Reviews you can trust, from real people like you.
How it works
- Our highly-trained Review Moderation team evaluates all reviews before they're published to ensure they're written by people like you and not a member of a doctor's office.
- This multi-step process takes up to 24 hours from review submission to publication.
- Doctors can't pay to have reviews removed or hidden.
- Reviews are only removed at the reviewer's request or if they violate our Terms of Service.
If you have questions or believe we should re-evaluate a published review, let us know.
Sort by:
*Treatment results may vary
My 4600 Grafts Hair Transplant at Dr. Maral’s Clinic in Istanbul, Turkey.
Hi everyone! I have just completed my hair transplant operation today, May 9th, 2019, and writing from the hotel.
I have been reading this forum for a long time and it helped me a lot to learn about hair transplants and gain confidence to get the procedure done myself. I've always loved reading about other people’s hair transplant stories, day to day experiences and their feelings after having a renewed self-esteem. The main reasons that finally persuaded me to take the big step was positive experiences that I have read about from many Maral Klinik patients, the very good curriculum vitae of Dr. Maral's education and practice in Aesthetic plastic surgery and fast response time, the level of information given through mail, Whatsapp and finally the full flexibility to arrange my trip.
I am a doctor myself specialized in pediatrics. I started losing my hair in my 30s. I am 54 yo now and my bald area got bigger and bigger over time as you will see in my photos.. I talked to many doctors and they told me that I needed at least 2 operations to cover the whole area and also not to have very high expectations right away due to the sheer size of my bald & bright top of the head.
I have arrived in Istanbul yesterday and was picked up by a pleasant English/German speaking driver. He was on time and took me and another patient to our hotel. The drive from the airport was about an hour. The driver helped me check-in which took just a few minutes. I am staying at the Dedeman Hotal (a 10 min drive to the Clinic depending on traffic). I Just had time to eat something at the hotel, watched tv and then went to bed.
Maral Clinic's driver picked me up at 9:00 and brought me straight to the clinic.
I met Dr. Maral at the clinic and he gave me detailed information about the procedure. He took my before operation pictures first. He told me that they will try to extract as many grafts as possible and that the procedure was gonna take around 6-7 hours. We also agreed on the hairline and he outlined the targeted area and discussed it with his Chief technician - named Yeshim. He was very organized and straight-forward, seemed and talked like he knew what he was doing which made me feel at ease. Considering my advanced baldness of Norwood 6/7, he emphasized on the necessity of a 2nd session 1 year after the first operation. That was okay with me.
The procedure started at 10:00 am. After the normal preps I was given local anaesthetic. I just felt some pressure from the shots of the anaesthesic gun that they used, it was a totally painless and acomfortable experience.
The next stage was extracting the donor grafts. There were two technicians who worked on my head at the same time, and the other 2 were separating and organizing the grafts. It took about 2 hour, apart from the stiffness that you get from lying in the same prone position I would say it was fine. I was pretty amazed with their cooperation and organization. The chief technician told me that she had been doing it for more than 12 years and with the same team for several years. This becomes obvious once you see how they work like bees.
The final count was 4600 grafts. Dr. Maral and his chief technician congratulated me on the capacity of my donor areas which gave such high graft number. They were happy, and of course so was I. They allowed me to take the graft layout pictures, I have posted a snap of these also. They said the grafts were kept in a speficic nutrient solution to keep them moist and prevent them from drying.
Afterwards, the head technician returned to make the incisions where the grafts would go. It seems that she is specialised in this task and would do that to all the patients of the clinic. She was pretty good and fast in her task using the special sapphire tipped microblade to incise and open the channels.
Once the incisions were done, it was time for a 30 min break to use the toilet and to have a quick lunch. I was asked about any preferences regarding the meal and got the famous Turkish doner and salad, both had an amazing taste.
During the next stage, I had again two technicians at either side who had the laboriious task of placing the grafts one by one in the recipient area. During all this time I went through some music channels using the TV remote control. It was the longest part but also the most comfortable one laying down on my back and watching some of my favorite music channels.
Dr Maral was in the next room all the time and came to check up on me a few times and explained in a bit more detailled way about the quality of the grafts that had been extracted. What, how and where they would place them.
The two technicians completed their task and were monitored closely by the Chief Technician who had made the incisions.
The hair transplant was completed and my head bandaged up by around 17:00. They told me that it was a very good and succesful operation, since they extracted more grafts than they initially expected and that my donor area would allow more in the future.
Before leaving, I was again given instructions by Dr Maral.
Given the pack of meds (antibiotics, painkillers, etc…). He asked me to take the first dose straight away before leaving.
Precautions given on how to safely protect the recipient area, how to sleep and some general info.
A different driver (much younger than the one who picked me up from the airport) was ready to drop me off at the hotel. I was back in my room by 17:30.
At this moment, I an resting in my room after having dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, this was a quick review about my experience and I am attaching some pictures here now showing my pictures. I Will be back in a couple of days.
I have been reading this forum for a long time and it helped me a lot to learn about hair transplants and gain confidence to get the procedure done myself. I've always loved reading about other people’s hair transplant stories, day to day experiences and their feelings after having a renewed self-esteem. The main reasons that finally persuaded me to take the big step was positive experiences that I have read about from many Maral Klinik patients, the very good curriculum vitae of Dr. Maral's education and practice in Aesthetic plastic surgery and fast response time, the level of information given through mail, Whatsapp and finally the full flexibility to arrange my trip.
I am a doctor myself specialized in pediatrics. I started losing my hair in my 30s. I am 54 yo now and my bald area got bigger and bigger over time as you will see in my photos.. I talked to many doctors and they told me that I needed at least 2 operations to cover the whole area and also not to have very high expectations right away due to the sheer size of my bald & bright top of the head.
I have arrived in Istanbul yesterday and was picked up by a pleasant English/German speaking driver. He was on time and took me and another patient to our hotel. The drive from the airport was about an hour. The driver helped me check-in which took just a few minutes. I am staying at the Dedeman Hotal (a 10 min drive to the Clinic depending on traffic). I Just had time to eat something at the hotel, watched tv and then went to bed.
Maral Clinic's driver picked me up at 9:00 and brought me straight to the clinic.
I met Dr. Maral at the clinic and he gave me detailed information about the procedure. He took my before operation pictures first. He told me that they will try to extract as many grafts as possible and that the procedure was gonna take around 6-7 hours. We also agreed on the hairline and he outlined the targeted area and discussed it with his Chief technician - named Yeshim. He was very organized and straight-forward, seemed and talked like he knew what he was doing which made me feel at ease. Considering my advanced baldness of Norwood 6/7, he emphasized on the necessity of a 2nd session 1 year after the first operation. That was okay with me.
The procedure started at 10:00 am. After the normal preps I was given local anaesthetic. I just felt some pressure from the shots of the anaesthesic gun that they used, it was a totally painless and acomfortable experience.
The next stage was extracting the donor grafts. There were two technicians who worked on my head at the same time, and the other 2 were separating and organizing the grafts. It took about 2 hour, apart from the stiffness that you get from lying in the same prone position I would say it was fine. I was pretty amazed with their cooperation and organization. The chief technician told me that she had been doing it for more than 12 years and with the same team for several years. This becomes obvious once you see how they work like bees.
The final count was 4600 grafts. Dr. Maral and his chief technician congratulated me on the capacity of my donor areas which gave such high graft number. They were happy, and of course so was I. They allowed me to take the graft layout pictures, I have posted a snap of these also. They said the grafts were kept in a speficic nutrient solution to keep them moist and prevent them from drying.
Afterwards, the head technician returned to make the incisions where the grafts would go. It seems that she is specialised in this task and would do that to all the patients of the clinic. She was pretty good and fast in her task using the special sapphire tipped microblade to incise and open the channels.
Once the incisions were done, it was time for a 30 min break to use the toilet and to have a quick lunch. I was asked about any preferences regarding the meal and got the famous Turkish doner and salad, both had an amazing taste.
During the next stage, I had again two technicians at either side who had the laboriious task of placing the grafts one by one in the recipient area. During all this time I went through some music channels using the TV remote control. It was the longest part but also the most comfortable one laying down on my back and watching some of my favorite music channels.
Dr Maral was in the next room all the time and came to check up on me a few times and explained in a bit more detailled way about the quality of the grafts that had been extracted. What, how and where they would place them.
The two technicians completed their task and were monitored closely by the Chief Technician who had made the incisions.
The hair transplant was completed and my head bandaged up by around 17:00. They told me that it was a very good and succesful operation, since they extracted more grafts than they initially expected and that my donor area would allow more in the future.
Before leaving, I was again given instructions by Dr Maral.
Given the pack of meds (antibiotics, painkillers, etc…). He asked me to take the first dose straight away before leaving.
Precautions given on how to safely protect the recipient area, how to sleep and some general info.
A different driver (much younger than the one who picked me up from the airport) was ready to drop me off at the hotel. I was back in my room by 17:30.
At this moment, I an resting in my room after having dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, this was a quick review about my experience and I am attaching some pictures here now showing my pictures. I Will be back in a couple of days.
Provider Review
