27 Years Old, NW6. First FUE at Maral Clinic, 3600 Grafts - Istanbul, TR

Heading to Istanbul on the 13th March (Sunday). Scheduled for an operation at Maral Clinic on the 14th March (Monday). Flying back on 15th March (Tuesday) evening. Graft estimation at 3500-5500, will know for sure once I get there. Price quoted 2100 Euros.

I read a lot of reviews for Maral Clinic here and decided to go for a hair transplant this week. As you can see in the pics, my hair loss is quite advanced. Dr. Maral in his communication via email told me that I'm a NW6 and I will need two sessions 9-12 months apart in order to obtain a full growth. Anyways, coming Monday will be first FUE procedure. I am nervous as 10 days back I didn't even plan for this to happen. I am 27 years old and I'm really bummed that I have lose so much hair at this age. Hoping that this decision will be a good one.

Will update post op pics here once done.

Hi All,
so finally got some time to update my review. I'll start from the beginning when i landed in Istanbul.
Day 1 - Sunday
So i reached Istanbul on Sunday the 13th of March. Surprisingly i wasn't worried about the procedure or anything in general, maybe it hadn't sunk in yet that i was finally this done it. I reached the airport at around 2.30pm and upon exiting the airport i found Mr. Saim Sivas waiting for me. He speaks good English, fluent German and Turkish. We had a nice conversation throughout our journey the hotel. Took round about 30 mins to get to the hotel from the Ataturk airport.
The Hotel i stayed at was called Levent Otel. Its in teh Levent district and there's a huge mall nearby which also has metro if you would like to step out and explore city. So i after checking in just freshened up and stepped outside to explore the city, got back at midnight and called it a night.
Day 2 - Operation Day
At 8am i got a call from the reception that someone will come to pick me up from the clinic in an hour. So it was enough time for me to get ready and get breakfast. The breakfast is served in buffet style and is decent enough. It goes on till 10am so even if you had a late morning you can get a good breakfast.
So at 9.30am, i along with other people left for the clinic and waited for like half an hour until everyone reached the clinic because the weather and traffic was really bad. I made the payment and filled in some form, just basic details like name, address, contact number etc. So one by one each of the three patients met with the doctor individually, he took his time to give his assessment on the condition, agree on the donor area and answer any question that you might. I had particularly long hair, so i got a trim first, then a review then they shaved it all. The doc took some pre-op pics at this stage. From my earlier pics you must have realized that i had some serious hair loss. The doc said its between NW5 and NW6 so its difficult to cover the entire area in just one operation. Dr. Maral told they'll give the priority to the top area and depending on how many grafts they could extract, if in excess they'll put some on the crown but there as a big IF and we would only find this out once they were done with the donor area.
So off i was to the operating room. I changed my shirt into a hospital gown and lied down on the operating table, stomach side down. The doc doesn't perform the procedure himself but a team of highly trained young docs and technicians perform it. The doc comes in from time to time to supervise how everything is going.
So first step was to anesthetize my donor area and for that the doc carefully used the injections to numb the entire area. I have needlephobia so i was was scared of this part then the operation itself. I felt slight pinches but nothing too painful. Once the area was numb they began extracting the grafts. Didn't feel anything here, just heard some sounds as my skin was pierced using the FUE pen. Two persons were operating on me simultaneously. One person drilled the holes and the other one extracted the grafts. This process took around 2.5 hours and was boring because u just had to lie and do nothing.
Once the donor extraction was completed, i was given a break of 30 mins in which i had a nice lunch provided by the clinic. It was 3pm when the implantation started. Another doc and dr. maral first agreed on the hairline and the area to be transplant. At this point i was given the news that they were able to extract 3600 grafts only my donor area was not dense enough. I honestly was bummed at this point but was something that i was prepared to hear. We also agreed that the grafts were not enough to cover the entire area to be transplanted to the crown part was left untouched. For that i was told i will need another session around a year later. Which is alright i guess because i knew that one session for me was not enough anyway and this way i can see the results from first operation if the are good or not.
So for the implantation, i again had to lie on my belly. I was given some anesthesia injections to numb the top area then Another doctor came and made the holes where the grafts had be to be transplanted. Once the holes were done, the two doctors who took out grafts from the donor area, took the grafts and placed them individually in each hole. God this process was really boring. Took about 3.5 hours to complete maybe because the area to cover was vast. The docs operating on me patiently worked on me throughout this time and occasionally we made small talk. I finally was finished by 6.30pm and was given some meds to reduce the swelling which will occur later and some pain killers.
After that i along with the two other patients were escorted to the hotel by our driver. had a dinner in the hotel only, the food is decent, you can definitely find cheaper options outside but its not expensive. A full meal with a drink and tea will probably cost you around 30 liras.
Day 3 - Post Op Day 1
At around 11am the next day we went to the clinic to get the bandages removed. We were picked up by one of the clinic drivers. Upon reaching the clinic, we were given a shampoo + Lotion and then Dr. Maral removed the bandages and cleaned the area himself. We then went to the docs office and spent a good 45mins with the doctor where he explained everything we needed to do in the following days. Gave us instructions and answer all the questions that we had. And we asked ALOT of questions and the doc answered each one with a smile.
Then the doc took some post op pics which i will upload later when i receive them from the doc and we were on our way back to the hotel. I had already checked out before leaving so waited in the lobby for 2 hours because my flight was at 7.30 pm. I was then picked up by Mr. Sivas at 4.30pm and dropped to the airport and by night was back home.
Overall verdict:
I am overall very much satisfied with the entire procedure and they way everything was conducted. The doctor had nothing to hide and had no hidden schemes. He was very open, straight forward and funny too. Every other personal at the clinic was super helpful too and all of this made me super comfortable.
I was hoping to get more grafts but sometimes its not in your control. One of the other guys who got the procedure done got 4000 grafts even though he had a FUT op done before. So its all luck i guess. I really hope within a year my new hair grows well so i can get a second procedure done and if i do get it done, then for sure i'm gonna come to Maral clinic.
I am now on Day 2 post op. I don't feel any pain but head is swollen a bit which is expected. I had trouble sleeping last night as my donor area kept on leaking. I guess it will continue like this for another couple of days.