Hair Transplant Norwood 6/7 at Cosmedica. Istanbul, TR

Hi All

I was meaning to write a review from a couple of months now, but due to a hectic lifestyle with work and family I was unable to, but low behold I have made time today.

Right where do I start?, basically I lost my hair at the age of 24, I am (or shall I say was ;) Norwood 6/7. I did try advance hair studio laser treatment at the age of 24 I am now 34 years old, but it had no effect on me.

So I just kept my hair very short and wore a cap all the time, in 2011 I has SMP from HIS hair clinic, but even with this I wasn't happy (confidence wise), I basically went in and did the SMP with out any real research costing ore than £2000.
I wasn't really happy with the result it looked fake! and every one notice that I had some kind of tattoo on my head. (Some cheeky buggers even called me tattoo head to my face) that's how obvious it was.
I will have to remove my front hair line SMP in the future when my new transplanted hair begin to grow, because I did not have enough hair to bring my hair line down, (you will see what I mean from the pictures)

At that time I didn't really know anything about hair transplant I thought that FUT was the only option and I did not want to have a scar at the back of my head so that was a NO NO.

Any way, my brother in law mentioned to me last year that his neighbour had a HT at Cosmedica clininc, Turkey and his result was good and that his neighbour was very happy with the outcome.

So that's where it began I started to read reviews about Cosmedica and other clinics in Turkey on the net, such as this site. (Thank you Real Self for this excellent website)

I had consultations via email & Whats App with several clinics in Istanbul and all of them told me that I was a good candidate and they can put 3000-3500 hair on my front an mid scalp which will give 60% coverage and after one year I can go back for a second HT for the crown area.

Cosmedica said exactly the same thing as above, I decided to go with Cosmedica because of there reviews and my brother in laws neighbours recommendation.

My brother in law also got ready to go with me, has he was a norwood 7 and so therefore We booked our tickets for 4th May 2016. I informed Cosmedica that we will be coming and they gave us instruction of where to meet at the airport and which hotels we will be staying in.

Any way 3 days before the flight we had a call from our travel agent who we booked our airline tickets via, they told us that our return flight for the 6th May had been cancelled and the next flight was for the 7th of May.

Due to this change of flight date, Cosmedica free of charge gave us an extra night at the hotel.

Day of Procedure

We and 4 others from the UK were picked up from the hotel and driven in a celebrity style tinted/pimped up people carrier to the Hospital.
The hospital is huge and Cosmedica is based on the top floor, any way we waited in reception, we got our blood taken, then me and my brother in law together had our consultation with Dr Cinik and some of the others had there's with Dr Acar. ( I didn't mind if Dr Acar or Cinkik saw me because I knew that they will be not doing the operation, but there techs will be).
By the way Dr Cinik has also had a HT, you can see his results on You tube.
Dr Cinik looked at my brother in law first he told him that he can extract 3000 grafts this will be from the back of his head, beard and chest hair. My brother in law knew from his email consultation that they would be doing this)

The shocking thing was he told me the same thing, which wasn't what they had told me via email. Beard or chest hair wasn't even mentioned in the email, because I was told I had a good doner area.
That was a bit of shock for me, Dr Cinik told us that chest hair have a 50% chance of survival, that even made me more upset.

Dr Cinik told me that pictures sometime can be deceiving via email/phone consulation and that why on close up inspection in person, this is what he can do for me.

Well I had 2 options to go ahead and do the HT or not to do the HT. If No, then for the rest of my life I would think what if I did do the HT how would the outcome have been?

So me and my Bro in law plucked the courage and went ahead with the HT. I paid Dr Cinik the money upfront before the Op.

I had 3 very lovely technicians carrying out my HT, 2 were there all the time and one kept popping in a and out looking over them. The male technician was called Yousaf, the female called Susan and one other female technician who's name I have forgotten.

The HT took about 6-7 hours we started at 11am and finished about 5:30pm, The injections for the anaesthetic were painful, but everything else was bearable. I had a couple of pit stops to the toilet and one for lunch. We were then taken back to the Hotel.

Man I had a horrible night couldn't sleep, kept on vomiting ( I thought I was going to Die) all night, the next day I had a bit of breakfast, then the driver came in the morning after breakfast and took us back to the hospital, so that the dressing could be removed.

Also Dr Cinik saw us, he said everything was looking good and regarding me vomiting the night before was normal, due to the anaesthetic injections I had.

The following day we were picked up again and driven to the hospital where we had our hair washed and I purchased 12 months of medication. A 10 years guarantee certification was given to us and we took some photos with the Dr and staff and then we where driven to the Airport for our flight back.

Dr Cinik gave me his mobile number where I am in regular contact with and for the first month I have been sending him updated pictures of my head.

My next picture that I will send him will be around the 06th July.

My Overall experience was very good and the staff and the Dr's at Cosmedica are top people, I am hoping for a good result, fingers crossed that this HT was a success.

I have attached some pictures of Before my Op. Some during the Op and some after the OP.

Comments and advice are welcome.

Hi All
I must say time has flown by so quickly its already nearly 8 Months since my HT.
I am happy with the results so far, seeing from where I was at the beginning to where the results is now.
The only issue I am having is getting rid of that irritating tattoo (smp) I had done back in 2011. I have had 3 laser treatments already since October 2016 to remove only the front hair line. The tattoo has gone a lot lighter but has not totally disappeared. So I think may be 1-2 sessions should do it.
I don't feel confident in taking my cap off because I have got 2 hair lines at the moment one from the smp tatoo & one from the Hair Transplant.

I have been in regular contact with Dr Cinik via SMS, I send him pictures every month & he is happy with the results to date.

I have been washing my hair twice a week with the Hair Power shampoo provided by Cosmedica.
I have been taking the half of biotin tablet & a full Xpecia tablet & quarter of Finestride every other day.

Note, I have stopped the Finestride Since 20th December 2016. I am just scared of its side effects.

I have attached Pictures from October 2016 & 18the December 2016, some of the pictures are taken in a well lit room & some in a dim lit room. So that you can see the difference in the thickness of the hair.
In dim lit rooms the hair looks thick & full, however in a bright/ well lit room hair does look thin (Thats my opinion, people may think different).

I know I will need a second HT, but I will wait for the full 12 months to be up, before I decide.

Hi Peeps

Its been 11 months since my HT with Cosmedica
I have had 4 laser tattoo removal treatments to date to try & remove the SMP tattoo hair line which I had done in 2011.

To date almost all of the smp tattoo has gone, but a slight shade of grey is still there, so I am using a concealer to try & hide the grey shade.

Also I have started using Hair Fibres, honestly these work like a dream, they give me a more dense look & it looks natural I think.

I have attached some pictures with no hair fibres & some pictures with hair fibres.
I am planning my second HT with Cosmedica, but not sure when this year I will be flying out to Turkey to get this done.