J
j1000
member
Well it is time for me to return the favor and post my experiences after this and a few other reputable forums have helped me over the years. I wanted to post on this forum as well. It is only right for me to return the favor. I just returned to the United States from Turkey for a procedure I had done with Dr. Ozlem Bicer in Istanbul at the end of August 2022. I am only three days post operation. This, however, is my second transplant. I had one small operation 7 years ago with Dr. Bradley Wolf in Cincinnati, Ohio that was 1,200 grafts to lower my frontal hairline a little. I think me choosing that operation was a little premature on my part (I was not pressured by him, in fact he was conservative with grafts which is a double-edged sword. Despite the great natural look of his hairline, I needed a few more grafts in the hairline to thicken it up, which is part of what this second operation was, but I also was only 26 I think at the time and still had more balding to go). For this second transplant I again wanted to fill in the frontal hairline a little more, as well as fill in my huge crown area. She said she put about 700 more grafts in the front hairline, and about 2,500 or 2,600 grafts in the crown, for a total of about 3,300 grafts if I remember correctly. So between both operations, I have used about 4,500 grafts so far. I will probably need one more operation in which I think I want to do some final details on my hair. For the heck of it, I want to fill in my FUT scar from the first transplant even though Dr Wolf did great on it. I will want to fill in the crown a little bit more, I’m sure. I will want to just thicken up one little patch between my crown and frontal hairline, and then also get some nice temple points. So, with my uneducated guess…maybe 2,000-2,500 grafts more for a final procedure one day? I really wanted temple points this time around and I let her know that but she advised against it right now because she said she would have to alter my hairline shape more (and thus more grafts) in order to make it look well. I trust her on this. I think she wanted to devote this surgery to my crown and hairline so that it will look best. But in the future I hope I can get some temple points.
It seems she likes to keep the number of grafts for an FUE transplant to under 4,000. So no more than that. I’m not saying you can’t get that. It just seems like most clients get between 2,000-4,000. It seems to be the same with any other good clinic. Too many grafts would mean too many hairs fighting for blood supply and could affect healing and growth if I remember.
I have done hair loss research for about 10-11 years now. I’m not the end all, be all voice, but I know what to look for in my research and what to avoid. Dr. Bicer is one of the only good clinics in Turkey. If I had to guess, there are probably just a handful. I want to make sure I depict her accurately because it can be a little scary for someone to travel from overseas to a country where there are many notorious bad hair mill clinics. She was not pressuring at all. In fact, she was wise in her assessment of not doing certain things I wanted (like the temples, for example). She is an actual doctor, for one. She has the credentials I wanted. I won’t go into that much but he’s part of ISHRS, for example. She knows so many of the doctors I mentioned from the USA (like my first surgeon). It’s like a lot of these actual good doctors know each other because they attend conferences and workshops or whatnot together. Her staff is great too. Very professional. Very clean office, with modern yet classic design. The operation rooms are very clean and professional. I think my procedure took 6-7 hours. Paperwork before took about 45 mins, a little preparation and having the head shaved and discussing the design took about another 45 minutes. I arrived at 8:30am or so and left around 6:30-7pm. Lunch break too. The only part that wasn’t fun is the way to numb the head. But no pain, no gain. I would say the pain felt like someone snapping your head with a rubber band. They had to do it like 30-40 times to numb your head. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world but not the best. I was glad when it was done haha. But as I mentioned, her staff is great and they would constantly check on me asking if I was good during the transplant. They do a lot of the work but of course Dr Bicer does the most important stuff like designing, removing grafts, excisions of where they will go, etc. However the rest of the staff is great in doing all of the other work. You will come back again the next day for a cleaning and overview so again, take that into consideration of when you need to arrange your ride and your flight.
Well that takes care of the hair transplant stuff itself, I believe. I don’t know what I forgot. I really was not nervous about the procedure itself. I was a little more nervous about traveling overseas by myself so I wanted to make sure I could help put at ease anyone who is traveling from outside Turkey. So I will provide a very detailed synopsis below.
Lets start with the flight. From where I am in the United States, it seems like if you leave certain days of the week and return a certain day, that the flights can be cheaper. Perhaps if that is a huge issue for you, you can ask Ozen, her assistant, to schedule you for a day that works with that. Before I left at the end of August, I knew a lot of domestic USA flights were notoriously getting cancelled. But even though my Turkey flight was booked 4 months in advance, the schedule did not change once haha. I would recommend coming a few days before the transplant. As her assistant will advise, you want to be there the day before I think. But I would even add on an extra day or two ahead. So if your surgery was on a Thursday, maybe land in Turkey on Tuesday. Make a little mini vacation out of it. As for the returning flight. I arrived at the airport at 10am for a flight that left at 2:15pm. It seemed pretty busy but from the moment I walked through the airport doors until I reached my gate was cumulatively about 1 hour for customs and security check, etc. I think you should arrive 3 hours at least before your flight leaves. The arrival at the airport was a little intimidating for me. I couldn’t get Wi-Fi to work on my phone because I didn’t know how. WhatsApp is how you mostly converse with Dr Bicer office and she also sent me the number of the driver who would take me to the hotel but I couldn’t figure out how to get Wi-Fi to connect. I thought I left the driver waiting too long but he was still there. You get Wi-Fi from these little kiosks and you get an hour for free or something. Just ask the staff, they are very helpful.
After you land in Istanbul, you’ll go downstairs and do the passport stuff. Make sure to have your Evisa for your visit too. From there just follow signs down to ground level I think. Ozen sent a map of what gate my driver would be at. Walking outside to where the drivers are is a little different. There are a bunch of people with numbers and it looks a little hectic. It’s usually a bunch of young guys. They aren’t the drivers, they just help corral you to your driver. Look for your number and give them your name. They will take you to your driver. Since I landed at IST airport, it was about 50 minutes from my hotel / her office. Keep that in mind when timing your return. For my 2:15 pm flight I requested to leave at 9:30am or so from my hotel.
Technically you can stay at any hotel you want but you will want it to be next to her office. There is the Sheraton literally like a stone’s throw away from her office, or a small one maybe 7 minute walk which is what I chose. I was there for a week. My hotel (the Gate 30 suites) was about $50 a night. Dr bicer’s office has a deal where you get two nights and transport services to and from airport, all for 300 euros I believe. I chose my own hotel since I needed more nights. The driver service was 100 euros for BOTH to and from (so 50 euros each way). Just save yourself the pain for trying to arrange transportation yourself and add on this extra service with Dr. Bicer’s office. By the way, you don’t pay the driver directly, it is charged at Dr. Bicer’s office. I do regret not leaving a tip with some cash lira for him but I was confused.
Go see at least one site or one experience while you are there. I found a female friend who helped me around.
As for using money there, I thought every place would take my credit card no matter what. Some places it did but a few it did not. I have Visa, Mastercard, American Express credit card. It’s nice having a card with no foreign transaction fees too. If you’re going to eat somewhere just have some cash lira on hand just in case. ATMs are easy to come by there. I think maybe debit cards work in those instances where my credit card does not but I’m not sure. As far as getting euros, for someone who is American like me and wanted to get a good rate, I’d suggest not getting euros before hand through a service but instead use an ATM there in Turkey. A lot of travelers recommend the Charles Schwab debit card which is popular for overseas travel. I’d recommend it. They refund any ATM fees for withdrawing euros. So for example, the atm would charge me like 50 euros for withdrawing 1000 but no worries because it is refunded. Paying for the actual hair transplant, I chose to pay in cash because with card it is like 10% more because the bank would charge their office a fee or something. So I liked paying the cash (euros) option. I most often used a atm from TEB bank there. When using it, you’ll insert your card and it will give you English prompts, and then choose euros to withdrawal. You can choose lira if you’re going for food and drinks. Euros is only for the doctor office payment. My atm had a daily limit but call Schwab and request a higher limit for one day. Since I was there multiple days in advance I didn’t really need to do that because I just withdrew x amount for each day until I had the total I wanted for cash price of the cost of the transplant.
When I was eating there, I was a little nervous to go alone since I don’t speak the language, but it was not a big deal. I stayed in one spot with multiple restaurants inside it called Bulvar 216, I believe. It has Starbucks, a pizza place, a sushi place, and many more. For peace of mind, I pretty much exclusively ate there.
Hmmm, I don’t know if I have forgotten anything but feel free to leave your questions. Again, I am only three days post operation. I definitely recommend Dr. Bicer. If I decide to do one final transplant (hopefully only one more final transplant), I will most likely go back to her because I am familiar with her. I have enough in my donor supply but I was pleasantly surprised that, in moderation, she can also use beard and chest hair for my head, all of which I have an abundance of haha.
It seems she likes to keep the number of grafts for an FUE transplant to under 4,000. So no more than that. I’m not saying you can’t get that. It just seems like most clients get between 2,000-4,000. It seems to be the same with any other good clinic. Too many grafts would mean too many hairs fighting for blood supply and could affect healing and growth if I remember.
I have done hair loss research for about 10-11 years now. I’m not the end all, be all voice, but I know what to look for in my research and what to avoid. Dr. Bicer is one of the only good clinics in Turkey. If I had to guess, there are probably just a handful. I want to make sure I depict her accurately because it can be a little scary for someone to travel from overseas to a country where there are many notorious bad hair mill clinics. She was not pressuring at all. In fact, she was wise in her assessment of not doing certain things I wanted (like the temples, for example). She is an actual doctor, for one. She has the credentials I wanted. I won’t go into that much but he’s part of ISHRS, for example. She knows so many of the doctors I mentioned from the USA (like my first surgeon). It’s like a lot of these actual good doctors know each other because they attend conferences and workshops or whatnot together. Her staff is great too. Very professional. Very clean office, with modern yet classic design. The operation rooms are very clean and professional. I think my procedure took 6-7 hours. Paperwork before took about 45 mins, a little preparation and having the head shaved and discussing the design took about another 45 minutes. I arrived at 8:30am or so and left around 6:30-7pm. Lunch break too. The only part that wasn’t fun is the way to numb the head. But no pain, no gain. I would say the pain felt like someone snapping your head with a rubber band. They had to do it like 30-40 times to numb your head. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world but not the best. I was glad when it was done haha. But as I mentioned, her staff is great and they would constantly check on me asking if I was good during the transplant. They do a lot of the work but of course Dr Bicer does the most important stuff like designing, removing grafts, excisions of where they will go, etc. However the rest of the staff is great in doing all of the other work. You will come back again the next day for a cleaning and overview so again, take that into consideration of when you need to arrange your ride and your flight.
Well that takes care of the hair transplant stuff itself, I believe. I don’t know what I forgot. I really was not nervous about the procedure itself. I was a little more nervous about traveling overseas by myself so I wanted to make sure I could help put at ease anyone who is traveling from outside Turkey. So I will provide a very detailed synopsis below.
Lets start with the flight. From where I am in the United States, it seems like if you leave certain days of the week and return a certain day, that the flights can be cheaper. Perhaps if that is a huge issue for you, you can ask Ozen, her assistant, to schedule you for a day that works with that. Before I left at the end of August, I knew a lot of domestic USA flights were notoriously getting cancelled. But even though my Turkey flight was booked 4 months in advance, the schedule did not change once haha. I would recommend coming a few days before the transplant. As her assistant will advise, you want to be there the day before I think. But I would even add on an extra day or two ahead. So if your surgery was on a Thursday, maybe land in Turkey on Tuesday. Make a little mini vacation out of it. As for the returning flight. I arrived at the airport at 10am for a flight that left at 2:15pm. It seemed pretty busy but from the moment I walked through the airport doors until I reached my gate was cumulatively about 1 hour for customs and security check, etc. I think you should arrive 3 hours at least before your flight leaves. The arrival at the airport was a little intimidating for me. I couldn’t get Wi-Fi to work on my phone because I didn’t know how. WhatsApp is how you mostly converse with Dr Bicer office and she also sent me the number of the driver who would take me to the hotel but I couldn’t figure out how to get Wi-Fi to connect. I thought I left the driver waiting too long but he was still there. You get Wi-Fi from these little kiosks and you get an hour for free or something. Just ask the staff, they are very helpful.
After you land in Istanbul, you’ll go downstairs and do the passport stuff. Make sure to have your Evisa for your visit too. From there just follow signs down to ground level I think. Ozen sent a map of what gate my driver would be at. Walking outside to where the drivers are is a little different. There are a bunch of people with numbers and it looks a little hectic. It’s usually a bunch of young guys. They aren’t the drivers, they just help corral you to your driver. Look for your number and give them your name. They will take you to your driver. Since I landed at IST airport, it was about 50 minutes from my hotel / her office. Keep that in mind when timing your return. For my 2:15 pm flight I requested to leave at 9:30am or so from my hotel.
Technically you can stay at any hotel you want but you will want it to be next to her office. There is the Sheraton literally like a stone’s throw away from her office, or a small one maybe 7 minute walk which is what I chose. I was there for a week. My hotel (the Gate 30 suites) was about $50 a night. Dr bicer’s office has a deal where you get two nights and transport services to and from airport, all for 300 euros I believe. I chose my own hotel since I needed more nights. The driver service was 100 euros for BOTH to and from (so 50 euros each way). Just save yourself the pain for trying to arrange transportation yourself and add on this extra service with Dr. Bicer’s office. By the way, you don’t pay the driver directly, it is charged at Dr. Bicer’s office. I do regret not leaving a tip with some cash lira for him but I was confused.
Go see at least one site or one experience while you are there. I found a female friend who helped me around.
As for using money there, I thought every place would take my credit card no matter what. Some places it did but a few it did not. I have Visa, Mastercard, American Express credit card. It’s nice having a card with no foreign transaction fees too. If you’re going to eat somewhere just have some cash lira on hand just in case. ATMs are easy to come by there. I think maybe debit cards work in those instances where my credit card does not but I’m not sure. As far as getting euros, for someone who is American like me and wanted to get a good rate, I’d suggest not getting euros before hand through a service but instead use an ATM there in Turkey. A lot of travelers recommend the Charles Schwab debit card which is popular for overseas travel. I’d recommend it. They refund any ATM fees for withdrawing euros. So for example, the atm would charge me like 50 euros for withdrawing 1000 but no worries because it is refunded. Paying for the actual hair transplant, I chose to pay in cash because with card it is like 10% more because the bank would charge their office a fee or something. So I liked paying the cash (euros) option. I most often used a atm from TEB bank there. When using it, you’ll insert your card and it will give you English prompts, and then choose euros to withdrawal. You can choose lira if you’re going for food and drinks. Euros is only for the doctor office payment. My atm had a daily limit but call Schwab and request a higher limit for one day. Since I was there multiple days in advance I didn’t really need to do that because I just withdrew x amount for each day until I had the total I wanted for cash price of the cost of the transplant.
When I was eating there, I was a little nervous to go alone since I don’t speak the language, but it was not a big deal. I stayed in one spot with multiple restaurants inside it called Bulvar 216, I believe. It has Starbucks, a pizza place, a sushi place, and many more. For peace of mind, I pretty much exclusively ate there.
Hmmm, I don’t know if I have forgotten anything but feel free to leave your questions. Again, I am only three days post operation. I definitely recommend Dr. Bicer. If I decide to do one final transplant (hopefully only one more final transplant), I will most likely go back to her because I am familiar with her. I have enough in my donor supply but I was pleasantly surprised that, in moderation, she can also use beard and chest hair for my head, all of which I have an abundance of haha.
