Micro FUE 4000 Grafts 59 Yo Maral Clinic Istanbul, Turkey

I've not heard of the need to grow your hair for 3-4 weeks before the op. Most of the guys I've met on here and while in the clinic are going thin so shave their hair very short anyway. If you are having micro FUE the clinic will shave your head down to about 2mm. Its necessary for the procedure. Post-op, the consultant advice is always not to allow a hairdresser or yourself to use electric clippers or a razor. I believe the risk is that something sharp or powered could dislodge the grafts - not the donor area. So instruct the barber to cut your hair with scissors on top for about 4 months. Clippers can be used back and sides though after a couple of months. That's my understanding anyway.
I'm exactly 4 weeks / 29 days post-op tomorrow and I've been posting pics every week to show progress. Should give you an idea what you might look like one month post op. I've been wearing a hat in public since the op, but am considering going uncovered to work on Monday, as its starting to look ok now. Still some redness on the crown but back and sides have regrown hair and its hard to see anything has been done there. I have an additional problem in that I had a HT decades ago using the old style big grafts, in the front hairline and have been trying to hide them ever since. They look rubbish but actually do grow hair at a normal rate so I've got two 'tufts' either side that I need to trim shorter to match the same growth as this recent FUE. Hopefully once the FUE HT starts growing normally it will hide these earlier ugly grafts finally. That's what Maral said anyway.

..... Looking good Hairflick, we have something in common, I also had the old punch HT 40 years ago, then on January 2015, went to Maral Clinic for FUE HT..... I'm at the ugly duckling stage now, but I know it will turn out great..... look up my pics in this Forum..... All the best.

Hello hairoil. Yes I caught your earlier posts and the white 'bullet holes' at the back of the head looked very familiar to me! My recent micro FUE is as much about covering up the primitive 35 yo HT as it is about not going bald. You appear to be 3 weeks ahead of me post Maral op, so will follow your progress. Don't forget to post more pics. Updated mine today too. Bests.

I got a skin fade done 2 weeks after my procedure, you need to trust your barber and make sure he knows the details.

The actual instructions were to wait 4 weeks but I healed really quick

Thanks. Unless you are a high-earner in the US, the cost differential makes Turkey a no-brainer. About $2,500 (plus maybe $800 flights) - against $15,000 in the US for the same procedure and number of grafts I had. There is much talk about the security situation in Turkey which deters many; but the reality is that its actually safer than visiting a US or EU city due to the tight control the government have now put the place under. I would not hesitate to make this same choice again tomorrow if I needed to. London is nearer so about 3 hours flight and $200 ticket but you meet a lot of Australians there who've travelled significantly further...
Good luck with whatever you decide.

Yes, that's good advice HF. From Philadelphia, I paid $900 for a round trip flight. For my 3,500 graft procedure (including hotel and breakfast), I paid $1,900. So less than $3k in Turkey vs $28k in US ($8/graft x 3,500 grafts). So it's all good.

Wow. At $28k that's an even bigger ratio than I thought. You could buy a new BMW for that!

Some places in US charge "only" $7/graft for FUE, so 3,500 x $7 = $24.5k. The FUT (strip procedure) is cheaper at $4/graft, or $14k. Still Cha-Ching!!

Well now is the best time to do it in my opinion. Its winter time and everyone is wearing woolly hats and collars turned up, whereas it would look a bit odd in August :) That's why I booked mine last month so by the time summer arrives I should look fairly normal. Maral Clinic doesn't have a waiting list. I booked mine a few days before flying out there. They just seem to juggle teams around to deal with whoever shows up. All they insist is that you book your flights first and send them the flight itinary so they can schedule you in. They handle everything else, airport pickups hotel booking etc. You just need to make a decision and go for it. I intend publishing a list of tips on here when I get some free time.

Unfortunately, I can't wear a hat in the office. I was thinking of getting it done in the summer as I'm only thin on top. Maybe I could put the redness down to sunburn.

I can wear what I like in the office because I own the office lol. Bear in mind they completely shave your head, so you will still need to wait for regrowth to occur.

You sound like the boss everyone needs!

Do you reckon a trucker cap will damage the hair after 2 weeks or so?

You should be ok with a trucker cap after +2 weeks post-op. Personally I went with Maral's recommended type of hat (which he issues to every patient when discharged from his clinic) which is the 'Michael Jackson' fedora type which sits high above the scalp without touching it. I wore this for exactly a month until I was happy that any scabs and most redness had faded. There's a pic of this hat in my 13 Mar 2016 ¦ 1 month post-op photos. The key thing is to avoid any lateral scraping action across the new grafts on the crown, so putting whatever hat on or off be sure to place and remove vertically rather than sideways action. Bests.