I did it a few years ago when I was living in Istanbul. One evening, a friend of mine wouldn't shut up about the procedure. I ended up booking it almost on a whim, mostly just to prove him wrong. I did the transplant the next day. In the end, I was very happy with the results. I think it cost around 1500$.
No medications or follow ups required. The transplanted hair follicles are harvested from a region of the scalp (the donor area) that is genetically immune to hair loss, meaning they are permanent. However, you will continue to lose the non-transplanted native hair around them as baldness progresses. So some people choose to take finasteride and/or minoxidil to maintain their existing hair (I personally don't).
It's a lot cheaper in Turkey. I don't remember the exact numbers but each of mine (in the US) was in the high four figure range.
I originally felt more confident going to a plastic surgeon, though even though the doctor oversaw the process, it was being done by highly trained technicians. That's probably more ideal anyway because it's very manual and meticulous work, so (IMO) you want someone who's done it a thousand times--not someone who did a nose job yesterday, a boob job the day before, and only does a hair transplant every couple of weeks.
I'd assume the techs in Turkey are about as experienced as you can get.
It is mostly a waiting game. The first month is about cleaning the scabs off your scalp and keeping away from the sun and certain activities while the hair follicles anchor and the scalp heals. Your hair will go through an initial 'shock' phase where it falls out but enters a normal growth cycle.
They come from lower parts of the patient's scalp. The typical "receding hairline" pattern is caused because the follicles on the forehead and top of the head become sensitive to with age to DHT, the but the hair follicles on the lower and on the back of the head don't have the same sensitivity. There's usually more than enough of these resistant follicles to maintain sufficient hair density.
The surgery just moves the follicles around your own scalp. Body hair transplant can be done but is relatively uncommon, donor hair from other people (or animals) requiring a lifetime on immune system suppressing drugs as with an organ transplant is virtually unknown.
No, it's not pubic hair and you don't need to have a hairy back or chest, and no, there are not millions of low-status Turkish men walking around with scarred heads because they sold their scalp to a foreigner.
They take hair follicles from the back of your head, the "safe donor area" that is genetically immune to balding, and move them to the thinning areas. The total amount of hair on your head remains exactly the same, it's just repositioned to give the illusion of uniform coverage and eliminate bald spots.
That's also why it's not a miracle cure for baldness - you're limited by the amount of hair follicles available in the donor area.
I don't think so. I had a transplant and I'd like being told I look better bald. I can always shave my head. "You looked better with hair" when you've gone bald is the hurtful one.
As a guy that started experiencing moderate hair loss in his 20s, I spent countless hours researching the Turkish hair transplant industry.
It's a case of having the right people at the right place, at the right time. Turkey have some of the leading doctors and clinics in this field, and have had for years. They were also located in a place which was close to both customers from Europe and the Middle-East, and could offer FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) procedures at a very nice price.
Even the very top doctors there were charging a relatively modest price, compared to their (more) western colleagues. And I guess with the sheer volume they'd go through, they discovering new best practices, techniques, etc. along the way.
Back when I did research on this, now 15 years ago, the industry was starting to really take off. This was reflected in the prices that the best clinics charged. Some of them jumped up 50% in a short time, when photo-driven social media like Instagram started blowing up.
And then a whole industry sprung out of it. Many excellent clinics, tons more mediocre (to horrendous) ones that are only trying to compete on price.
Guess this also goes for the dental industry there.
Did your research turn up anything about the hacked medical devices that the article is talking about? Is that not relevant to the industry at large too? Seems like that kind of could have been a "make it or not moment", or no?
It is a huge unspoken reality how much one's physical appearance affects the way they are treated, their life outcomes, and ultimate success in social/romantic relationships. Hair transplants, leg lengthening, plastic surgery, etc. will all explode over the next decade as AI erodes humans' ability to be successful via their industry and intellect.
The irony is that none of this stuff actually works as intended. Plastic surgery is obvious. Lip injections are obvious. Leg lengthening, I mean have you seen the proportions after?? Hair transplants too. If the most wealthy people getting these procedures look botched, what hope does anyone have really. Also, are we acting like steve jobs wasn't still a handsome man with his grey thinning head?
It doesn't come from getting legitimate validation from others. It comes from one's own fear of aging and their own mortality. Sorry, but we all shrivel up like a raisin by the end. Trying to beat that back with these means just seems so futile. Spend that cash on therapy instead to tackle your body dysmorphia.
Survivorship bias, you only notice the plastic surgery that isn't good. Most of the time it's invisible, your brain doesn't process the individual change, you just get the sense that the person looks better/less tired/more put together.
>Lip injections are obvious
Same phenomenon, but even if they are obvious some people like that aesthetic, in the same way that dyed hair/painted nails are obvious, but that's the point
>Leg lengthening, I mean have you seen the proportions after
For some men it is far better to be 6' with wonky proportions than 5'7" with perfect proportions. There is far more hate directed towards short men than men with long legs.
>Hair transplants too. I mean are we acting like steve jobs wasn't still a handsome man with his grey thinning head?
Not everyone is as handsome as Steve Jobs. If you have a handsome face you can get away with balding, if not then its a further infliction on how people percieve you.
>Sorry, but we all shrivel up like a raisin by the end
If we all die after 80 or so years then what's the point of doing anything? Why get a job, why put any effort into personal grooming?
I agree, but admitting the shallowness of the general human populace seems to be a moderate social taboo. You can get away with contextualizing it in a way that equivocates the nature of the phenomenon, but addressing it too directly seems to get pushback.
Saying
>I'm getting a hair transplant because I want to feel better about myself
Is received much more favorably that
>I'm getting a hair transplant because people are mean to bald people and I would downgraded a few points in implicit social status and general treatment if I were to exhibit male-pattern baldness.
I had mine done in Rio de Janeiro, not in Turkey, but I understand the costs are similar for both. I had 2 sessions performed 6 months apart, total cost of about USD $5,000. In the US it might have been $20,000 or more. Each session was about 10+ hours, but with the local anesthesia it went by surprisingly quickly. I take dutasteride and apply topical minoxidil daily.
This was in 2023, and I'm largely happy with the results since then. If I had my 20s to do over again, I would have tried to go just the medication route and avoid the procedure. I do think that would have resulted in a more natural appearance vs. what I have now.
>I take dutasteride and apply topical minoxidil daily.
This is so extremely harmful. I wish you the best of luck.
Edit: To whoever I upset, yes it is harmful to suppress your sexual hormones daily. Originally it was never intended for hair loss but for prostate cancer until Merck & Co. figured out they could market it as a 'hair loss pill'. You will find the popularity of fin/dut inflated on Reddit these days as (paid) moderators will remove anyone who speaks against it even those with first hand horror stories.
Not everyone is affected by the side effects you are mentioning. If 100 % of men were experiencing them I doubt Dutasterid would still be such a popular drug for bph
Why are so many people brainwashed to think baldness==bad? My hair really started to go down around 30 years old and am going to have to shave my head at some point, but who cares? Why does it matter?
Wouldn't the same also apply to preferring the shaved head look over a more natural male pattern baldness look when those are your options? Why shave it? Who cares? Does it matter?
More directly, at the risk of a handwavey evo-psych just-so story: Hundreds of millions of years of evolution, perhaps? A ton of characteristics driving attraction are signals of health / youthfulness. Weight, musculature, nice skin, good teeth, etc. And yeah, good hair! Male pattern baldness is definitely associated with aging even though many people will probably spend more of their lives follicularly challenged than they did with good hair.
Unless you happen to be one of the lucky few who look better bald, balding makes you less conventionally attractive (there are actual studies about this). Whether that matters depends on how much weight you place on being conventionally attractive.
The human brain responds positively to a full head of hair, and less positively to balding. I'm not sure why, as it seems there is no huge evolutionary advantage to hair.
However the way the brain responds to it is incontestable, and no amount of body positivity will change the impact it has, thus for an individual it makes much more sense to pay a few thousand to conform to beauty standards than hope that everyone you meet will turn off their primate brain when interacting with you.
It's not necessarily feeling bad. It might be something makes one feel better.
I'm not unhappy with how I look. I'm happier after a haircut and a hot shave. Sometimes we make choices because they take us from "whatever" to "this rules".
Right? Everyone should have access to gender affirming care. Obviously, we should also try to socially change to remove the negative pressures that contribute to dysphoria.
If it makes someone feel happier to not be bald, great. It should come from making them happy, not them having to avoid social stigma though.
Why are so many people brainwashed to think that anything makes an aesthetic difference? We just like what we like, having a great head of hair when you're older is rare, so it's more attractive.
Yes! I originally read the headline as "a turkey" because of the lack of a capital T.
They can call themselves what they want, but it unreasonable of the Turks to expect English speakers to write their country's name with characters which are not part of our alphabet.
So I spent time living in Istanbul a few years ago. It really was wild. In the touristy areas (near where I lived), you really would see loads and loads of bald guys walking around with stitches on their heads.
If I were bald, I would totally go there and do the same.
I visited one of those Bosley places in the US. The pitch came across as very...predatory? It did not inspire confidence. They would only consider scheduling you for the surgery if you could demonstrate that you'd use other measures for a year, meaning finasteride, one of those laser hat things, etc. They did talk about how few surgeons there were that do this stuff well though. Also talked about scalp injections I think?
It's been several years. I just decided to let it go naturally and deal with it.
> The pitch came across as very...predatory? It did not inspire confidence. They would only consider scheduling you for the surgery if you could demonstrate that you'd use other measures for a year, meaning finasteride, one of those laser hat things, etc.
I don't want to defend the esthetic surgery industry in general, which I do think tends to be quite predatory, but doesn't this sound like the opposite of that? If they really wanted to fleece you, wouldn't they offer surgery instead of the safer and cheaper treatments?
Did they require it be through them? Fin is pretty cheap as far as meds go.
Unless you're already at full Norwood VII pre-transplant, you have hair that you'll continue to lose post-transplant. Being on the medications that help stop that in its tracks will mean a better looking long term result and keep you from having to undergo future transplants.
Am I the only one that likes being bald? Hair maintenance has always been a huge drag for me (yea executive dysfunction!) and when I had it I hated it getting in my eyes. I was balding anyway. Started shaving my whole head at the start of COVID and haven't stopped. I love it.
I have decent genes so decent hair. Albeit with first grey strands. I prefer to keep it rather short. Even when it is not really long it is much more work to wash. Proper short is like running hand with shampoon through once and being done...
Club Happily Bald here. My wife prefers me without hair, and razor blades are significantly cheaper than haircuts. I can't imagine trying to preserve my hair.
I'm just using a trimmer, without any of the "sheets" or whatever in front. Used to do a 10mm trim, now I just do 0mm trim I suppose. Bought a machine maybe 10 years ago, still using the same machine, just needs lube sometimes, and a deep cleaning, otherwise it only costs the electricity! Works for hair anywhere on your body too, so you can get a 7-in-1 machine if you're lucky too! :)
Turkish isn't pronounced "Turkey-ish". It's just "turk-ish" as in, "of or relating to the ethnic group the 'Turks'". "Turkiyesh" (Turkish is perfectly phonetic, they don't play games with vowels combining to make all sorts of sounds like English) would be a different thing, being of or related to the country Turkiye.
I don't understand how can you trust these foreigners-oriented clinics in counties with otherwise miserable healthcare. These clinics are not an exception from dysfunctional healthcare system, they are the very result and fruit of it.
I can't read the article myself, but the blurbs I can read:
> Turkey’s billion-dollar hair-transplant industry is the result of a constant process of innovation. [...] it’s also a tale of “hacked” medical equipment and algorithmic craftsmanship
Seems there was some actual "hacking" involved, if they had to patch medical equipment, but who knows how much of the article is actually about that, I can't actually see any text.
Could I donate mine to you? Been shaving my head for the last 20 years and I cannot wait for it to stop growing eventually... Seemingly it grows faster every year, as I need to continuously increase how often I trim it, I simply want less hair.
Edit: I love that someone downvoted me for offering my hair follicles to a random stranger, downvotes truly happen randomly here :)
But all these people in Turkey walking around with their brand new hair follicles, aren't those from other people? Or from the same person, just elsewhere?
The follicles come from the back of your head. Feel your head, there's an area where the skull and vertebrae meet. Place your hand over that area. That's the "donor" area. Follicles on the front of your scalp are sensitive to DHT (what your body metabolizes testosterone into) for many humans. This is where male pattern baldness happens.
That would not be practical. Visible body hair (and head hair) is "terminal hair". Peach fuzz is "vellus hair". Androgens turn vellus hair into terminal hairs (and are also the driving force for male pattern baldness). There was a big stink on social media about the character Aloy in the game Horizon who had vellus hairs visible on her face - like every other human woman.
Wayne Rooney lost his strength, motivation and creativity directly after his hair transplant. Some speculate the pills you need to take forever afterwards mess up your hormones. It's not worth it just to look good for women and "impressing" other people. His body turned into a fat womens body.
There are no pills to take afterwards, except perhaps painkillers. Some people who are balding chose to take finasteride but it's unrelated to the procedure itself.
I did it a few years ago when I was living in Istanbul. One evening, a friend of mine wouldn't shut up about the procedure. I ended up booking it almost on a whim, mostly just to prove him wrong. I did the transplant the next day. In the end, I was very happy with the results. I think it cost around 1500$.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.c...
Do you have to take any medications/follow-ups forever to keep it in place or is a one and done kind of procedure?
No medications or follow ups required. The transplanted hair follicles are harvested from a region of the scalp (the donor area) that is genetically immune to hair loss, meaning they are permanent. However, you will continue to lose the non-transplanted native hair around them as baldness progresses. So some people choose to take finasteride and/or minoxidil to maintain their existing hair (I personally don't).
Wow, looks great!
I had three done in the states and I'm happy with them, but it's tough to argue it was necessarily worth the increased price.
What was the cost? I've heard it's cheaper to fly to Turkey.
It's a lot cheaper in Turkey. I don't remember the exact numbers but each of mine (in the US) was in the high four figure range.
I originally felt more confident going to a plastic surgeon, though even though the doctor oversaw the process, it was being done by highly trained technicians. That's probably more ideal anyway because it's very manual and meticulous work, so (IMO) you want someone who's done it a thousand times--not someone who did a nose job yesterday, a boob job the day before, and only does a hair transplant every couple of weeks.
I'd assume the techs in Turkey are about as experienced as you can get.
How did it hold up over the past few years?
Holding up pretty well. Here's a picture from yesterday: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.c.... The transplant was in 2021.
Looks great! So you get the procedure, and then what happens after? Whats the recovery process like?
It is mostly a waiting game. The first month is about cleaning the scabs off your scalp and keeping away from the sun and certain activities while the hair follicles anchor and the scalp heals. Your hair will go through an initial 'shock' phase where it falls out but enters a normal growth cycle.
that is actually one of the better and more natural-looking hairlines I've seen. They did a good job!
you or the dog? In both cases: respect!
Should've clarified: the dog is 100% natural and procedure-free. Life is unfair :)
Obviously subjective, but I've got to say that looks pretty great to me. Do you mind if I ask where the transplanted hairs came from?
They come from lower parts of the patient's scalp. The typical "receding hairline" pattern is caused because the follicles on the forehead and top of the head become sensitive to with age to DHT, the but the hair follicles on the lower and on the back of the head don't have the same sensitivity. There's usually more than enough of these resistant follicles to maintain sufficient hair density.
The surgery just moves the follicles around your own scalp. Body hair transplant can be done but is relatively uncommon, donor hair from other people (or animals) requiring a lifetime on immune system suppressing drugs as with an organ transplant is virtually unknown.
No, it's not pubic hair and you don't need to have a hairy back or chest, and no, there are not millions of low-status Turkish men walking around with scarred heads because they sold their scalp to a foreigner.
Thanks.
They take hair follicles from the back of your head, the "safe donor area" that is genetically immune to balding, and move them to the thinning areas. The total amount of hair on your head remains exactly the same, it's just repositioned to give the illusion of uniform coverage and eliminate bald spots.
That's also why it's not a miracle cure for baldness - you're limited by the amount of hair follicles available in the donor area.
See: https://ishrs.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/donor-area-asse...
This is just like, my opinion man. You looked better bald.
this is one of those "if you have nothing nice to say" moments. there's really no reason for your comment.
To be fair, OP can just shave his head if he too prefers the bald look
this is the internet sir.
I don't think so. I had a transplant and I'd like being told I look better bald. I can always shave my head. "You looked better with hair" when you've gone bald is the hurtful one.
Dude, you're crazy! You look great now, prob one of the best procedures of it I've seen.
Also I notice my wife and female friends NEVER seem to notice when someone has plugs.
When I occasionally point it out, they're always surprised.
I haven't done it as I don't need it, but I would say anyone on the fence, just do it.
From what I know it's easier to keep what you have that get a transplant so fire up that HIMs subscription
Thanks! It's really hard to tell. Most people are surprised when I tell them (unless they knew me before the procedure).
The thing is, you can always shave your head, no matter how magnificent your hair is.
Thanks, I guess I could still shave :) But it's definitely not a common opinion.
I think both look good on you, I had a transplant because I definitely didn't look better bald.
Would it leave a cool pattern?
As a guy that started experiencing moderate hair loss in his 20s, I spent countless hours researching the Turkish hair transplant industry.
It's a case of having the right people at the right place, at the right time. Turkey have some of the leading doctors and clinics in this field, and have had for years. They were also located in a place which was close to both customers from Europe and the Middle-East, and could offer FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) procedures at a very nice price.
Even the very top doctors there were charging a relatively modest price, compared to their (more) western colleagues. And I guess with the sheer volume they'd go through, they discovering new best practices, techniques, etc. along the way.
Back when I did research on this, now 15 years ago, the industry was starting to really take off. This was reflected in the prices that the best clinics charged. Some of them jumped up 50% in a short time, when photo-driven social media like Instagram started blowing up.
And then a whole industry sprung out of it. Many excellent clinics, tons more mediocre (to horrendous) ones that are only trying to compete on price.
Guess this also goes for the dental industry there.
Did your research turn up anything about the hacked medical devices that the article is talking about? Is that not relevant to the industry at large too? Seems like that kind of could have been a "make it or not moment", or no?
It is a huge unspoken reality how much one's physical appearance affects the way they are treated, their life outcomes, and ultimate success in social/romantic relationships. Hair transplants, leg lengthening, plastic surgery, etc. will all explode over the next decade as AI erodes humans' ability to be successful via their industry and intellect.
The irony is that none of this stuff actually works as intended. Plastic surgery is obvious. Lip injections are obvious. Leg lengthening, I mean have you seen the proportions after?? Hair transplants too. If the most wealthy people getting these procedures look botched, what hope does anyone have really. Also, are we acting like steve jobs wasn't still a handsome man with his grey thinning head?
It doesn't come from getting legitimate validation from others. It comes from one's own fear of aging and their own mortality. Sorry, but we all shrivel up like a raisin by the end. Trying to beat that back with these means just seems so futile. Spend that cash on therapy instead to tackle your body dysmorphia.
> Plastic surgery is obvious
Survivorship bias, you only notice the plastic surgery that isn't good. Most of the time it's invisible, your brain doesn't process the individual change, you just get the sense that the person looks better/less tired/more put together.
>Lip injections are obvious
Same phenomenon, but even if they are obvious some people like that aesthetic, in the same way that dyed hair/painted nails are obvious, but that's the point
>Leg lengthening, I mean have you seen the proportions after
For some men it is far better to be 6' with wonky proportions than 5'7" with perfect proportions. There is far more hate directed towards short men than men with long legs.
>Hair transplants too. I mean are we acting like steve jobs wasn't still a handsome man with his grey thinning head?
Not everyone is as handsome as Steve Jobs. If you have a handsome face you can get away with balding, if not then its a further infliction on how people percieve you.
>Sorry, but we all shrivel up like a raisin by the end
If we all die after 80 or so years then what's the point of doing anything? Why get a job, why put any effort into personal grooming?
i do not think this is unspoken.
I agree, but admitting the shallowness of the general human populace seems to be a moderate social taboo. You can get away with contextualizing it in a way that equivocates the nature of the phenomenon, but addressing it too directly seems to get pushback.
Saying
>I'm getting a hair transplant because I want to feel better about myself
Is received much more favorably that
>I'm getting a hair transplant because people are mean to bald people and I would downgraded a few points in implicit social status and general treatment if I were to exhibit male-pattern baldness.
My grandmother used to say, "the Americans are going to space while we're just growing butt-hair". She was so close!
I had mine done in Rio de Janeiro, not in Turkey, but I understand the costs are similar for both. I had 2 sessions performed 6 months apart, total cost of about USD $5,000. In the US it might have been $20,000 or more. Each session was about 10+ hours, but with the local anesthesia it went by surprisingly quickly. I take dutasteride and apply topical minoxidil daily.
This was in 2023, and I'm largely happy with the results since then. If I had my 20s to do over again, I would have tried to go just the medication route and avoid the procedure. I do think that would have resulted in a more natural appearance vs. what I have now.
>I take dutasteride and apply topical minoxidil daily.
This is so extremely harmful. I wish you the best of luck.
Edit: To whoever I upset, yes it is harmful to suppress your sexual hormones daily. Originally it was never intended for hair loss but for prostate cancer until Merck & Co. figured out they could market it as a 'hair loss pill'. You will find the popularity of fin/dut inflated on Reddit these days as (paid) moderators will remove anyone who speaks against it even those with first hand horror stories.
Not everyone is affected by the side effects you are mentioning. If 100 % of men were experiencing them I doubt Dutasterid would still be such a popular drug for bph
Let me be clear: hormone suppression is not a "side effect" it is the effect. Ironically, the side effect is the hair growth.
Why are so many people brainwashed to think baldness==bad? My hair really started to go down around 30 years old and am going to have to shave my head at some point, but who cares? Why does it matter?
Wouldn't the same also apply to preferring the shaved head look over a more natural male pattern baldness look when those are your options? Why shave it? Who cares? Does it matter?
More directly, at the risk of a handwavey evo-psych just-so story: Hundreds of millions of years of evolution, perhaps? A ton of characteristics driving attraction are signals of health / youthfulness. Weight, musculature, nice skin, good teeth, etc. And yeah, good hair! Male pattern baldness is definitely associated with aging even though many people will probably spend more of their lives follicularly challenged than they did with good hair.
Unless you happen to be one of the lucky few who look better bald, balding makes you less conventionally attractive (there are actual studies about this). Whether that matters depends on how much weight you place on being conventionally attractive.
The human brain responds positively to a full head of hair, and less positively to balding. I'm not sure why, as it seems there is no huge evolutionary advantage to hair.
However the way the brain responds to it is incontestable, and no amount of body positivity will change the impact it has, thus for an individual it makes much more sense to pay a few thousand to conform to beauty standards than hope that everyone you meet will turn off their primate brain when interacting with you.
it's culture not evolution
Speaking as someone who's been shaving for 20 years now, it is bad.
More sun exposure, less cold protection.
It has benefits too, but it's overall harmful.
If it makes someone feel better about themselves, why not?
The question is why do people feel bad about themselves? Everyone gets old, it is part of life. Why can we not accept that?
It's not necessarily feeling bad. It might be something makes one feel better.
I'm not unhappy with how I look. I'm happier after a haircut and a hot shave. Sometimes we make choices because they take us from "whatever" to "this rules".
Right? Everyone should have access to gender affirming care. Obviously, we should also try to socially change to remove the negative pressures that contribute to dysphoria.
If it makes someone feel happier to not be bald, great. It should come from making them happy, not them having to avoid social stigma though.
Why are so many people brainwashed to think that anything makes an aesthetic difference? We just like what we like, having a great head of hair when you're older is rare, so it's more attractive.
Why is "turkey" lowercased? For that matter the country's official name is Türkiye as of 2022.
Let's talk turkey, does it really matter?
Yes! I originally read the headline as "a turkey" because of the lack of a capital T.
They can call themselves what they want, but it unreasonable of the Turks to expect English speakers to write their country's name with characters which are not part of our alphabet.
Yes, casing matters. It carries meaning.
It's the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.
This headline makes it sound like poultry has been attacking the IT systems of cosmetic surgeons.
Does anything matter? If there are things that matter, grammar is one of those things.
Yes? The country is named Türkiye, we should use that name?
The etymology here is interesting and has a looooong history. The country has officially been named Türkiye for over a century.
And Germany's official name is "Bundesrepublik Deutschland". I get to call it Germany though.
Has Germany said they should be called Deutschland by English speakers?
But not germany.
This sort of language policing is pointless.
I mean it matters here. "turkey" and "Turkey" legitimately have different meanings.
As an expression of my free will and freedom of speech, I am going to call it Gobble Gobble.
So I spent time living in Istanbul a few years ago. It really was wild. In the touristy areas (near where I lived), you really would see loads and loads of bald guys walking around with stitches on their heads.
If I were bald, I would totally go there and do the same.
It's interesting to read about.
I visited one of those Bosley places in the US. The pitch came across as very...predatory? It did not inspire confidence. They would only consider scheduling you for the surgery if you could demonstrate that you'd use other measures for a year, meaning finasteride, one of those laser hat things, etc. They did talk about how few surgeons there were that do this stuff well though. Also talked about scalp injections I think?
It's been several years. I just decided to let it go naturally and deal with it.
> The pitch came across as very...predatory? It did not inspire confidence. They would only consider scheduling you for the surgery if you could demonstrate that you'd use other measures for a year, meaning finasteride, one of those laser hat things, etc.
I don't want to defend the esthetic surgery industry in general, which I do think tends to be quite predatory, but doesn't this sound like the opposite of that? If they really wanted to fleece you, wouldn't they offer surgery instead of the safer and cheaper treatments?
> If they really wanted to fleece you
Tip: Bald people the worst to fleece.
Felt more like an upsell. Maybe predatory was the wrong word.
Did they require it be through them? Fin is pretty cheap as far as meds go.
Unless you're already at full Norwood VII pre-transplant, you have hair that you'll continue to lose post-transplant. Being on the medications that help stop that in its tracks will mean a better looking long term result and keep you from having to undergo future transplants.
Haha, true. Another advantage of doing it in Istanbul is that you don't look like a weirdo walking around with your headband and scarred scalp.
Am I the only one that likes being bald? Hair maintenance has always been a huge drag for me (yea executive dysfunction!) and when I had it I hated it getting in my eyes. I was balding anyway. Started shaving my whole head at the start of COVID and haven't stopped. I love it.
I have decent genes so decent hair. Albeit with first grey strands. I prefer to keep it rather short. Even when it is not really long it is much more work to wash. Proper short is like running hand with shampoon through once and being done...
Club Happily Bald here. My wife prefers me without hair, and razor blades are significantly cheaper than haircuts. I can't imagine trying to preserve my hair.
I'm just using a trimmer, without any of the "sheets" or whatever in front. Used to do a 10mm trim, now I just do 0mm trim I suppose. Bought a machine maybe 10 years ago, still using the same machine, just needs lube sometimes, and a deep cleaning, otherwise it only costs the electricity! Works for hair anywhere on your body too, so you can get a 7-in-1 machine if you're lucky too! :)
I like a 10mm buzz cut, but it's nice to not have bold spots.
I did one in Thessaloniki, Greece eight years ago. Here's a photo album of me before, during, after, and recently:
https://immich.home.stavros.io/s/transplant
Thank you for sharing. I asked this of another commenter - but whats the post-procedure process like?
It was painful for a day or two, and I couldn't touch my scalp at all for a few days, I had to sleep on a rolled-up towel. That's it.
https://archive.is/KxRaw
The title just goes to show that
1. the turkish government had reasons for trying to get people to use "Türkiye" instead.
2. It's still not working.
I 100% thought this was about birds until clicking
Shouldn't you spell it Tuerkiyesh government, then?
Turkish isn't pronounced "Turkey-ish". It's just "turk-ish" as in, "of or relating to the ethnic group the 'Turks'". "Turkiyesh" (Turkish is perfectly phonetic, they don't play games with vowels combining to make all sorts of sounds like English) would be a different thing, being of or related to the country Turkiye.
> I 100% thought this was about birds until clicking
Same, I was really curious reading about the hair transplant industry organized by turkeys and got really disappointed :(
No, that's not it. The problem is that "How turkey" means a bird, but "How Turkey" means the country.
I think Turkish factory style dentists accumulate something like 100 times more experience?
Dentists are usually booked well, how would that work? Is that vibe dentistry?
I don't understand how can you trust these foreigners-oriented clinics in counties with otherwise miserable healthcare. These clinics are not an exception from dysfunctional healthcare system, they are the very result and fruit of it.
Words are truly losing their meaning if its a hack to develop a business.
I can't read the article myself, but the blurbs I can read:
> Turkey’s billion-dollar hair-transplant industry is the result of a constant process of innovation. [...] it’s also a tale of “hacked” medical equipment and algorithmic craftsmanship
Seems there was some actual "hacking" involved, if they had to patch medical equipment, but who knows how much of the article is actually about that, I can't actually see any text.
> I can't actually see any text.
Turn off JS
Yeah they totally isomorphed that industry!
Hack is being used to get more clicks.
If you're not white enough, it's a hack. You can get around this problem by attracting some VC funding and building your HQ in Silicon Valley. /s
It’s hacking when it’s someone you don’t like.
In this context it's being used in much the same way as in "growth hacking", which is an actual position people hire for.
Has there been any progress on cloning hair follicles? I don’t want to move the hair around. I simply want more hair.
I saw a headline about this the other day. I couldn't find it but did come across this article. https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/genetic/lab-grown-hair-f...
No idea if ZME science is reputable at all.
Totally unreputable. That is not a scientific journal. That is some guy (Who's degree is in geophysics) biog. The article was written by him.
Here's the journal article from the authors mentioned in the article.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41762869/
They tried, and it sort of worked, but they couldn't stop the resulting cancer from getting cancer.
Could I donate mine to you? Been shaving my head for the last 20 years and I cannot wait for it to stop growing eventually... Seemingly it grows faster every year, as I need to continuously increase how often I trim it, I simply want less hair.
Edit: I love that someone downvoted me for offering my hair follicles to a random stranger, downvotes truly happen randomly here :)
You can't donate follicles, but you can do IPL! All us bald(ing) people will hate you, though.
You can't donate hair follicles .. it has to come from your own body
But all these people in Turkey walking around with their brand new hair follicles, aren't those from other people? Or from the same person, just elsewhere?
The follicles come from the back of your head. Feel your head, there's an area where the skull and vertebrae meet. Place your hand over that area. That's the "donor" area. Follicles on the front of your scalp are sensitive to DHT (what your body metabolizes testosterone into) for many humans. This is where male pattern baldness happens.
They take your existing hair follicles from areas that aren't thinning and move them to the thinning or bald area.
So in theory if I want less head-hair and more chest-hair, I could in theory do this by moving the hair follicles? Interesting stuff.
That would not be practical. Visible body hair (and head hair) is "terminal hair". Peach fuzz is "vellus hair". Androgens turn vellus hair into terminal hairs (and are also the driving force for male pattern baldness). There was a big stink on social media about the character Aloy in the game Horizon who had vellus hairs visible on her face - like every other human woman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_hair
Buddy, I hope you have a glove on because you're about to catch these fists!
Yes, yes it's coming. In 10 years.
Just in time for fusion energy?
Yes, imagine endless energy and endless hair. It's like nuclear and hippy again, but stronger and ai-government-mandated
Oh, just like in the movie Gentlemen Broncos.
No no fusion energy company is going public shortly so the technology must be closer than that :)
There wasn't an effective weightloss drug until suddenly there was though.
Wayne Rooney lost his strength, motivation and creativity directly after his hair transplant. Some speculate the pills you need to take forever afterwards mess up your hormones. It's not worth it just to look good for women and "impressing" other people. His body turned into a fat womens body.
There are no pills to take afterwards, except perhaps painkillers. Some people who are balding chose to take finasteride but it's unrelated to the procedure itself.