Lol @ Cinik:
Reviews you can trust, from real people like you. How it works
I've always known I was going to get a hair...
I've always known I was going to get a hair transplant since I began losing my hair at the age of 22, three years ago. As this is a massive decision to make, I spent countless hours researching clinics, doctors, and previous patient's reviews. I based my decision off of who would be preforming the surgery and their accreditation (both hospital as well as the physician), patient reviews, email correspondence, post-op care, and a few other variables. I chose Dr. Cinik because he seemed to have the best of all of these. I now sit here and wonder why I never came across an experience like mine or like the ones of the people who got their hair transplanted the same day as me.
The Experience:
Transportation to the hotel was good. The hotel was good. The food at the hotel was good.
Day of, I was picked up from the hotel with two other people. We were brought to the hospital, which is right up the street, and taken to the basement where the initial consultation took place. While waiting, the nurses entered the building wearing their scrubs. Dr. Cinik then opened the door and welcomed me in. He is very friendly and charismatic, I will say. He analyzed my head and began draw on it. I was then given a mirror and we looked at my hairline and he explained how many grafts I would receive and where. I showed him a photo of what my hairline once was and explained how I would like it to be more like that. Also, that I didn't want a widow's peak like I currently had drawn on my forehead. He rounded it out a bit and lowered the hairline a bit more. This was the last time I saw him, until about a third of the way through my procedure (this is a problem considering I was told he would be doing the whole thing). After this, I was brought upstairs to pay, have my photos taken, my blood drawn, and to change into a gown. My blood was drawn on a couch while I sat next to another guy as people filed in and out what felt to me like a massage parlor with an office. This was weird, but maybe it's just how things are done in Turkey? While paying, I was offered to pay 300 euro more for a "pain free" option where you don't feel the injections. I don't suggest doing this as both of the guys who rode back to the hotel with me that night said it was still painful (this was the second procedure for one of them and he said it was just as painful as having the local anesthesia). I can also attest for the other guy because I heard him talking about how painful it was during my procedure as the massage bed you lay on is right next to the other guy who is getting his hair transplant done. Anyways, after all this they take you all around the hospital (which is completely empty and abandoned feeling I might add) until you're in this little room, the size of a walk in closet, with a massage looking bed in the middle and just enough space for two, small metal carts on each side and two standing people on each side. The room then has a thin kind of divider where there is another room set up the same. I wouldn't call this a hospital room. From here, it was all downhill.
The local anesthetic sucked, felt like fishing hooks being stuck in my head, pulled on, and then warm water dumped in the hole. I knew to expect this pain though, so that's understandable and I don't blame them for this. After this step, they then began harvesting the grafts. If there was pain, I was supposed to say "pain" and they would issue more anesthetic. I was shaking from everything happening and they gave me a pill to calm me down. I still don't know what it was because the technicians who preformed the operation couldn't speak English. About an hour into the op., while on my side looking at my photos on the wall to be used as a guide, weren't all of me. I tried to explain this to the technician's but they didn't understand what I was saying and had to call someone in the room so I could explain. He told me not to worry and it's not a problem. The op went on and somewhere along the lines I fell asleep. I would feel pain here and there when they were drilling out the grafts, but didn't say anything because 1) they probably wouldn't understand, 2) it hurt less than the local anesthetic, 3) I was already feeling like cattle so I might as well keep up with the role of being cattle. I thought things had felt pretty shoddy and accepted it for what it was (you get what you pay for I suppose) but then it got worse.
I woke up because I was being switched around as my grafts had been harvested. I had a sandwich and some juice (probably the highlight of the whole experience) and then Dr. Cinik came back. He made (some?) of the channels in my head for the grafts to go into. He then left and it was shortly after that I was in the most helpless position I've ever been in my life. The next six hours was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. Imagine having a constant feeling of your head being dragged along the concrete outside a moving vehicle, followed by being burned with a blowtorch, then having a pair of pointed tweezers stuck inside and pinching your raw flesh, and then sprayed with salt water every ten minutes. I. Felt. Everything. And it gets worse. I continually repeated "pain", "pain", "pain", and was issued more anesthetic, but that didn't help. I eventually told them to just stop with the anesthetic because it was just creating more pain and that I'd just like them to please finish. I asked for another one of the pills they gave me since that either was able to cause less pain or make me less aware of the fact that I was in pain. They had no clue what I was trying to say or ask for, so that didn't help. I was stuck laying on this massage bed, facing only a clock, watching the minutes slowly tick away. At one point, someone knocked on the door and the procedure took a mini break. This wasn't a happy break because the technician, wearing her bloodied gloves, reached into her breast pocket and pulled out MONEY and handed it to the person at the door. Without changing her gloves, she went back to work on my head. She also did the same thing while taking phone calls/text messages. Later, I asked how much longer it would take and was told two hours. a couple hours later I asked again and was told 15 minutes. 30 minutes later I asked again and they told me 5 minutes. They finally finished the procedure 20 minutes after that. To bandage my head, the tech peeled the adhesive parts off and stuck them all over her scrubs, the same scrubs that she entered the building in. I'd like to repeat, to bandage my completely cut-up skull, she applied bandages that were stuck to her scrubs she arrived in from home. If handling money and then touching my exposed scalp wasn't unsanitary enough, then this sure was. The tech then removed my IV which ended up shooting blood all over my arm to which I had to stop myself. This was followed by them trying to dress me in someone else's clothes before I realized that this wasn't a sort of "go home" outfit but some woman's zip up jacket. That surgery ending was the best feeling in my life. My head didn't really hurt but I feel like that's only because the procedure was finally done. I was then explained the aftercare and what to do for tomorrow as well as was given another sandwich and a juice.
The next day was fine, went to an office across the road with about eight other guys to get our bandages removed. I was equally shocked to find that I was one of maybe nine guys who had the operation done the previous day. If I didn't feel enough like cattle the day before being part of three other people, I sure as hell felt like cattle this day. I met with the Dr. so he could see how it came out (other people met with the woman we paid for some reason) but I didn't say anything about my experience. At this point, it was nothing like I was promised and I didn't want to start explaining how horrible my experience was and have them kick me out of the hotel or not take me to the airport or something. Instead, I sent an email the instant I was dropped off at the airport.
