By the seventh month, the results were clear: my hair was more beautiful than it had been in decades. I looked younger. I felt younger. When I went to my hairdresser, he whistled with admiration, like a grandfather swollen with pride.
After the cut, he said to me: “Sorry, I have to do something at any cost”. He ran his hand back and forth through my hair, a big smile on his face. “It’s so good.” On our first date, my wife told me that I don’t look like I’m 46 years old. (It’s the kind of little lie we all tell, but still.) She continued, “You still have your hair.” “A matter of luck, I guess. I have good genes.”
My opinion on hair transplant in Turkey: is it worth it?
Around the ninth month, studying the line of my forehead with undisguised pleasure, I came to a less pleasant observation: I had gained weight. My face was puffy and my cheeks were full. I can’t blame the transplant, but the lack of self-confidence that came from being bald has been replaced by anxiety about how bad my body looks.
Both of these fears were obviously foolish. (It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right?) But I found that I harbored nagging insecurities about my appearance (like many of us, I suspect) and that the symptoms were treatable, no matter what I did to optimize his body, but the underlying psychological problems remained. That’s how it goes with money. Research on happiness suggests that when we buy new things, we feel a thrill of pleasure that quickly fades and then returns to its original state. Then we experience new desires and this cycle repeats itself over and over again.
Of course, I can’t expect a hair transplant to tame my inner demons; the goal was to restore my hair, not to serve as therapy, and from that point of view, it was a remarkable success. My formerly bald scalp was now mostly filled in, my forehead line was thick, and I no longer had to apply pomade to “hide” the bare corners of my widow’s peak (in fact, my V-shaped implant on my forehead was completely gone). I had beautiful, naturally thick hair.
During a trip to South America, I met a group of young people who were in their twenties and thirties. They were shocked when I told them I was 46 years old. I thought I was just being polite, until one of the guys said to the rest of the group, “You’ll never guess how old Alex is!” It was the first time. I have never received such a reaction before Istanbul. This is truly a work of transplantation.
After a while I no longer had the impression that it was a transplant but my own hair and that I no longer had to worry about it. Today I’m in my tenth month and I even forgot to update “Hair of Istanbul”, let me tell you how calm I feel.
Would I repeat the operation? Absolutely. (I’m not saying that you you should do the same: do your research, understand the risks, and be well aware of what to expect.) I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but a transplant doesn’t fall into that category. I would even say that hair transplants will become much more common in the near future, especially if the costs continue to fall.
The results are too compelling to ignore. Recently in the evening I ran into a friend who knew about my stay in Istanbul, but whom I hadn’t seen since the ugly duckling phase. “Your hair is great!” she whispered to me, so as not to burn me in front of the others. I thanked her, told her that I was satisfied with the result and that it must have rejuvenated me. She looked me carefully from top to bottom, before asking, “Have you been thinking with botox ?”