Hair Transplant Surgery - 26 Years Old- by Dr. Maral, Istanbul, Turkey.

Hi Everyone,

First of all I would like to thank everyone who have shared their HT surgery experience here, especially would like to thank Gmang85 for his detailed review, his review definitely played a major role on my decision to finally go for the surgery, and have it done with Dr. Maral.

I am 26 years old, living in Toronto. I was around 15 years old (Pretty young?) when I realized that I was loosing hair on my forehead, it continued for some times at a slower pace, but for the last couple of years, I noticed that my hair lost far more battle ground to the enemy. For some good years I have used Minoxidil 5%, it helped to some extent, but not something that I could count on. I also believe that most of my hairs fall because I stopped using Minoxidil, and I think If I had not used it from the beginning I might have had more hair now, compare to what I have. Obviously this is my understanding, not backed by any scientific research or something, while it has been proved that minoxidil's effect will be undone once the patients stop using it.

I am reading about HT for sometimes now, and I was thinking to have HT when I will be in my early thirties, as I don't think that my hair lines are permanent at this stage, and most doctors recommend that it would be better to have it once the patients have a permanent hair line. When I read reviews in this site, and got the idea that I could go for another HT if my hairline continued to change after the first HT, I decided to have it now, and by Dr. Maral.

I have exchanged a couple of emails with Dr. Maral and he answered my question, and agreed that I would be a good candidate for HT, but he did mentioned that since I have lost hair on my crown area as well, I might need to have another HT in future, so I will know the final answer on this once I go for the surgery and see what he says based on the current situation of my crown and my donor density.

I will be in Istanbul on Jan 14th, hopefully will have the HT on 15th, will update the post with new information and photos after that.

I don't normally write reviews, so hope the review is not boring. ;)

Hi everyone, and sorry for delay in writing this update.

So arrived in Istanbul on Jan 14th, our flight touched down a bit early and passed through customs quickly. Outside the arrival hall lots of people were standing with passengers name on it, when i was passing them to find my name, all of them were asking if I am the passenger that they were looking for, and they even asked me if I am going to get hair transplant, obviously after looking at my bald head. But finding Sam (the driver from the clinic) was easy and soon we were on our way to our hotel. I checked in at Levent Hotel, which was sort of Okay.

Next day the driver took me and other patients to clinic, paid the fee, and went to see Dr. Maral. We had a discussion, asked all the question which I had, and he provided detailed and realistic answers to my questions, and told me what to expect. He also took some photos and draw a hair line for me.

Before the operation, they give me some medication for pain, as its normal for all the surgeries. Went to surgery and was a little worried about the anesthesia injections, as other patients described them as painful, but to my surprise I didn't even know the pain, the first few injections felt very slightly, after that I didn't even realized the injections. If I rate the injection pain, I would rate it around 2-3 of 10. Once the donor area was numb, they give some more injections, I think these injections were to elevate the skin from the scalp, but I am not sure, no pain on these injection, as the area was already numb.

They soon started drilling to take the hair from donor area, once again no pain at all. Since I was lying face down, I was falling asleep, but they told me not to sleep as they were constantly asking me If I was doing good and if there was any pain.

The process of taking grafts was quick and it was time for punching holes in the recipient area, which was done by the senior nurse (or as Dr. Maral said Chief Nurse), she draw the hair line, which we both agreed upon, and then started punching the holes. Just before this, I had the same series of injection, first anesthesia, then the other injection in the recipient area, the pain was still minimal.

Once the holes were punched, it was time for lunch break and the lunch was provided by the clinic. After the lunch they started placing the grafts into the recipient area, even as three nurses were working, but still it was too long. This time I was lying on my back, and its was after lunch, so was very sleepy, fell asleep a number of times.

Dr. Maral was regularly checked on me, and was making sure everything was going well. By 5 PM it was all done, he made a final check and give me the medication and the instruction on how to sleep on that night, and the driver dropped me back at the hotel.

With regarding to sleeping, I would say the night before and after the surgery, I only slept for 2 hours, this was due to the time difference of 7 hours between Canada and Turkey., I can say for sure that the operation didn't have any effect on my sleep, as I didn't have any pain, neither at the donor area nor at the recipient.

Next day went back to see Dr. Maral, he removed the bandages and give me the lotion and shampoo, all the instruction on how to wash and take care of it. He also give me a bucket hat and wore that during that day when i went to town, He did mentioned that sun would not be a problem so I should not worry about it.

That day I went to town and next morning departed Istanbul toward Toronto, I were the hat while I was in the plane as well, no problem with that. The soon as I reached home, I had a good 12 hours of sleep, that was a really wonderful.

I started washing it on yesterday as instructed by Dr. Maral.

The only problem that i have at this moment is that I can't wear a wool hat since its very cold in Toronto, so have to adjust with this bucket hat for a few days. The rest everything looks fine for the time being, while I am waiting for the actual results to appear to see what would i look like.
Dr. Maral did told me to wait for the results and after that will see if another round would be required to fix the crown area or not.

Sorry that I don't have my phone to upload the photos at this time, but will upload it in future for sure.

For those who are still not sure whether to go for it or not, I would say you better go for it, its worth it.

Let me know if you have any questions.