting to meet the doctor, who will give me an audience directly in my room but half an hour before leaving the clinic, as they say better late than never...
I told him how much respect I had for him, that I had been following him for 17 years, that in Turkey I would only have him operate on me etc etc
When asked why he had operated on me despite all the negative assumptions found in my situation, he replied ""reassuring me"" that he strongly believes in a good result provided that I take propecia every day together with oral minoxidil, that he went as far as up to 5k grafts because he could do it etc etc
He also added that for my case he assigned me the best team (but then why were there different people during the 2 days of the operation?!) and that I still have 1000 grafts for any adjustments, a number that can increase if I follow the treatments in constant manner
Final farewell complete with souvenir photos
So I thank Cihan for putting up with me and I am taken back to the airport by the driver at impressive speed because there was a lot of traffic, bad weather and we were late and he had to extend the tour a lot (congratulations for the driving but crazy speed in the rain)

This is what happened to me personally
Attention
it is not the classic case of dissatisfaction where the patient's expectations are too high and exceed the realistic ones, because I know very well that with 5k uf I would never have solved my baldness problem but what I contest is a clinic that is defined as TOP, apart from the superficial errors described, is the "lightness" with which I was jeopardized both the possibility of consciously deciding what to do through the omission of important technical data (see donor capacity) in the consultation, and the possibility of having any future operations given a donor that is now practically exhausted or with which to do very little appreciable (with 1k uf perhaps we get a thickening of eyebrows)
So I spent 15k to basically stay bald for life!
Furthermore, having only recently seen their reports in which there are thinning hairlines with multiple and few single ones, low regrowth (in fact they do not give any guarantee) and low grafting density compared to the high number of samples taken, the hopes of having a good result today they are very low
sorry for grammatical errors and poor punctuation
Good life

this is my schedule from clinic:

PATIENT AGE: 37
- NW SCALE VII
- TOTAL CAPACITY OF DONOR AREA: 6,000 grafts

* Density of Temporal, Parietal and Occipital zones: 70-70-80 uf/cm2
* Hair diameter in the Temporal, Parietal and Occipital areas: 48-48-48 microns

- DETAILS OF THE OPERATION: 5003 FUE grafts extracted with manual punch, diameter 0.7, 0.75, & 0.8mm.
Incisions made using: steel blades, lateral slit and implanted with the K.E.E.P.

- Total transplanted area: 150 cm2

* 1264 single grafts
* 2311 double grafts
* 1188 triple grafts
* 240 multiple grafts

* General hair average for grafts: 2.08

- DISTRIBUTION OF GRAFTS: 5003 grafts were used to correct the frontal, MEDIAN and crown area.
- FINASTERIDE: The patient has been under treatment for 3 months with Finasteride on alternate days.

Edited April 23 by salsazio

[salsazio]

1 month update

 

2 month update

 

Edited April 21 by salsazio

[Piquadro87]

Interesting. I follow.

[salsazio]

I wanted to ask you In your opinion, how much donor do I have left?

[Al - Moderator]

16 hours ago, salsazio said:

I wanted to ask you In your opinion, how much donor do I have left?

 

It doesn't look like your donor was all that great to begin with, so you may not have much left after taking over 5000 grafts. You'll have to wait at least 6 months until it grows back in to see how dense (or not) it is.

 

[Al - Moderator]

What you should have done was had an in-person consultation with a HT Dr near you before committing to this surgery. Then you'd have a good idea of your hair situation and can make a more informed decision on what to do. It's not a great idea to end of having to make those decisions on the day of surgery like what happened to you. You want to have an idea of your situation before you go there. The Dr has never seen you before, so you can't expect him to know your situation.

You did get 5003 grafts which is a large amount and it looks like you got decent density all over with those grafts, so I wouldn't be so down about it thinking you wasted a lot of money for nothing.

 

[salsazio]

11 minutes ago, Al - Moderator said:

What you should have done was had an in-person consultation with a HT Dr near you before committing to this surgery. Then you'd have a good idea of your hair situation and can make a more informed decision on what to do. It's not a great idea to end of having to make those decisions on the day of surgery like what happened to you. You want to have an idea of your situation before you go there. The Dr has never seen you before, so you can't expect him to know your situation.

You did get 5003 grafts which is a large amount and it looks like you got decent density all over with those grafts, so I wouldn't be so down about it thinking you wasted a lot of money for nothing.

 

I know that I made a hasty and wrong decision, but I was influenced in my choice by a corrupt italian forum

Edited April 22 by salsazio

[salsazio]

1 hour ago, Al - Moderator said:

 

It doesn't look like your donor was all that great to begin with, so you may not have much left after taking over 5000 grafts. You'll have to wait at least 6 months until it grows back in to see how dense (or not) it is.

 

I have seen worse heads that have been estimated at 8/10k uf 

Why mine 6k?

 

im taking finasteride every day at 1mg from 5months (first for 3months one day yes and one day not) and I could see an improvement in donor, it closed higher

 

Edited April 22 by salsazio

[salsazio]

[salsazio]

Under the direct light

68days

Edited April 22 by salsazio

[salsazio]

what do u think about extraction of donor area?