I felt like a balding has-been – a hair transplant restored my confidence

When Dom noticed his bald patch, he resorted to having a hair transplant in Turkey. Here’s how it went – and what you should know

The wake-up call came a few years ago, seeing a picture of myself bowling in a cricket tournament in Thailand and wondering who on earth this imposter was. I’d been aware of a certain amount of thinning on top but the stranger with the bald patch appeared somehow alien. It should have come as no great surprise: my father died at the premature age of 41 and by then had already fallen victim to considerable hair loss. 
However, the shock of seeing my own crown now looking sparser than a deforested section of the Amazon also served as my Eureka moment. I desperately needed to counter the disconnect between the virile, hirsute Peter-Pan figure I imagined myself to be and the balding has-been I witnessed in the photograph.
Growing up with two brothers had left me with an unshakable competitiveness and there was a bitter irony to my ever-increasing circle given they’d mocked my wild bouffant for years. Perhaps this was just one more contest I needed to win, but this time my opponent was Father Time himself.
Given I’ve never been much of a “hat person” for a few years I’d used various minoxidil-based products to curtail my hair loss but while this seemed to decelerate the loss slightly it didn’t provide me a silver bullet solution. When I saw an old school friend who had visibly undergone a successful transplant himself albeit in the less exotic climes of Manchester and at quite a cost, this was enough to convince me to act. I was ready to silence all those witty friends who’d started nicknaming me ‘Cadfael’ and ‘Friar Tuck’ for good 
Several weeks before the trip I was introduced to the team in Istanbul via a cordial Zoom call, which helped verify their assessment of me being a suitable candidate beyond the photos I’d already sent them. With my half century fast approaching, the inevitable receding hairline had also caught up with me so as part of my procedure I decided to have an additional, smaller graft area implanted on my forehead, which upon completion would uncannily resemble the Batman logo (visible only for the first few weeks).
Was I worried about having it done in Istanbul, amid all the scare stories about people ending up with pubic hairs on their heads and Turkey teeth to rival Rylan’s? Definitely, though I’d received assurances that Estenove, which claims to be one of the best hair transplant clinics in the world, had a lot of happy – and hairier – customers. I was also reassured by the fact the clinic is regulated by the Turkish Ministry of Health, and currently holds one of the highest success rates of between 90-95 per cent per transplant.  
Such is the trend of travelling to Turkey for cheaper cosmetic treatments that Estenove treated an average of 235 patients every month last year, almost half of whom were from the UK, an increase of 13 per cent since 2021. According to Batuhan Kizilcan who co-founded Estenove in 2019, the recent surge in British patients is partly a result of them “spending hours” on Zoom calls during the Covid pandemic “being forced to look at themselves”.  And it’s not just head hair; interest in beard transplants has been growing steadily over the last few years as more people become aware of the procedure.
My trip starts badly at Heathrow airport when Turkish Airlines refuse to let me board the plane given my ticket is in the name of Dom but my passport reads Dominic. Thankfully, my Turkish contacts who had booked the flights are able to fix this over the phone and I make it in the nick of time (leading to a few more grey hairs). Such is the door-to-door service provided by Estenove that a VIP taxi, adorned with studded roof lights, is waiting outside the terminal to whisk me to my hotel amid the city’s iconic minarets. Murat Alsaç, another co-founder of Estenove, is my charming guide throughout my trip.
After a restless few hours’ sleep, I’m driven to the Academic Hospital at the crack of dawn to meet Polen, my chaperone and translator. Her calm and clear English is comforting and she talks me through the process, step by step.
During the initial consultation with the hair transplant surgeon, through bleary eyes I’m asked to guide the doctor’s pen as he sketches out my new hairline. This is the part you don’t want to get wrong, as the actor James Nesbitt and comedian Jimmy Carr can arguably both attest. Too low and you end up looking as ridiculous as Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again. Too high and what’s the point? The look I am trying to emulate is that of England cricketing legend Ben Stokes, who recently had the courage to admit that his anxiety over his hair loss had prompted him to have a transplant in secret. 
My hair is rapidly shaved off, allowing easy access to the scalp given I was having follicles implanted on my crown and all the way down to my forehead. I had been fearful about anaesthetic being injected straight into my bonce, but instead a needle-free numbing agent is applied with a special gun; a relatively new technique that uses a high-pressure jet to deliver a fine mist of anaesthetic solution to my scalp.  
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The 15 pumps I receive from the gun felt like a series of minor bee stings, more sensitive around the ears and forehead. With Polen talking to me at this stage, I focus on maintaining a level of dignity through gritted teeth. In truth this is the only painful part of the process.   
The next two hours of the 6.5-hour session were spent face down, leading to some extremely blocked sinuses, as the extraction of 4,600 follicles (FUE or follicular unit excision) begins from the donor area: the side and rear of my head. Eventually a doctor enters the room to undertake the next stage: opening the channels in the graft areas via tiny incisions made with micro forceps over several millimetres in depth. It’s worth noting prospective clients should have sufficient donor area capacity as hair removed is from the root and does not grow back.
The final phase of the procedure is the grafting or implantation itself. I hadn’t realised what a painstaking process it would be, with the harvested follicles carefully transplanted one by one using pen-like instruments with a hollow needle. During this stage I drift in and out of sleep, vaguely aware of the three industrious women working efficiently behind me and the soft music emitting from the television, which somehow feels therapeutic.
The post-transplant instructions I’m given at first seem overwhelming: no tea, coffee or alcohol for five days; apply foam on the grafts every day for two weeks; nothing spicy or salty to be eaten for a week; and how on earth am I supposed to not bend my head or look down at my phone for a fortnight? I’m told not to wear a hat for 12 days, but this isn’t problematic as I embrace my new skinhead. I leave carrying two large carrier bags containing a year’s supply of special shampoos and other Estenove hair products with clear instructions on when to use them.
Leaving the hospital, I climb into my taxi and immediately bump my head on the low ceiling, resulting in a quick assessment back inside the hospital by a doctor and the news I am now down to 4,598 follicles. Back at the five-star Pera Palace hotel, given the amounts of adrenaline – among other chemicals – gradually fed through my cannula earlier, I feel strangely charged. Glancing in the mirror beyond the bandages I don’t see a jaded, bloody-headed patient rather Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, pumped up but – given the strict orders to protect my tender head – unable to leave my room!
With the aid of half a Valium tablet, I sleep surprisingly well given I’m propped up at 45 degrees with an array of pillows and a travel neck cushion, which also serves to soak up blood from the donor area. Because you cannot lie on the transplant until it’s healed, I have to sleep like this for the next 12 days.
The next day, I’m summoned back to the hospital for bandage removal and a very delicate wash of the graft areas, allaying any fears I might lose more follicles. Remaining in Istanbul an extra day means I don’t have to endure the ignominy of flying back looking mummified on “Turkish Hairlines” heavily bandaged, although it doesn’t take Miss Marple to deduce the purpose of my trip.
There’s a good reason why Istanbul has become synonymous with hair transplants: at approximately £3,600 for the procedure I had, including travel and a five-star hotel, it’s three times cheaper than the UK and roughly four times less expensive than in the United States.
Walking through the front door back home my family are intrigued but not as horrified as I’d feared. Helpfully, Estenove sets up a WhatsApp support group to monitor my progress and offers me further guidance, a reassuring level of aftercare. It takes about a fortnight for scabs to naturally fall off, allowing more oxygen to the hair follicles. Most patients experience ‘shock loss’, an initial loss of hair strands transplanted before the hair grows back denser and healthier, but I am lucky to be among a minority of patients who isn’t affected by the phenomenon. 
Apart from the first fortnight’s itchiness, one of the most difficult things to endure is being unable to cut my hair with scissors for two months (shaving with a razor is not advised for the first six months), meaning I must put up with a new, unkempt look. But when I do go for my first post-op trim, I’m delighted to be told by my hairdresser that she can’t tell I’ve had any work done at all.   
A year on, the reaction from friends and family has been overwhelmingly positive, one more of envy rather than ridicule. While it can take up to 16 months to fully see the results, the trip has already undoubtedly increased my confidence while two friends have already booked flights out to Estenove in the coming weeks. I can think of no finer compliment.
For further information visit bahrs.co.uk
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