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Progress on all Fronts !
One Month Update - First World Problems...
14 Days Out
I slept slightly upright for the first 5 nights, propped up on 2 pillows. Not too bad and I slept quite well considering. I sprayed the mess on my head with the saline solution the doctor gave me twice an hour and it helped a lot. Scabs started to come out with a vengeance around day 7 and were all gone by day 9 or 10. On day 8 I covered my head in olive oil and let it sit for two hours, then shampooed and most of the scabs came right off. A bit of pain in the donor area up until day 10, mild aching and occasional stabbing pains, but nothing too strong. I took a painkiller for a couple of nights and was able to sleep OK. From day 10 the pain in donor area has been replaced by an incessant itching, again quite mild but slightly annoying. I find that rinsing the donor area gently with cool water helps a lot. Warm water/ shampoo tends to irritate it more. Recipient area is stiff and still numb, but some sensation seems to be returning. I think the grafts have started shedding a bit but I’m not 100% sure.
It still hasn’t sunk in that I got this done after so many years of thinking about it. I look in the mirror and see my hair and think ‘woah’! I hope results will be good once it grows out in a few months.
Back to work tomorrow. I don’t feel all that ready, but hey-ho.
Provider Review
Hi all. I am in my mid-forties, from the UK and I started losing my hair 23 years ago. At first it was just receding around the temples, but this progressed slowly over the years and is now very noticeable and advanced. I was lucky that I held onto my hair for so long as my natural hair is very thick and dense. About 8-10 year ago when my hair loss started to become more noticeable I saw an ad for Bosley while in NY on holiday and I was intrigued. They made it look so easy to get your hair back. I got online and poked around and was lucky to find some good forums that documented many horror stories from places like Bosley (it seems I dodged a bullet). On these forums I came across some dude called Spencer something who represented certain doctors and I sent him photos for evaluation. He told me that I needed strip, which for me was not an option as I didn’t want the scar, so I put it to bed. I shaved my head and got on with life. Then a few years ago a friend of mine who had similar balding patter to myself had FUE in the US and it looked bloody great. I could not get over it. I thought, going bald isn’t so bad, but if you can get your hair back then why not? I could not afford what he paid in the US, so I started looking at Turkey which seemed much more affordable. I narrowed it down to a few doctors who were ABHRS and/or ISHRS: Dr Ali Emre Karadeniz – Seemed well qualified, helpful and professional but I didn’t see a lot of results so I felt he was probably up-and-coming but maybe not as experienced as certain others. Dr Hakan Dagonay – Had some good results online but nothing recent and communication with his assistant was very poor. Dr Koray Erdogan – Looked great, stacks of great results and top surgeon, but far too expensive. For what he was asking I could top up a bit and fly to the US. Dr Ekrem Civas – Very well qualified doctor, much more so than the others. His list of credentials is impressive and he regularly publishes research on hair restoration and speaks at international hair restoration forums. Quite a few great results, more than enough to impress. His coordinator, Patricia, was excellent and answered my questions patiently and thoroughly. She also arranged for me to speak to some ex patients and this was also a great help. The price was right too – bang on budget. My gut just said ‘this is the place’, and I decided to go with them back in October 2016, but could not get a date to fit in with my work and travel commitments. I only managed to achieve this in February 2018 (and even this was a last minute cancellation, as I had 2 weeks between jobs and so could squeeze it in and hope I recovered in time to go back to work!). So, I flew down to Ankara on 12th February. I arrived around 9pm and the driver was waiting in a brand new VW minibus. He took me to a small boutique hotel, ‘Koza Suites’, very close to the clinic. The hotel was very nice – plush, clean and comfortable. I know for many the hotel is not that important, but for me it was. Can you imagine landing in a foreign country where you know not a single soul, and being taken to a fleapit hotel with busted furniture in a run-down part of town? How would that give you any confidence in the clinic, if this was the first impression you were given? I was very impressed and happy with the hotel and the part of town I was in – this built my confidence up for the surgery itself. I walked to the clinic the next day around 8am and was met by a nice lady who asked me to change into hospital scrubs and shaved my head. The doctor turned up soon after. He could see I was nervous and he tried very hard to put me at ease and make me feel relaxed. Dr Civas struck me as a very kind, humane and friendly person, with genuine concern for his patients and staff. After some get-to-know-you talk he drew the hairline, which I thought looked good, then we proceeded to the surgery itself. First came the injections, which most posters describe as the worst part of the surgery. I actually didn’t feel much pain at all – just tiny stings that were not that painful. Soon my head was numb and the doctor and his team went on to the extractions. These took a while, with the techs doing most of the work. The doctor came in regularly to check on progress and ask me how I was feeling. After the extractions were done, I had a short lunch break and a brief rest and we went on to the second part of the surgery, which were the incisions and the implantation. The doctor made the incisions himself – 3200 cuts into the scalp – but I could not feel anything, just a distant and remote kind of crunching each time an incision was made. Thereafter, another short rest and we went on to the implantation stage, which lasted around 4 hours and for me was the most difficult part of the day as you cannot really move around. The doctor begins the process, guides the techs and then they get on with it alone, however he is never far away and he checks in periodically. I fell asleep a few times, had a break halfway through and before I knew it I was done. They cleaned me up, I had a final briefing with Doctor Civas and I went back to the hotel. I felt good, like I had made the right decision with this clinic, and I was relieved it was over and there were no hitches. The clinic sent me a complimentary dinner that night which was delicious (I can’t seem to get enough of Turkish food!) and I propped myself up on a couple of pillows and fell asleep. I didn’t feel any pain at all, just very mild discomfort, and I slept a total of ten hours the first night. The next day I kicked around the hotel during the morning, spraying my head with the saline solution the clinic had given me, and waiting for check out time. I left the hotel at 2pm and went to the clinic for bandage removal and first washing. It was a great relief to get that massive bandage off my head, it felt like losing the first shackle. The nurse washed my head and Patricia was also present. They remarked that I looked like a quick healer and should recover in no time. From there, I had a final debrief with Dr Civas, where he went over the post-care treatment once more and checked if I was feeling fine. We shook hands and the taxi came to take me to the airport. Flying back was the part I was dreading the most. The clinic had given me a large size baseball cap with adjustable band at the back, so I wore this carefully. At security the guard asked me to take off the cap, which I did briefly. Once he saw the mess on my head, he looked a bit startled and indicated I could put it back on. At passport control I kept the cap on and they never asked me to take it off. I sprayed my head a few times while waiting to board, and wore the cap on the plane for the 4-hour flight home. Now I am in my 2nd day post-surgery. Donor area is a bit tender but sleeping is fine so long as I prop myself up a bit. Recipient area is the same, I spray regularly with the saline solution and hope the scabs fall off quickly. First wash alone this afternoon and I will let you know how that goes.