Bald truth about the boom in bargain hair transplants
revised this to 4,300; it was one of several clinics that offered to harvest more than 4,000 grafts.
Britain’s Dr Vara is alarmed. ‘While some patients may require 4,000 grafts to give them a desirable result, this should not be performed in one sitting.
‘There is a high risk of failure, as the grafts that are taken out are unlikely to survive such a lengthy procedure.’
He points out that last year a man in India died after a hair transplant where he had asked for 9,000 grafts.
‘While there hasn’t yet been an identifiable cause,’ Dr Vara says, ‘poor surgical planning and the size of the procedure potentially caused his death.’
During my consultation at Cosmeticium, Dr Kurtoğlu insisted that moving more than 4,000 grafts would be no problem. ‘If you want, you can get 6,000 grafts, maybe 7,000 . . . but we can extract 4,500 without any damage.’
Cosmeticium, like many Turkish clinics, promises ‘100% Painless Needle-Free Anaesthesia’.
This is a common marketing promise in Istanbul clinics. Highly pressurised air or liquid is used to penetrate the scalp. In most cases, after this has been administered, a needle then injects local anaesthetic. (Elithairtransplant also boasted of its ‘patented needle-free anaesthesia’.)
Only later, when I met Dr Kurtoğlu, did he concede: ‘The numbness blocks you feeling the needles. After that we will use needles to inject anaesthetic.’
I shared a taxi to the consultation with an Australian who’d had the procedure the day before with Dr Kurtoğlu. He was going for a check-up and to have his bandages removed before flying home.
By chance, he worked as an anaesthetist. He said of the ‘needle-free’ anaesthetic: ‘It didn’t work. It should sting but it shouldn’t be painful. But it was quite painful, I had to ask for it to be topped up.’
He added: ‘It’s such a competitive market [in Istanbul], they tell tall tales. Like it’s not painful, there will be two doctors there and stuff like that. It’s just not true. There were two doctors there but I didn’t see them do anything.’
Did that worry him? ‘Yeah, it did a bit. The technicians were obviously skilled and trained but in my opinion, coming from a place where that would be unacceptable, you feel like you are being misled.’ Then he added: ‘I suppose if the results are good I don’t mind.’
Cosmeticium — again, like most Turkish hair clinics — also claims that, thanks to the ‘ surgeon’s success and skill... no trace or scar is left in the area of removal’. Greg
Williams, of BAHRS, says this is impossible. ‘ All surgery leaves a scar. If you make 1,000 holes, you get 1,000 little scars.’
The final claim made by Cosmeticium is that the transplant is guaranteed. This was confirmed by Dr Kurtoğlu in my consultation. He pointed to the back of his head: ‘This part, the hair’s roots, are not affected by testosterone, which causes hair loss. We take hair from here and put here [he pointed to the front]. It is guaranteed it will not fall out.’
Greg Williams says: ‘ This is surgery. How can you possibly give any form of guarantee? It’s just not ethical.’
Cosmeticium is by no means the only Istanbul clinic to offer a guarantee. Elithairtransplant, for instance, offers a 30-year guarantee. For me, this would mean that my transplant was guaranteed until I was 75.
Was this possible? Yes, according to Dr Abdulaziz Balwi, who runs Elithairtransplant and who had been Jay’s doctor four years ago.
‘The guarantee we give to you after the operation. We guarantee that 700 of the 1,000 grafts will grow up [sic]. In fact, we give you more than 900. But we give guarantee for 700.’
He explained that if more than 30 per cent of my transplanted hair fell out, I could come back to Turkey — at my own expense — and he would perform another operation free of charge.
His clinic was certainly slick, with a steady stream of patients. I had a blood test, was asked quite detailed questions about my medical history and was handed a goody bag containing a branded neck cushion (so I didn’t rub my head on my pillow after the operation).
Jay claimed he had received a poor hair transplant, despite Dr Balwi receiving almost universally glowing reviews on various websites.
Elithairtransplant was also one of many clinics to offer ‘Sapphire FUE Hair transplant with the GOLD Method’. Cosmeticium said they too used ‘sapphire blades’ to extract the grafts, which was ‘more kind and gentle’.
Greg Williams says: ‘ These are all marketing terms and complete nonsense.’
PERHAPS Elithairtransplant’s oddest claim was that Dr Balwi has ‘ conducted more than 20,000 hair transplants’. This seemed improbable for a man aged under 40.
George Jimoh, my ‘ patient coordinator’ at Elithairtransplant, who had booked me in for my £ 1,850 operation — for a less ambitious 3,500 grafts — had told me Dr Balwi would do the transplant and I would be one of just ‘two or three’ people having the procedure at his clinic that day.
At breakfast in my hotel, however, I spoke to 11 men — mostly from Germany but some from Switzerland, France and Portugal — who all told me they were being operated on by Dr Balwi later that day.
In my consultation, Dr Balwi said there were 17 hair transplants in his clinic that day.
I asked if he would be doing the operation himself. ‘ No. I will co-ordinate the operation.’ When I asked which doctor would be extracting my hair and making incisions into my scalp, he said: ‘I don’t know. I can check.’ He did not supply me with a name.
This is a common complaint, not unique to Elithairtransplant: qualified doctors do not operate, leaving it to mostly lowpaid technicians.
This would be illegal in the United Kingdom. ‘Under UK law, only a doctor can use a knife or a scalpel to make incisions into anybody,’ says Dr Vara, adding that technicians have a vital role to play, but ‘the surgeon should do about 75 per cent of the hair transplant’.
When I backed out of the operation, Mr Jimoh, who was based in Germany, called me to say: ‘This is the best clinic for you ... I am doing all my best to help you. I am just hurt. I just want you to do it.’
He later denied this was putting any pressure on me, saying: ‘I said it to empathise with you for the inconvenience this might have caused you.’
For me, it was easy to say no. But as Oliver, who says he had a terrible experience in Istanbul, points out: ‘It is really hard to walk away when you have flown four hours across Europe to have it done, you’ve booked into a hotel and have taken two weeks off work. You’re already invested in the procedure.’
OLIVER says he had serious concerns from the moment he walked into the hospital and was given a consultation lasting just five minutes, at which his questions were only partially answered.
He adds: ‘But you end up listening to the information you want to hear: that it’s affordable, that it’s a simple thing — have it done, come home and everything will be good. But it’s a serious procedure. I wish I’d taken more time to listen to those nagging doubts.’
He believes the end result was awful. ‘I became very obsessed about it, and quite anxious and depressed about what I’d done to myself.’
Challenged on the claim that extracting 4,500 hairs was safe, Cosmeticium’s Dr Kurtoğlu said: ‘These numbers are absolutely not the exact goals.’
He pointed to a Chinese study that suggested men with transplants of between 3,000 and 6,000 grafts in one operation were 81 per cent satisfied with their outcomes.
In a statement, Dr Kurtoğlu said it was ‘unfortunate’ that I felt under pressure at Cosmeticium after expressing a desire to back out of the operation.
He also said Cosmeticium’s website and the quote I was given ‘must have caused misunderstandings’ over promises of ‘needle-free painless anaesthesia’ and any ‘scarless method’.
Dr Kurtoğlu added: ‘There is no question of complete elimination of pain ... There will be a mark after extraction ... Once the healing process ... is completed, the scars will decrease slightly and they will also be hidden after your hair grows.’
Elithairtransplant’s Mr Jimoh denied putting any pressure on me. He insisted it was standard for a doctor only to draw the hairline and not to operate: ‘The procedure takes five to 12 hours. There is no hospital where the doctor will do all of that ... all the technicians who have worked in our hospital need to have over 12 years of experience.’
He also pointed to Elithairtransplant’s 2,446 reviews on the Proven Expert website, where it scores 4.71 out of 5 for customer satisfaction. Dr Balwi did not respond to Jay’s allegations.
Every year, thousands of men come to Turkey for hair transplants. Perhaps many, like the Australian I met, don’t mind a few corners being cut if the end result is convincing and the price is a fraction of what they face in their home country.
But hundreds are nonetheless lured in by cheap prices and overambitious marketing claims, and end up regretting it for years.
As Dr Vara says: ‘For them, it is devastating. Their life has been torn apart.’