• Welcome to Hair loss Experiences hair loss forum.

    Free impartial hair loss advice, hair transplant advice, hair loss medications and hair loss news.
    You can contact us directly at [email protected] if you experience any problems.

Need help deciding on the best clinic for FUE

C

CarlosGF

member
Hello everyone,


I want to get a hair transplant as soon as possible. I'm 40 years old, and I've been thinking about it for many years, however I have now finally decided to go forward with it.


About 10 years ago I began to notice the hair loss. I noticed that my hairline was moving upward. From there it started to spread and my hair started to diminish on the crown as well, where i am now almost completely bald.


It should be noted that my hair is curly, favoring me to hide my alopecia. Still, it has taken a toll on my self-esteem.


I'm not a fan of medication, nor do I like wearing wigs ;)
I do not like the side effects, such as low sex drive and possible erectile disfunction and an increased risk of prostate cancer.


Through a friend of mine who has undergone hair transplant surgery I learned about the possibility of hair transplantation and was astonished by the good results. Since then i am convinced that this is the only solution to my problem and I am now looking into the different clinics and doctors that offer this type of surgery.


A couple of years ago I did a little research, knowing that there are two main methods, FUT and FUE.


Last year I had my first consultation in Bremen/Germany, where I live, with KÖ-HAIR clinic. The consultation takes place in an office at Bremen airport. In this consultation they took a look at my hair and explained the different methods - FUT and FUE.
They suggested the FUT method, since my hair is curly, guaranteeing that all the follicles were extracted successfully without damaging them. They explained to me that, if I went for the FUE method instead, there would be greater danger of damaging the follicles as they get extracted and this may leave me without enough hair in the donor zone.
The fact that they made it sound like the FUT method was my only option made me think twice, as this is the least favorite of the two options- it appears to be too invasive in my opinion and I do not want to have a scar at the back of my head €¦in case my hair loss progresses and the scar would then show even more.


They said I would have to have 2 sessions, the second operation at least after one year.


This year I started getting serious again about researching my options for a transplant, however, this time I am only looking into the FUE method.
Thus far I visited 2 clinics in Brussels, Medikemos and MyWHTC.
I loved the Medikemos clinic, with Dr. Emorane Lupanzula. The doctor is very nice and knowledgeable. He explained everything very well and took his time for the consultation. He explained in detail, what is possible and what is not. I did not have to wait and the appointment was at the exact time that I was given. The clinic is impeccable, very clean, and the doctor is educated and very calm. The entire staff were friendly and the premises gave me a good first impression. The privacy of the patients of ongoing operations was guarded, so we were shown around only where no patients were present.


I then had another appointment with Dr. Patrick Mwamba at MyWHTC, but I did not like this clinic at all. I went with my wife and the secretary asked my wife 3 times if she also needed a hair transplant. It was more than obvious that I am the bald one, and that we had already requested an appointment for myself only. We were waiting 1 hour to be taken care of. The secretary did not speak English very well, and since she did not know what else to do, she showed us the clinic. Quite frankly, I was shocked at the amount of dust around and it looked quite old and shabby. The smell was also not exactly appealing. She touched all the things in the supposedly sterile operating room that she was showing us and we even entered the rooms with our shoes. What made me feel uncomfortable was that we were allowed to take a peek at ongoing operations which were apparently mostly performed by other people than the doctor, and we were able to see the patients. Honestly, if it was me being operated I would not want complete strangers to see me. She then took the photos of my hair, that were then added to my file. When counting my hair with a machine the doctor finally took over (a good 1.5 hours after our initial appointment) and what we then witnessed reminded me of a cheap sales show they have on the Canary Island when trying to sell you carpets or duvets. I was offered food supplements, a cap with LEDs for some ‚¬3000, vitamins, injections of platelet rich plasma, you name it €¦they had it all €¦at an extra cost of course. All this disinformation, pressure to buy unnecessary products and the general appearance of both the doctor and the facilities discouraged me a lot not to opt for this clinic.


So here I am now in this forum, hoping to get help in making the best choice for my hair transplant.


If anyone knows of a good clinic in Barcelona, Madrid, London, €‹ €‹I have family there, or Germany, I would be very grateful to hear about your experiences or advice.
I want to do the operation as soon as possible, but I want to choose wisely as i have also seen online what it can look like when it goes wrong and i really don ´t want that ...


I liked the clinic of Dr. Lupanzula very much but I would like to have more options before deciding, because I am a bit far from home and a bit expensive.


Below my photos:
doSB1T1.jpg

OsWDVad.jpg

1kGz58k.jpg

PF9tprq.jpg

AoxlzpF.jpg

ALxY4Z7.jpg

jLPD7wg.jpg

 
JoeTillman

JoeTillman

Valued member
What is your plan after you get your hair transplant when more hair falls out? The crown will get bigger, and sides will drop and the remaining, albeit very thin, hair on top will disappear. Have you thought about that part of your future?
 
C

CarlosGF

member
Hi Joe,

Thank you for replying. I was informed by Dr. Lupanzula that the remaining hair and some more towards the sides could possibly fall out, yes. He really took his time to explain all the different medicines available.
However, due to the side-effects and the effects the medicine can have on unborn fetuses, I have decided against this for the moment, as my wife and I are planning to have more children.

Do you have any more recommendations on how to keep the hair that is still left from falling out? I appreciate your response!
 
Prohairclinic

Prohairclinic

Prohairclinic FUE and SMP
Hi Carlos,
As usual Joe asked the right question.

If you are not going on meds like Finasteride or Dutasteride you have some other options, although none of these are going to be as effective against MPB.
Minoxidil is a good help, but do not expect wonders.You can also consider using topical finasteride. Joe made a great video on that. It will not prevent some absorbtion, but from our experience very little people report sides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY_Zp_rq2sM

Another alternative would be to shave it all down and adopt a shaven look hairstyle.If this is an option for you we believe that tricopigmentation can do wonders. Have a look in the scalp micropigmentation section of this forum.

Take care,Bart
 
Last edited:
C

CarlosGF

member
Hi Bart,
Thank you very much for today ´s Skype consultation. It was very nice. You explained all the procedure very detailed and clarified all my doubts.
Thanks again!
Carlos
 
M

mania

member
Well this is very nice that you have plan for the hair transplant surgery , well there are many clinics in the London, Germany etc but if your are willing to visit Pakistan then I would suggest you Elixir hair transplant clinic is have the experience surgeon ..
 
C

CarlosGF

member
Hi Mania,
Thank you very much for your suggestion, I will keep it in mind ;)
 
C

CarlosGF

member
I was in Hamburg and visited 2 clinics, Alster Klinik and q-clinic.

In Alster Klinik they charged 30 for the consultation. I had no problem booking the consultation for the date I was traveling to Hamburg. Since we arrived a few minutes late because we could not find parking easily, they made us wait until they attended the patients who had their appointment after mine even though they had not yet arrived. After an hour we were finally attended.
The advisor was friendly, he also spoke English, not very fluent, but good enough to understand each other. My hair type is wavy, so he offered me only the FUT method, explaining that they would under no circumstances do FUE with my hair type in this clinic. He explained that the follicles of wavy hair could be damaged when using FUE.
For my case 2 sessions would be required to cover all the affected area. In each session 2,500 follicles would be extracted. The final price offered was about 7,000-7500 with VAT included - per session.
As I had explained before, I am only interested in doing the hair transplant in the FUE method, and frankly, I was a bit shocked that they would disregard doing FUE when many other doctors do not seem to have a problem in doing so with my type of hair. I was surprised, despite the fancy setting, that the photos of their results are pixely and I was not allowed to take any photos of results (like before and after pics) home. The brochure was super fancy and I was given lots of info material, however, given that it`s only FUT they want to offer me and that there was no way to talk to the actual doctor that was overlooking (NOT performing) the operation made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. As I said, the guy was really nice, but it did not seem like he has ever been present at an operation or knows what he is talking about when it comes to the details.

On the contrary, in the q-clinic, they did offer me FUE. Although the office where I had the consultation was in an exclusive area of Hamburg, the consultant who assisted us was very young and inexperienced. He must have been in his early 20s.

He told me operations are carried out in Berlin, but there is a possibility, if I insisted, that they operate in any other city within Germany. They would even fly me out to the clinic from anywhere within Germany. This is possible because the technicians, who perform the entire transplant procedure, are freelancers contracted for each operation. These are supervised by a staff doctor of this clinic. So not only is it technicians performing the operation but there are different ones each time, so the result would be a total surprise. I was given some photocopies of before and after pics that were also very pixely and honestly, I am sure that the best ones were picked out but how do I know that those exact technicians would be performing on me? Not sure about this one.
They would perform the first session in 1 day, in 12 hours of operation more or less. This is determined by the technicians, as well as the number of grafts required and the location of the front line of my hair, he said. He did not want to say how many grafts I would be getting. Maybe it was due to lack of experience or because it is company policy to keep it a bit open, his words were that they don`t believe in pinning it down to a certain number of grafts but would rather use as many as it takes to make me look good - whatever that means!
They would charge 7500 (VAT included), paid in 2 installments. This price includes flights within Germany to the clinic and one night in the hotel.

I was also at the Medical-Hair Center in Bremen. My consultation was attended directly by Dr Munawar Ahmad. Which I thought was very nice and honest. He performs the entire operation by himself. He reassured me that my hair was perfect for FUE and that there was no issue as it is not extremely curly but only a bit wavy. It would take 2 days the first session, charging 8000 in total. I definitely consider this doctor for my surgery. He took a lot of time to attend me and my wife and he answered all of our questions professionally and honest. I had the feeling he definitely knows his stuff and he is not in it for the quick sale. He was not trying to push forward like the two clinics above and I felt like I would be in good hands with him.
He showed us his results on his computer screen and they looked very good.

So I am really interested in finding out about experiences with this doctor and Dr. Lupanzula here in the forum as I am pretty sure now that I will go for one of the two.
 
C

CarlosGF

member
Hello everyone,

I've decided to make the operation with Dr. Lupanzula!
I want to thank you all for your opinions and support, it really helped me to make a decision. I'll keep you updated;)
 
JoeTillman

JoeTillman

Valued member
Congratulations on your decision, Carlos. Be sure to document your procedure and share with the community while your results progress.
 
Bigmac

Bigmac

Administrator
Staff member
Hi Carlos. You`ve done a lot of research which is good to hear. I`m looking forward to following your progress.
all the best.
Bm.
 
C

CarlosGF

member
Hello Guys!

As promised, here is my update.
I'm really happy with the experience at the Medikemos clinic. I imagined the experience to be much more impersonal, but in reality I felt at home because of the way they treated me. The personal attention of Dr. Lupanzula surprised me a lot. Really, the entire staff was wonderful.

As for the operation, I spent almost all of the time sleeping. The only really painful part was when they administered the local anesthetic via injection - that was horrible. But once numb I felt nothing.

I was given a menu to choose from for lunch. The Dr. and his assistants had their meal together with me which made me feel all the more welcome and looked after.
Throughout the entire surgery the doctor was by my side and untertook all surgical steps himself. I felt well taken care of. I was offered to watch movies or series, but on the first day I did not feel like it. I preferred to sleep.
After the operation I felt good, I did not really have any pain - I guess that was mostly thanks to the painkillers ;)

All I had to do was to spray a saline solution (which was given to me by the clinic) on the transplanted area every half hour, and sleep with my head raised (at a 45 degree angle so I was told) to avoid swelling.

Unfortunately my wife and I had chosen a terrible hotel, Hotel Aviation, that looked good on the pictures but was filthy, old and disgusting...the only good thing was that it was very close to the clinic. Next year for my second operation we will definitely stay elsewhere.


Below are the photos of my first day of operation:


https://i.imgur.com/hmuvaYo.jpg [/ img]
Here I am in the waiting room ...


[img] https://i.imgur.com/uTNAVip.jpg [/ img]
Dr. Lupanzula draws the frontal hairline


[img] https://i.imgur.com/ncqkt88.jpg [/ img]
Here you can see the whole area to be transplanted in the first operation.


[img] https://i.imgur.com/ZfC1DWx.jpg [/ img]
In this picture, all my hair has been shaven ...


[img] https://i.imgur.com/5cauQwi.jpg [/ img]
Here I am in the operating room. I already have the donor area marked.


In the following photos you can see all of the marked areas:
[img] https://i.imgur.com/h04ZkSY.jpg [/ img]
Area to be transplanted in the first operation

[img] https://i.imgur.com/RiD3WJ3.jpg [/ img]
[img] https://i.imgur.com/GqQi81b.jpg [/ img]
[img] https://i.imgur.com/Ow7f2VD.jpg [/ img]
[img] https://i.imgur.com/k2i8b2x.jpg [/ img]


Below is the result of the first day of my operation:

[img] https://i.imgur.com/AOffZfO.jpg [/ img]
[img] https://i.imgur.com/1pyXyJf.jpg [/ img]
[img] https://i.imgur.com/PqkcJyf.jpg [/ img]

To be continued...
 
C

CarlosGF

member
Sorry, I ´m not able to upload all images correctly, so you can find all images in the following PDF
 

Attachments

  • Images.pdf
    308 KB · Views: 309
bullitnut

bullitnut

4 awesome repairs with SMG
This is awesome it's great seeing pictures and reading about people's experiences. You chose a great clinic/surgeon and it sounds like they really looked after you well.
Looking forward to further updates.
Thanks for sharing
 
C

CarlosGF

member
Hi guys!

Thank you very much for your support and comments!

Here is my second day of operation.

Once I got there, the Dr washed my head with Isobetadine Shampoo, explaining how I should do it in the following days of the operation.



He also applied a cream in the donor area for a quick healing:





In the following pictures you will see the result of the operation. I really liked the final result of the front line, it's irregular, natural! In many other clinics I saw results in which the front line was very symmetrical, in others a straight line (horrible!) ...
The truth is that I am very happy with my new hair: D





Any comments will be very well received ;)
 
Top