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Poor Beard Transplant Results in Turkey
Hello All,
This is a very long post, because I wanted to get in a lot of detail for all the readers, but I’ve summarized it here if you don’t want to read it all:
• I had a facial hair transplant surgery with Dr. Apaydin from New Age Clinic in Istanbul, Turkey
• I felt the doctor pressured me into doing a surgery with more grafts than I wanted. I declined the option to do more.
• The surgery was performed on my moustache and goatee and was performed by the doctor and two nurses
• The doctor and the nurses did not bother separating the grafts into single hairs, instead implanting as they were mostly in two and three hair bunches (some four hair grafts) which resulted in a terrible look
• Did a poor job extracting from donor site. Even though I only had 1,100 grafts taken out I now have bald spots on the back of my head.
• Clinic won’t take responsibility for poor job
• Lessons learned:
o Be prepared to walk away, even if you’ve flown halfway across the planet.
o Find the most reputable doctor that you can. The mental anguish and lifelong defects are not worth the few thousand dollars that you may save from going to a cheaper clinic
o Just because a doctor says that they have 20 years of experience, this does not mean that they will do a good job
I want to write about my experience with the New Age clinic in Istanbul and Dr. Ilker Apaydin which I had done during the end of 2017. I had been doing a lot of research into hair transplants and was specifically interested in getting a beard transplant. It was a very bad experience. Although my research led me to some top doctors in California, I was also a bit wary about fear mongering and underestimated the risk of a poor procedure during a hair transplant. So, in this case, I decided to also do some research on clinics in Turkey. Turkey is quite known as being a destination for hair transplants, so I thought that the risk would not be that high if I did my research. I contacted them through Whatsapp and spoke to two ladies named Mel and Fernanda. The conversations seemed to be okay (at least at the time). I did speak to Dr Apaydin through a video call beforehand to do a brief consultation. Things seemed to be okay. One thing that did surprise me was when I asked him how long I would have to wait before I could shave. He said at least 6 months, which was surprising to me as many other reputable doctors on RealSelf say 2 to 4 weeks. This was my first warning sign, but I chose to ignore.
I scheduled my work arrangements, so that I could take up to a month off if I needed it. I flew into Turkey from overseas in North America and landed at a place called the Modus hotel. The hotel itself was nice, I had to switch rooms a couple of times because of either noise or smell issues, but service was good. Mel picked me up in the morning and we walked over to the clinic to meet with Dr. Apaydin. The hotel and clinic are apparently in a nice part of the city. I met with the doctor and we had our consultation to discuss what I was looking for from the surgery. I basically told him that I was looking for one of two options depending on price and practicality. One was a moustache and goatee and the other was a moustache with a chinstrap going from the sideburn to the jawline and ending with a goatee. When he said that the chinstrap option even for a very light chinstrap would be at 3,000-3,500 grafts I was very surprised, as I had seen results for that option using far fewer grafts while searching online. He insisted it would take as much, so I told him that I would rather go with the first option. It was at this point, where we started having our disagreements. He would say to me that this design would look stupid and not right and pressured me to go with a beard instead. I ended up being really confused. How would a moustache and goatee look like a stupid option if millions of men around the planet sport this very look? In my mind, it did not feel right. I felt like he was trying to pressure me in order to have a bigger surgery. I told him I’d think about it overnight.
The next day I walked over to the clinic in the morning. The staff in reception for the building did not seem to have any idea about who I was there for. New Age Clinic is only one operation from the area that rents rooms from this hospital for hair transplants. (As a side note, I have found out that the clinic has broken up and the two doctors have gone their separate ways.) Anyhow, I told the doctor my decision and he seemed okay with it. We then sat down to draw the design. The first design he drew I should have accepted, because he drew another design with some a line jutting out of the goatee, kind of like some semi-coverage on the beard line which was a couple inches). This looked ridiculous, but I accepted to just get on with it and again I felt kind of pressured. Dr. Apaydin has stretches where he seems very nice and other stretches where he is very abrupt, curt and impatient. Mind you this was about 10 minutes and he was still impatient.
The nurse shaved a rectangle in the back of my head and we started the surgery. They numbed the back of my head with some needles of anesthetic. I have a pretty decent pain tolerance and despite that I would say that this was very painful. He used a motorized extraction device which they said was a size 0.8. They started extracting for what seemed like quite a while. After they finished, I turned over, the doctor numbed my facial area, created the incisions and they covered my eyes while the nurses implanted the hair grafts. Something felt wrong during this part, as there did not seem to be a delay between extraction and implantation. I later realized this lack of a delay was due to the fact that they did not separate the grafts during the implantation. This was not something I inquired about beforehand as it seemed to be common practice for most doctors, especially one with supposedly 20+ years of experience. Normally doctors will separate grafts into single hairs especially for beard transplants. This provides more hairs to implant while also providing a more natural look. Two hair and three hair grafts are usually used for scalp transplants to provide density in places where people cannot see. What I received was mainly two and three hair grafts spread throughout my moustache and goatee which were plainly visible to anyone. In my opinion, putting two and three hair grafts into the facial area is either negligent or lazy.
Another thing that bothered me was that we agreed upon doing 1,000 grafts for the surgery during our consultation. Midway through the surgery once we were almost done, he tells me that they’ve taken 1,200 grafts. I was pretty upset as I did not want to extract a lot of grafts and 1,000 was what I wanted as my maximum. I would have preferred fewer than that. A typical transplant with that area should be done for probably half the amount of grafts. And after our consultation where I believe he overestimated the treatment options, I was very distrustful. After our surgery he claims they only took 1,100 grafts, however they did not provide a report to verify this. They did not count the number of single hair grafts, two hair grafts or three hair grafts which would allow me to understand how many hairs were extracted. Again, I assumed creating a report would have been something standard for all hair transplant procedures, but apparently not for this clinic. In addition, if they had separated the grafts it would have taken far fewer grafts to complete the surgery or they could have achieved much greater density and coverage if they had separated the grafts. In the end, it was just lazy and careless of them in my opinion.
Some other notes regarding this surgery. Dr. Apaydin injected so much anaesthetic into my facial area that it was very difficult to speak. I’m not sure this is standard practice for beard transplants. I asked the nurse how long the redness would last after the surgery and she said FOUR DAYS. I was quite surprised as I had read that it could take weeks to months for redness to dissipate. The redness is still visible up until now which is more than five months. This leads me to question the quality of the nurses as well. One of the nurses was nice and the other was very impatient and did not want me to take any breaks. When it came time to pay for the surgery, they came over and provided me with a bill that was significantly more than what I was promised after telling me it would be 1 euro per graft. The doctor tried to convince me that the extra price was what I had agreed to and when I tried to show him all the texts he basically just ignored them and kept trying for me to pay the extra cost (I believe around 1000-1500 euros more). There is something very shady about a doctor trying to convince you of paying extra once the surgery has been completed.
Looking back on the surgery, the results were not very good. I now have bald spots in my donor area. This doctor only took 1,100 grafts but was unable to accomplish the task without leaving bald spots for an FUE treatment. I will most likely have to pay for an SMP treatment to cover them up. My beard hair still has gaps, hairs sticking straight out (bad placement), as well as two and three hair grafts all over, all things that I wanted to avoid. In addition, there are still bumps visible even when clean shaven (I’m worried they are permanent).
Nearly a year later and the end result has been cobblestoning (pimple like bumps at every spot where hair was inserted –caused by poor insertion techniques), bald spots on the back of my head and multiple hairs per graft on my moustache leading to an unnatural result.
Final thoughts if you are planning to do a hair transplant surgery:
• Be prepared to walk away, even if you’ve flown halfway across the planet. I felt I was already too committed, so it was difficult to turn back. But, if you enter with the mindset of being able to change your mind at any moment, I think this can save you.
• Find the most reputable doctor that you can. The mental anguish and lifelong defects are not worth the few thousand dollars that you may save from going to a cheaper clinic
• Just because a doctor says that they have 20 years of experience, this does not mean that they will do a good job. Doing something poorly for 20 years can provide a different kind of experience.
This is a very long post, because I wanted to get in a lot of detail for all the readers, but I’ve summarized it here if you don’t want to read it all:
• I had a facial hair transplant surgery with Dr. Apaydin from New Age Clinic in Istanbul, Turkey
• I felt the doctor pressured me into doing a surgery with more grafts than I wanted. I declined the option to do more.
• The surgery was performed on my moustache and goatee and was performed by the doctor and two nurses
• The doctor and the nurses did not bother separating the grafts into single hairs, instead implanting as they were mostly in two and three hair bunches (some four hair grafts) which resulted in a terrible look
• Did a poor job extracting from donor site. Even though I only had 1,100 grafts taken out I now have bald spots on the back of my head.
• Clinic won’t take responsibility for poor job
• Lessons learned:
o Be prepared to walk away, even if you’ve flown halfway across the planet.
o Find the most reputable doctor that you can. The mental anguish and lifelong defects are not worth the few thousand dollars that you may save from going to a cheaper clinic
o Just because a doctor says that they have 20 years of experience, this does not mean that they will do a good job
I want to write about my experience with the New Age clinic in Istanbul and Dr. Ilker Apaydin which I had done during the end of 2017. I had been doing a lot of research into hair transplants and was specifically interested in getting a beard transplant. It was a very bad experience. Although my research led me to some top doctors in California, I was also a bit wary about fear mongering and underestimated the risk of a poor procedure during a hair transplant. So, in this case, I decided to also do some research on clinics in Turkey. Turkey is quite known as being a destination for hair transplants, so I thought that the risk would not be that high if I did my research. I contacted them through Whatsapp and spoke to two ladies named Mel and Fernanda. The conversations seemed to be okay (at least at the time). I did speak to Dr Apaydin through a video call beforehand to do a brief consultation. Things seemed to be okay. One thing that did surprise me was when I asked him how long I would have to wait before I could shave. He said at least 6 months, which was surprising to me as many other reputable doctors on RealSelf say 2 to 4 weeks. This was my first warning sign, but I chose to ignore.
I scheduled my work arrangements, so that I could take up to a month off if I needed it. I flew into Turkey from overseas in North America and landed at a place called the Modus hotel. The hotel itself was nice, I had to switch rooms a couple of times because of either noise or smell issues, but service was good. Mel picked me up in the morning and we walked over to the clinic to meet with Dr. Apaydin. The hotel and clinic are apparently in a nice part of the city. I met with the doctor and we had our consultation to discuss what I was looking for from the surgery. I basically told him that I was looking for one of two options depending on price and practicality. One was a moustache and goatee and the other was a moustache with a chinstrap going from the sideburn to the jawline and ending with a goatee. When he said that the chinstrap option even for a very light chinstrap would be at 3,000-3,500 grafts I was very surprised, as I had seen results for that option using far fewer grafts while searching online. He insisted it would take as much, so I told him that I would rather go with the first option. It was at this point, where we started having our disagreements. He would say to me that this design would look stupid and not right and pressured me to go with a beard instead. I ended up being really confused. How would a moustache and goatee look like a stupid option if millions of men around the planet sport this very look? In my mind, it did not feel right. I felt like he was trying to pressure me in order to have a bigger surgery. I told him I’d think about it overnight.
The next day I walked over to the clinic in the morning. The staff in reception for the building did not seem to have any idea about who I was there for. New Age Clinic is only one operation from the area that rents rooms from this hospital for hair transplants. (As a side note, I have found out that the clinic has broken up and the two doctors have gone their separate ways.) Anyhow, I told the doctor my decision and he seemed okay with it. We then sat down to draw the design. The first design he drew I should have accepted, because he drew another design with some a line jutting out of the goatee, kind of like some semi-coverage on the beard line which was a couple inches). This looked ridiculous, but I accepted to just get on with it and again I felt kind of pressured. Dr. Apaydin has stretches where he seems very nice and other stretches where he is very abrupt, curt and impatient. Mind you this was about 10 minutes and he was still impatient.
The nurse shaved a rectangle in the back of my head and we started the surgery. They numbed the back of my head with some needles of anesthetic. I have a pretty decent pain tolerance and despite that I would say that this was very painful. He used a motorized extraction device which they said was a size 0.8. They started extracting for what seemed like quite a while. After they finished, I turned over, the doctor numbed my facial area, created the incisions and they covered my eyes while the nurses implanted the hair grafts. Something felt wrong during this part, as there did not seem to be a delay between extraction and implantation. I later realized this lack of a delay was due to the fact that they did not separate the grafts during the implantation. This was not something I inquired about beforehand as it seemed to be common practice for most doctors, especially one with supposedly 20+ years of experience. Normally doctors will separate grafts into single hairs especially for beard transplants. This provides more hairs to implant while also providing a more natural look. Two hair and three hair grafts are usually used for scalp transplants to provide density in places where people cannot see. What I received was mainly two and three hair grafts spread throughout my moustache and goatee which were plainly visible to anyone. In my opinion, putting two and three hair grafts into the facial area is either negligent or lazy.
Another thing that bothered me was that we agreed upon doing 1,000 grafts for the surgery during our consultation. Midway through the surgery once we were almost done, he tells me that they’ve taken 1,200 grafts. I was pretty upset as I did not want to extract a lot of grafts and 1,000 was what I wanted as my maximum. I would have preferred fewer than that. A typical transplant with that area should be done for probably half the amount of grafts. And after our consultation where I believe he overestimated the treatment options, I was very distrustful. After our surgery he claims they only took 1,100 grafts, however they did not provide a report to verify this. They did not count the number of single hair grafts, two hair grafts or three hair grafts which would allow me to understand how many hairs were extracted. Again, I assumed creating a report would have been something standard for all hair transplant procedures, but apparently not for this clinic. In addition, if they had separated the grafts it would have taken far fewer grafts to complete the surgery or they could have achieved much greater density and coverage if they had separated the grafts. In the end, it was just lazy and careless of them in my opinion.
Some other notes regarding this surgery. Dr. Apaydin injected so much anaesthetic into my facial area that it was very difficult to speak. I’m not sure this is standard practice for beard transplants. I asked the nurse how long the redness would last after the surgery and she said FOUR DAYS. I was quite surprised as I had read that it could take weeks to months for redness to dissipate. The redness is still visible up until now which is more than five months. This leads me to question the quality of the nurses as well. One of the nurses was nice and the other was very impatient and did not want me to take any breaks. When it came time to pay for the surgery, they came over and provided me with a bill that was significantly more than what I was promised after telling me it would be 1 euro per graft. The doctor tried to convince me that the extra price was what I had agreed to and when I tried to show him all the texts he basically just ignored them and kept trying for me to pay the extra cost (I believe around 1000-1500 euros more). There is something very shady about a doctor trying to convince you of paying extra once the surgery has been completed.
Looking back on the surgery, the results were not very good. I now have bald spots in my donor area. This doctor only took 1,100 grafts but was unable to accomplish the task without leaving bald spots for an FUE treatment. I will most likely have to pay for an SMP treatment to cover them up. My beard hair still has gaps, hairs sticking straight out (bad placement), as well as two and three hair grafts all over, all things that I wanted to avoid. In addition, there are still bumps visible even when clean shaven (I’m worried they are permanent).
Nearly a year later and the end result has been cobblestoning (pimple like bumps at every spot where hair was inserted –caused by poor insertion techniques), bald spots on the back of my head and multiple hairs per graft on my moustache leading to an unnatural result.
Final thoughts if you are planning to do a hair transplant surgery:
• Be prepared to walk away, even if you’ve flown halfway across the planet. I felt I was already too committed, so it was difficult to turn back. But, if you enter with the mindset of being able to change your mind at any moment, I think this can save you.
• Find the most reputable doctor that you can. The mental anguish and lifelong defects are not worth the few thousand dollars that you may save from going to a cheaper clinic
• Just because a doctor says that they have 20 years of experience, this does not mean that they will do a good job. Doing something poorly for 20 years can provide a different kind of experience.
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