Hair transplant

Odin on getting a hair transplant in Turkey

Odin went to Turkey and came home with 4,300 new hair follicles. He describes the whole trip – how little he researched beforehand, how the procedure actually went, what it cost, what hurt, and why he thinks it was worth it. An honest conversation about something many men think about and few discuss.

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What this covers

Where the idea came from, and what it rested on
What he did not check before booking
The expectations, and what actually met him
The day at the clinic, step by step
The procedure in numbers
The pain – and where it actually sat
The rules for the first days

What this covers (cont.)

The timeline to the result
The aftercare
What it cost, all in
The reactions back home
What the conversation is really about

Where the idea came from

What he did not check

This is where the conversation is unusually honest, and it is one of the reasons it is worth hearing.

He booked the procedure without looking into the alternatives – and does not defend it.

What he had not checked: what it would have cost in Norway. Whether it should have been done in Norway. Whether he ought to have been on medication, ointments or creams beforehand. How the procedure even worked.
What he had: one positive message from one person on Instagram, and a look at one former student's hair on a night out.
Jan Sindre, who is thinning himself, had by contrast visited a clinic in Oslo and been given an assessment: he has "thin Nordic hair", a thick band around the sides and thinner on top, and was told a transplant would leave the top just as thin. Odin had never asked for that assessment.

Expectation and reality

He had made up his mind about three things beforehand. All three turned out wrong.

What he expected, and what happened

Before

The expectation

He would be the only Norwegian doing this
People at home would stare and comment
The operation itself would be the painful part

After

The reality

Someone from Sydney in the taxi, three Americans at the hotel, two Norwegians, a Dane and a Swede at the clinic
Almost nobody said anything. Nobody said anything unkind
The anaesthetic was worse than the procedure

The youngest person he met at the clinic was 21, and had lost more hair than Odin. His point is that the hesitation sits with people back home rather than with those actually travelling – as he puts it, flying to Turkey to have something done to your body is not exactly something people cheer you on for.

The day at the clinic

The order, as he describes it. The third step is the one that hurts, and the sixth is the one most people do not know about.

Seven steps, one day

The paperworkA contract stating the result cannot be perfect and that the clinic will make an attempt. He did not read it properly, and asks rhetorically what the alternative was – not signing and flying home without hair.
Shaving and marking upThe head is shaved. The doctor draws where the hairline will sit, and he got a say in that.
The anaestheticAround 40–50 injections into the scalp. This is the part that hurts.
The channelsThe small openings at the front and back where the new follicles will go.
The extraction4,300 follicles taken from the band at the back and sides. Three people working at once.
The sortingThe follicles are laid out on a table and sorted by thickness and quality. The thickest go at the front, where hair shows most.
The implantationFour people with tweezers put them back, one at a time.

The sorting step is the surprise. This is not simply moving hair from one place to another – somebody assesses each individual follicle and places the best ones where they will show. Odin describes the extraction as sounding like a small digger excavating his follicles.

The procedure in numbers

One day, summarised

Measure	Figure
Follicles moved	4,300
Anaesthetic injections	around 40–50
Length of each session	1.5–2 hours
Total time on the table	6–8 hours
People working at once	3 during extraction, 4 during implantation
Days in Turkey	3 – the programme takes 2

Halfway through he asked how long was left and was told it would not be long. It was three hours. He describes those hours not as painful but as extremely boring – you lie still while three people work on your head and speak Turkish to each other.

The pain

This is the single most useful piece of information in the episode for anyone considering the same.

The painful part is not the operation. It is the first five minutes.

How he describes the anaesthetic: it did not feel like being injected, but like somebody standing behind him with a fork. His eyes watered. On his own scale he put it at eight out of ten – and adds the caveat himself straight away: it is his scale, and anyone who has been through worse would put a different number on it.
The rest: not painful. The head is numb, and you only feel that somebody is working up there. Afterwards he was stiff, but not in pain.

The rules for the first days

The list is longer than most people expect, and it starts the same evening.

What you are not allowed to do

Rule	Why
Sleep sitting up for a week	the head must not touch anything
Do not touch your head	the follicles need time to settle
No alcohol	part of the regime for the first days
No training	same
No bathing	same
Dedicated shampoo and creams	handed out by the clinic, with instructions

The second rule is why he walked around with blood in his scalp for days: it simply could not be washed off. The day after the procedure he was back at the clinic for the first wash and a new dressing, and went home with a bag of pillowcases, a cap, a bucket hat and medication.

The timeline to the result

This is where the patience comes in, and where most people get alarmed along the way.

From procedure to final result

About one monthThe new hair falls out again, and then starts growing from the follicles. This is a normal part of the process, not a sign that something has gone wrong.
Four monthsThe first results should start to show.
Four to six monthsA full result, according to the clinic.
Twelve monthsBy now it should be good.
Eighteen monthsThe final result.

The first step is worth noting for anyone considering this: the hair you paid for disappears again before it comes back. At the time of recording, Odin says he mostly looked as though he had burned his scalp a little.

The aftercare

The clinic has its own follow-up team that keeps in touch over WhatsApp. He sends in photographs, they answer questions as they come up.

What it cost

The arithmetic

Item	Amount
Package from the clinic	2,400 euros
Included in the package	procedure, hotel, transport, medication
He arranged himself	the flights
Total, with flights and food	around 35,000 kroner

He mentions that there are clinics that split the procedure across two days, so you pay for anaesthetic twice, and others that cost twice as much. He thought the price was good – and raises the obvious objection himself: not everyone has 35,000 kroner to spend on this.

The reactions back home

This is the part he had dreaded most, and the one that amounted to least.

What the conversation is really about

Towards the end the conversation turns, and this is where the episode becomes something other than a travel account.

The arithmetic is 35,000 kroner. What he describes buying is not primarily hair.

In his own words: he has been called endless things for thinning on top. He is the sort of person who laughs most things off – but in the end it stops being funny, because you go home and go to bed.
And concretely: he describes being taken for a lecturer at a student bar, in his twenties. Jan Sindre, who is at the start of the same thing, says he does not know what he will do – and that he has long said he would simply shave it all off.

Key points

Odin booked without checking what it would have cost in Norway, or what he should have done beforehand. He is open about that throughout.
The procedure took between six and eight hours, split into sessions of an hour and a half to two hours.
4,300 follicles were taken out, sorted on a table and put back one at a time.
The worst part was not the operation but the anaesthetic injections in the back of the head.

Key points (cont.)

The price was 2,400 euros for accommodation, transport, medication and the procedure – around 35,000 kroner including flights.
The rules afterwards are strict: no alcohol, no training, no bathing, and sleeping sitting up for a week.
The new hair falls out first, and starts growing back after about a month.
The first result comes after four months. The final one after eighteen.

Key points (cont.)

He had braced himself for people staring. They barely did.
The conversation ends where it really began: that this is as much about how you feel about yourself.

Questions this answers

How does a hair transplant in Turkey work?
How long does the procedure take?
How much does it hurt?
What does it cost, all in?
What rules apply in the first days afterwards?
How long before you see the result?

Questions this answers (cont.)

What aftercare do you get?
How do people around you react?
What should you check before booking?

Spørretimen

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