!!! If you are considering Dr. Hakan Doganay and AHD Clinic in Antalya please read this first!!!

I am a former patient of aforementioned doctor. First, I will sum up my personal opinion of the clinic and the situation they have put me into, then in a later post I will try my best to share my story as detailed as possible. In my opinion choosing him was the worst decision of my life. Though I am greatly influenced emotionally, I will try to be as objective as possible, and let the reader decide whether I am right or wrong. I have created a picasa album where I am documenting everything in detail. (find links below)

A few words about me: I am 26 years old, been dealing with hair loss since I was 18. Hair loss runs in my family, both my brother and my father is Norwood 5-6. I always kept my hair medium-long so I thought I only had a receding hairline. The last few years I was in depression because of my hair loss and thought only getting my hair back could make me happy again. I trusted Dr. Hakan Doganay and AHD Clinic and now I am in worse shape than before, I can back up anything I am stating below:

- I arrived to Dr Hakan Doganay with a receding hairline and he merely looked at my head and did not evaluate my hair loss and miniaturization at all. If he did, it would had become clear that I not only have a receding hairline but a full, advanced norwood 5A-6 balding pattern. If I was told that, I would never had went through with the procedure. I clearly articulated before the procedure that I do not want to take propecia due to sides. We talked about potential future hair loss given my family history, but I was not informed that I am already way down the road. ( I became aware of my hairloss situation when my hair started to grow back postop)

- Dr. Hakan Doganay did not evaluate my donor capacity either. He carelessly drew a new (somewhat low) hairline on my head using up 2500 grafts (for which I already paid for in advance). He did not warn me about my ongoing hair loss, or come up with a conservative game plan for the long term.

- In the IAHRS website it was written that Dr. Hakan Doganay extracts and implants the grafts himself, I only found out later that he uses techs with very little experience do all the extraction and a part of the implantation as well.
[Link removed by moderator - see Terms of Service) ]Dr. Hakan Doganay – Turkey Hair Transplant MD | IAHRS Member[/url]
As people pointed it out, this website is not affiliated with this forum hence I can not make references to it, I did get a link to the clinic's website before the procedure which stated the head technician extracts the grafts and Dr Hakan Doganay implants the hairline. In my case it was not the head technician who extracted the grafts but an ordinary technician and not only Dr Hakan Doganay implanted the hairline but the head technician as well. It was also told me by the clinic retrospectively that the technicians have minimum 4 years experience. - edited 27/10/15

- They may have wasted a number of my grafts and to compensate either harvested more and/or implanted less grafts. I admit, this one claim I cannot prove. However the techs were dropping equipment and cursing during the operation and I have a picture with discarded grafts laying on top of my head. I have uploaded my post-op donor picture and a bunch of post op donor pictures from other clinics’ 2500 graft procedures and compared to them my donor area looks overharvested and thinned out in certain points. In my opinion they either transected a lot of grafts, harvested more or didn’t care about the pattern at all. When I mentioned the donor scarring they told me that after a FUE procedure one should wear its hair at least 1-1,5 cm long to cover it!! To my understanding the very reason of a FUE procedure is to be able to wear my hair 4-5mm long. Anyway, my hair is longer than 1,5 cm and the signs of the scarring is still visible. Anyone can check it and decide.

As people pointed it out I can not substantiate the claim of wasting more than those two grafts that are laying on top of my head-edited 27/10/15

- Upon questioning they told me that they implanted 50 grafts/cm2 (check the pictures to see if that is true) and that they have harvested 2500 grafts (check the pictures if that is true) Upon questioning they told me I have an average donor with 45-50 grafts/cm2, which is a guess at best as they never measured it, and it is way out of the literature which states an average donor is between 65-85 grafts/cm2. If my donor density was in fact 50 grafts/cm2 that would had meant that it was low and I was not suitable for a FUE hair transplant.
Distribution of Human Hair in Follicular Units - ResearchGate

- It has been 4 month since the operation and my recipient area never looked good for one minute since. It is red, bumpy with red spots and minimal growth. Moreover, a number of the grafts that were implanted by the tech are misaligned. I have been in contact with the clinic since and all they had to tell me was everything looks fine. To be factual at one point around month 2 after repeatedly asking about folliculitis they recommended me to take antibiotics for 5 days, and when 3 month post-op I was still in bad shape and I told them I am even willing to fly back to Antalya they offered me a prp treatment, an ozone treatment, and some cream and a shampoo for free but it did not improve my situation.

2 weeks ago I got so fed up, I have contacted a trusted hair restoration surgeon and a dermatologist. A bacterial culture was taken from my head which came back positive. I have been prescribed antibiotics and anti-inflammatory cream and for the first time in 4 months I am seeing improvements. My only wish now is to shave my head but I am left with a low, uneven hairline with thinning all over behind it and a badly scarred / overharvested donor.


Preop postop + photos of 2500 graft FUE extraction to compare



Recipient


Donor


Future balding pattern


I am aware that the full result of a hair transplant can only be seen after 12 months so my situation might improve, however even if I’ll have good growth (which I doubt) I will lose my hair in a norwood 5A-6 pattern very soon and I do not have nearly enough donor to compensate for it.

A number of people will say that 4 months is too early to evaluate a result and I might have shock loss in the donor area, and I just might be a late grower so, to be fair I have created a picasa album where I will document my case from pre-op through the 12 months so anyone can evaluate them himself independently. After 12 month I will shave my head so the donor scarring could be evaluated as well.

However I have reason to believe that the problems I described will remain, as after digging rigorously (which I should have done before) I have found numerous other ex-patents with similar problems and recurring themes, namely:
- poor growth
- bad donor scarring
- misaligned grafts and poor growth on the side where the tech implanted the grafts.