4500 Graft Dr Cinik Turkey Full 7 month review

JP77

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Hello all,

After visiting Dr Cinik’s clinic in Istanbul, Turkey for a hair transplant in November 2021, I wanted to write a full comprehensive review of my experience and results after 7 months. I’ve never done anything like this before so apologies if it’s not the best review you’ve read and if I miss anything out or you have any further questions, I’ll be happy to answer. I’ve tried to review the different parts of my experience separately and break it down as much as I can. If you don’t want to read the full thing, I’ve written a summary at the end telling you the main details and you can then also look at the pictures.

About me
I was 28 years old at the time of my hair transplant and my hair had been thinning and receding on top for probably around 5 years or so. I did my best with styling my hair to try and cover this up but eventually I couldn’t do that anymore. For the last 2 years I’d been shaving me hair off (1 buzz cut) as it looked too bad to keep long and try to style. For those 2 years I tried to make peace with having a shaved head but never could, so looked at various options including transplants and SMP. I finally decided to take the plunge and have a hair transplant after a friend of mine had it done at Dr Cinik’s clinic with good results and recommended that I had it done as it had changed his life.

Why I chose Dr Cinik
I originally looked in to having it done in the UK, but for the amount of grafts I needed the cost was just way too high, probably somewhere around the £15k mark. I decided to have a look what options Turkey had to offer.

After several weeks, maybe months, of research I decided to go with Dr Cinik for several reasons. I think the main one was that I’d known someone who’d been there and could see the results for myself which gave me massive confidence in them. Even without this recommendation I felt that this clinic offered the best all round balance between results, cost and the packages that they offered. The fact that they offer packages with everything but flights included was so convenient and made it a stress free process.

There were cheaper clinics available but for whatever reason I just didn’t trust them for the prices that they were charging. There were also more expensive clinics but for me I couldn’t see a huge of difference in the results compare to this clinic. I saw a few negative reviews of Dr Cinik’s clinic online which made me question my choice, however most of the negative comments I came across were coming from people who hadn’t actually been there and were calling it a ‘Hair Mill’ as it’s a large clinic and they turnover a lot of patients. I don’t understand how you can bad mouth something which you haven’t personally experienced, so I decided to ignore those comments. There were a handful of bad reviews from people who had got their transplant there, however I also came across bad reviews of the so-called top clinics in the UK. My takeaway from that was that you’re always going to get people who aren’t happy with their results regardless of where they get it done. Also there are lots of variables as to why they maybe didn’t get a good result, it’s not all necessarily down to the quality of the procedure.

Booking
The booking process was made very straight forward. I was messaging a lady (Florentina) on Whatsapp for a couple of weeks before I decided to book. She was very responsive in answering all my questions and gave me all the information I needed to make a decision on what treatment to have, dates available etc. I ended up booking for approximately 2 months later, there were dates available sooner but I decided to delay slightly due a few events I had booked in for October that year. I went with the Sapphire FUE Exclusive package, the details of what was included are below.

There was a bit of coordination required with getting flights on the correct dates but nothing too hard to work out. I booked my flight separately with BA and just let Florentina know the times etc. and she arranged the transport. The initial flight I booked got cancelled due to covid so I had to book a different one on the same day which was no problem, the pickup time from the airport was changed with no fuss.

A 500 Euro deposit was payable at the time of booking, I was sent a link to a payment page and paid via credit card. A booking confirmation was sent over which contained my flight information, treatment information, pickup points in the airport and a guide on what you should/shouldn’t do in the weeks leading up to the treatment.

FUE Sapphire Exclusive package:

-Sapphire FUE Hair Transplant (maximum grafts)

-3 nights accommodation inc. breakfast

-Transfers between the Airport, hotel and hospital

-Blood tests

-Channel opening done by Dr Cinik

-PRP treatment

-Medication and care products

-First hair wash

-Translators

-Needle free anaesthetic (additional 250 Euros)

Travel and accommodation
I flew from London Heathrow and arrived in Istanbul at around 11pm. I made my way to the transfer company in the airport. The man spoke pretty good English and took my passport to confirm that I had a booking with Dr Cinik, he then called my driver to come and collect me. I was waiting for probably 20 minutes but there’s comfy sofa’s to sit on so it wasn’t a big deal.

I was collected in a lovely Mercedes people carrier type van. It had lovely comfy leather seats, good air con etc. The transport between the hotel and the hospital wasn’t quite as nice, just standard large mini bus type vehicles, but still perfectly adequate.

I stayed at the Point Hotel which was all part of the package I’d paid for. I believe the clinic uses a couple of different hotels so you may end up in a different one to this. The hotel was really nice, everything was modern and clean and it I’d describe it as sort of an up market business persons hotel. The rooms were clean, spacious and the bed was very comfortable. There was a desk in the room which was perfect for post op, I’d sit there watching Netflix on my laptop which passed the time well.

The first morning I went down for the free breakfast, which wasn’t to my taste as it was a Turkish style breakfast only. For the remainder of my time there I ordered room service for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which was some of the best hotel room service I’ve ever had. There was a good variety of meals on the menu and it was so cheap. I was ordering a main, side and dessert for the equivalent of around £10. Breakfast was costing around £6-8. 7 months on I can’t remember exactly what I ate but I remember the fresh fruit platter and the Koftas being unbelievable.

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Procedure

I was taken straight to the Hospital from the airport to check in and have my blood test and cardiogram done. Given that it was around midnight I was pretty much the only person in there, so it was a very slick process and I was all done in probably around half an hour. I was then taken to the hotel.

The next day was the day of my procedure, I believe I was picked up at around 9am so didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night. When I arrived at the Hospital I was pretty much taken straight through with minimal wait time and went upstairs in to an office. This was when the remainder of the payment was made, which I paid in cash (Euros) as there’s a surcharge for card payments.

I was then taken in to Dr Cinik’s office where he discussed the process with me, I filled in a health questionnaire and we discussed the hairline. He asked me for a picture of what my hair used to look like which helped him shape the new hairline and make it as natural as possible. He drew it on how he’d recommend and then asked if I’d like to change anything about it. For me how he’d drawn it was exactly what I’d pictures so no changes were needed. I was then sent through to have my hair shaved off and it was then time to start the procedure.

I had a team of 3 technicians who were going to carry out the procedure, plus Dr Cinik for the incisions later on. They spoke broken English so I could communicate most things with them fine, but there’s a translator available if you need it (which I didn’t). They were all really friendly and were happy to chat with me about various things.

Before the treatment started I was given some pills to take, one of which was some sort of sedative I believe which made me feel very drowsy and in a very chilled zen like state.

They then started the needle free anaesthesia. This was described as being pretty pain free but I can assure you that it isn’t. It’s a very strange feeling and I can only describe it as if someone had a needle on their finger nail and then flicked you really hard in the head with it. They then start with the proper anaesthetic with larger needles. This was quite painful and a really horrible feeling having a needle put in your head. Although this is coming from someone who generally hates any needles so it may not be as bad for other people. I just had to grit my teeth and get trough the 10 minutes of pain until the anaesthetic kicked in, I didn’t feel a thing from this point onwards.

They then started extracting the hair follicles which I believe took a total of around a few hours. I was nearly asleep at this point of the operation due to the pill I’d taken and being laid face down on the bed-I strangely enjoyed this part of it.

Once this was done I was really hungry so asked for some food. I was given a really nice meal with chicken, rice and veg. I don’t know if I would have been offered food if I didn’t ask so make sure you ask if you’re hungry.

Dr Cinik then came in and carried out the incisions ready for the Technicians to place the hairs in.

They then started placing the hairs over the course of the next 4 hours or so. This was the hardest part of the procedure for me as it was very boring and seemed like it was never ending. The anaesthetic also started to wear off, so I asked for a top up near the end.

The procedure took a total of around 7.5 hours and I had around 4500 grafts.

Once finished they bandaged me up and I was taken to an office where I was given all of my post procedure care such as medication, shampoo, sleeping pillow etc.

Recovery
I returned to the hospital the following day for the first wash and tutorials on how to wash my hair in the following couple of weeks. They also offer a vitamins package which I decided not to go for as I could get the same ones in the UK for cheaper.

The first couple of nights sleep were quite uncomfortable as you have to sleep on your back with a neck pillow which I’m not used to, but you soon get used it. It’s advised to sleep with this for about 2 weeks which I did, then went back to sleeping normally.

I had various pills to take over the next 2 weeks, which they give you a full instruction sheets on which ones to take when. They were a mixture of pain killers, anti inflammatory, antibiotics etc.

After around 12 days all of the scabs were off and I continued to use the shampoo they’d given me until it ran out, I believe it lasted around a month. After this had ran out I used Johnson’s baby shampoo as this doesn’t contain any harsh chemicals. After a few months I also started to use Nizoral Shampoo which helped with the dry scalp.

My head was very itchy in the first couple of months and I found that Aloe Vera gel helped this quite a lot. Try to get as close to 100% Aloe Vera as you can. I bought a real Aloe Vera plant and used the gel straight for the plant which seemed to work better than a shop bought gel.

I took the below Vitamins post procedure and am still taking them daily now:

-Multivitamin
-Biotin
-Vitamin D
-Zinc

I also followed all of the recommended aftercare I could find online. I didn’t drink coffee for 2 weeks, no sex for 2 weeks, no exercise for 1 month, no sun exposure etc., I did everything to the tee.

My head was very red and a bit sensitive for probably around 3 months after, then returned to normal.

I took a week off work after and then worked form home for another week after that. I don’t think I’d have been comfortable going back to work after a week as the scabs were all still on, so I think definitely give it a full 2 weeks if your going to be conscious about that sort of thing.

My recovery pretty much followed the normal process of growing for the first few weeks, then shedding, then regrowing over the next few months. I’d say it was around month 4 when it really started to grow back and start to thicken up a bit.

Costs

Total costs for everything I needed for this procedure was pretty much bang on £3,000. The cost were as follows:

-Procedure-3090 Euros (2840 Euros for the FUE Sapphire Exclusive package and 250 Euros extra for needle free anaesthetic). 500 Euros deposit was required at the time of booking. With the exchange rate at the time this worked out to be £2,627.

-Return Flight £150

-Airport car park £65

-Covid test £28

-Spending money for food etc. £50

-Fuel to get to the airport and back £30

-Vitamins for a few months after £50

Summary

I had a great experience with Dr Cinik’s clinic and would recommend considering this as an option if you’re looking to have a hair transplant. The balance of cost and results was exactly what I was looking for and that package deals they offer make it a stress free process.

I had around 4500 grafts. The procedure itself went very smoothly and I’m very happy with my results.

Results
Before
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Immediately post procedure
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Day 2
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Day 4
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Day 10
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3 weeks
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5 weeks
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2 months
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3 months
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4 months
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6 months
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7 months
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abovedagame

Experienced Member
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TLDR; but you are lucky. You got good yield from a hair mill which is rare. I’ve seen some pretty bad results from cinik
 

Capone

Senior Member
My Regimen
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900
The write up brings back memories. Glad you’re happy with it. You could have got them do put a few 100 grafts down either side of the temple points, makes a huge difference
 
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