Quick summary: I flew to Istanbul for a 3,200 graft DHI hair transplant to rebuild my frontal hairline, where I'd lost almost all my hair, and add density through the crown. This post covers before photos and Day 0 — the day of surgery itself. Follow-up posts with Day 7, Day 14, and later results are coming as part of the same series.
I've been putting off writing this for a while, mostly because I wasn't sure anyone wants to read another "guy gets a hair transplant" post. But when I was researching clinics, it was exactly these unfiltered posts that helped me most — real photos, real numbers, nothing polished. So here's mine, starting with before and Day 0. I'll be posting updates at Day 7, Day 14, and beyond as I go.
- Graft count
- 3,200
- Technique
- DHI (Direct Hair Implantation)
- Location
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Anesthesia
- Local
- Procedure length
- ~7–8 hours
Where I started
My hair loss wasn't limited to one spot. Over a few years I lost almost all of my hair along the frontal hairline, and the crown thinned out significantly at the same time — dense enough loss up front that there wasn't much left to work with, plus visible scalp through the crown under bright light, especially from directly above.
That's basically what pushed me to finally do something about it. I'd been on the fence for a couple of years, and I used a graft calculator to get a rough sense of what I was actually working with before contacting any clinics — it's a genuinely useful reality check before you start talking numbers with a clinic.
Why Istanbul
I looked at a lot of options — local clinics, a couple of well-known chains, and Istanbul. In the end, Istanbul won for a combination of reasons: the sheer volume of procedures the clinics there do (some do multiple transplants a day, every day), the price relative to home, and the fact that the trip is usually packaged as a full experience — hotel, transport, translator, all sorted for you. It's also just a well-trodden path at this point, so there's a lot of before/after data out there if you know where to look.
I went back and forth with a clinic for a few weeks over photos and video calls before flying out. They quoted 3,200 grafts based on my donor density and the areas I needed covered — mainly rebuilding the frontal hairline, where I'd lost almost all my hair, plus density work through the crown and mid-scalp.
The day of the procedure
Surgery day started early — in at the clinic before 8am, blood tests, a consultation with the surgeon to confirm the hairline design and graft distribution, then straight into it. The procedure itself was DHI (Direct Hair Implantation) — grafts are extracted one at a time from the donor area (back and sides of the scalp, where hair is genetically resistant to balding), then loaded directly into a specialized tool called a Choi implanter pen, which places each graft straight into the scalp without a separate step to open recipient channels first. It's a variant of FUE extraction, just with a different implantation method.
It's done under local anesthesia, so you're awake the whole time. The extraction and implantation together took most of the day — somewhere around 7–8 hours with breaks. It's not painful once the anesthetic is in, mostly just long and a bit tedious lying in one position for that long. They keep you fed, and the team was in and out checking on things throughout.
By the end of the day, this is what the front and top of my scalp looked like — every one of those little red dots is a freshly implanted graft:
It looks a lot more dramatic than it feels. There's no real pain at this stage, just some tightness and mild swelling that sets in over the following couple of days.
What comes next
This is very much a "Day 0" post — there's nothing to show for it yet in terms of actual hair growth, and I want to be upfront about that. The grafts you see in that second photo will shed within 2–3 weeks (completely normal, don't panic if this happens to you), then go dormant for a couple of months before new growth starts, with most of the visible result showing up between month 6 and month 12.
I'm planning to post updates as I go — week 1, month 1, month 3, and so on — so this becomes an actual before-to-after record rather than just a before-and-Day-0 post.
Before → Day 0, side by side
Frequently asked questions
What is a DHI hair transplant?
DHI (Direct Hair Implantation) is a hair transplant technique where grafts are extracted one at a time from the donor area — the same way as standard FUE — then loaded directly into a specialized tool called a Choi implanter pen, which places each graft straight into the scalp without first cutting separate recipient channels. It's often chosen for tighter control over graft angle and placement density.
How many grafts do you need for a receded hairline plus crown thinning?
It depends on how much of the hairline and crown are affected and your donor density, but cases covering both the frontal hairline and the crown commonly land between 3,000 and 4,500 grafts. Mine was quoted at 3,200 grafts after a clinic reviewed my photos and donor area. A free graft calculator can give you a rough starting estimate before you talk numbers with any clinic.
What does Day 0 look like after a hair transplant?
Immediately after surgery, the recipient area is covered in hundreds of small red dots — one per implanted graft — and there's usually mild swelling and a gauze band around the head from the procedure itself, not a bandage over a wound. It looks dramatic but isn't painful at this stage. See the Day 0 photo above for exactly what it looks like.
When do transplanted hair grafts shed, and is that normal?
Yes, it's completely normal. Most transplanted grafts shed within 2 to 3 weeks after surgery — this is often called "shock loss." It doesn't mean the transplant failed; the follicle stays in the scalp and goes dormant before regrowing months later.
When does hair transplant regrowth start showing?
New growth typically starts around month 3 to 4, with most of the visible density improvement showing up between month 6 and month 12. Final results are usually assessed at 12 to 18 months.
How much does a 3,200 graft hair transplant cost in Istanbul?
Package pricing in Istanbul for this graft range commonly falls somewhere between $1,800 and $3,500, depending on the clinic and what's bundled in (hotel, airport transfers, translator, aftercare kit, medication). I'm not publishing my exact price in this post, but that range is realistic to budget against when comparing clinic quotes.
Thinking about your own transplant?
If you're at the stage I was a few months ago, trying to figure out roughly how many grafts you'd need, our free AI cost calculator or, once you've had yours, the post-transplant progress tracker take under a minute and don't require an account.
A note on this post
This is a personal account of one person's experience and results, not medical advice. Hair transplant outcomes vary by individual — talk to a qualified surgeon about your own case.