If you are searching for hair transplant possibilities in Turkey, you may come across a term called “hair mill.”
It is used to describe a low-quality clinic that should be avoided, and the country, unfortunately, has a lot of them in it.
Due to how popular medical tourism is in Turkey, if you are traveling from abroad to get surgery here, you will need a survival package.
No need to worry; I have gathered the top 5 hair mill red flags you can look for to avoid hair mills and protect your hair’s future.
In today’s article, I will talk about the hair mills in Turkey, their red flags, and what you can do to avoid them and be safe from severe consequences.
Table of Contents
First, let’s start by understanding what a hair mill is:
What does a hair mill mean?
Following the criteria put forward by the ISHRS, we can say that essentially, a hair mill is a clinic that has little to no doctor involvement in surgery.
These are either fake clinics or low-quality clinics that directly put your health in danger by;
🔷 Cutting from necessary tools and methods for low costs,
🔷 draw the hairline poorly,
🔷 waste the donor hair with low graft survival rates,
🔷 and rely on the technicians rather than the surgeon to do the surgery.
Although the overall malpractices may differ, the core issue is always the same: Valuing “saving money” over the patient.
Based on the things I hear on a daily basis from the previous experiences of my patients, my medical advice to you is to stay away from clinics with financial sensitivity.
If a clinic is trying its best to draw your attention with additional discounts from every corner, then you should worry about what makes the prices drop so low in this specific clinic.
That is why you should look for the essential warning signs to know how you can stay away from them:
5 Red Flags of Turkish Hair Mills
There are various red flags that you can look for in each clinic; however, essentially, they all can be collected under 5 main categories:
1️⃣ Surgeries with NO doctor involvement
As I have mentioned in the definition earlier, whether an actual surgeon is doing the surgery or not is a direct defining aspect of hair mills.
If the online reviews you read about the clinic are about “not seeing the doctor once during the surgery,” that is a hair mill clinic.
If the surgery is done by technicians instead of the leading doctor, that is a hair mill clinic.
🔹 So, overall, the key issue here is not having consistency.
Going into the surgery, you do NOT know if an actual surgeon or a group of technicians will take care of you.
Furthermore, we are often NOT even given any information about these technicians on the clinic’s website.
Ultimately, there is simply too much potential for things to go wrong:
➡️ You don’t know where the doctor is.
➡️ You don’t know the experience and qualifications of the surgical team.
➡️ You don’t know if they are professional or not.
➡️ You don’t know what type of anesthesia will be used or who will administer it.
➡️ And finally, you don’t know if you are getting the same treatment as all other patients.
In fact, the risks are so high that the official ruling of ISHRS simply does NOT approve of any clinic that does not include surgeons during surgeries.
However, there are more signs you can look for:
2️⃣ Multiple patients in one day, in one room
Similar to the previous one, this red flag can be easily noticed by checking the clinic’s surgical rooms or teams.
Hair transplantations are surgeries, and thus, a healthy clinic would treat them as such. 🧼
As you wouldn’t have your surgery in the waiting room of a hospital, you shouldn’t accept sharing the surgery room as well.
⚠️ Otherwise, sharing the same room with different patients during surgeries is NOT hygienic and extremely dangerous, not to mention that it also divides the attention of the doctor and reduces your surgery’s effectiveness.
That is why at UnitedCare, I accept only 1 patient per day and personally conduct the bio-enhanced hair restoration surgery.
For best results, prefer clinics that give you comforting, in-depth information about their surgical rooms and processes beforehand:
3️⃣ NO private surgical room and NO English-speaking care assistant
Hair mills have separate teams for welcoming, preparation, surgery, and even follow-up. Not having the same team dedicating themselves to you at all times is problematic in two ways:
▶️ Separate teams don’t provide patients with trust: As you will meet different people in every part of the process, you will not get the chance to know and trust them.
That means you will have different people going in and out of the room constantly during the surgery, which will make you feel insecure. Also, the fact that these large amounts of people speak in their native language around you is NOT comforting.
The language barrier creates issues in other areas as well:
▶️ The “follow-up team” has an unqualified care assistant with poor knowledge of English or none: In the consultation phase, having a customer care assistant to explain the entire process is something that these clinics lack.
Due to the same reason, these clinics have online comments about how they stop contacting patients after surgery.
For your safety AND comfort, we solely work on your surgery from start to finish with the same team full of English-speaking technicians and doctors.
Here is a direct review from one of our patients about it:
4️⃣ Planting too many grafts with DHI in a single session
Hair mills unrealistically promise more than they can provide in every aspect.
The most common one is the promise of planting too many grafts (almost 5000 in some cases) in a single DHI session.
This is NOT possible, even with the DHI technique, as it requires experience and expensive tools (both of which they lack) of multiple doctors working on different angles of your scalp simultaneously, which is very dangerous.
Let me explain:
In Direct Hair Implantation surgery, a special implanter pen is used to open channels and implant grafts simultaneously, which makes it more expensive than other techniques.
However, it is a more advanced technique and requires more experience.
Up to 3500 grafts can be transplanted in a single session since the surgeon does all graft placements. Yet, some clinics assert that they can transplant more hair with DHI.
If any clinic says so, it means 2 or more technicians implant grafts to different areas with different DHI pens simultaneously, which is quite dangerous since the patient has 2 different implant styles, resulting in an unnatural look. The eye can easily detect this difference at first glance.
Aiming for reasonable promises and outcomes can help you detect these false claims.
Otherwise, you will be left with NO real support and a transplant that turns into failure in the post-surgery:
5️⃣ Low pre and post-transplant support
A hair transplantation process is NOT comprised of the surgery process alone. So, any clinic that acts as if it is by mostly directing your attention to their surgery promises while leaving out any information about the rest has a huge red flag. 🚩
A prominent pre and post-surgery support is the KEY factor in determining whether your hair transplant will be a success or a failure.
Thankfully, there are some places you can check to see whether the clinic has a supportive system before and after the surgery:
*️⃣ Check the website to see if it’s updated and informative.
*️⃣ Check if it’s a “too few patient managers for too many patients” scenario.
*️⃣ Check if you can see before and after photos of the clinic’s previous patients anywhere online.
*️⃣ Check if the clinic’s surgical team has easily accessible background information about their experience.
If it is difficult to find any information about these vitals services of the clinic, then it means they will leave your side the second the surgery ends.
That is why you should act first and be the side that avoids the other:
How can you avoid hair mill clinics in Turkey?
During your research phase, you can check the clinic’s website or get in touch with their care assistant to hear their consultation directly and ask these essential things:
🔶 Do they have surgeries with doctor involvement?
Remember, this is the essential requirement of NOT being a hair mill, stated directly by the ISHRS.
🔶 Is the leading doctor a dermatologist or at least a plastic surgeon?
In a competitive field with so many hair mill traps, such as Turkey, the ONLY hair transplants you can trust are the ones that are either dermatologists or plastic surgeons.
🔶 How many patients do they accept in a day?
The more patients there are, the less they will focus on your surgery individually, reducing your transplant’s effectiveness.
🔶 Do they have pre and post-transplant support, and for how much?
Since hair mills aim for low costs and accept multiple patients in a single day, they can’t provide regular post-surgery support.
🔶 Where do they have the surgeries, in a hospital or a single surgery room?
Like every other surgery, a hair transplant deserves the unbothered attention of the surgical team in an isolated, hygienic room from start to finish.
So, having different people get in and out of the room freely or having a team with no way of directly communicating with the patient in the same language is unacceptable.
Ultimately, if any clinic fails at this small quiz, it is most likely that getting a transplant there will have severe consequences:
What are the consequences of getting transplants in a hair mill in Turkey?
There are numerous dangers of Turkish hair mill clinics, and if you ever make the mistake of trusting in one, the consequences would be:
⚡ Having your limited donor area butchered by young non-medical technicians.
⚡ Having an unnatural hairline, with different angles in different parts, and not in line with your existing hair.
Ideally, the hairline I draw by hand following the existing hair looks like this:
⚡ Facing depression and anxiety due to the failed surgery and needing a second operation to fix it.
⚡ And finally, the worst-case scenario: Possible lifetime baldness.
After all the research you’ve done, becoming a victim of any of these horrifying scenarios would be a complete shame.
That is why you need to trust in a clinic that your hair deserves:
Choose “the right hair clinic that is worth it” now
At UnitedCare, we begin your hair transplant process by offering you a free one-on-one consultation with our expert dermatosurgeons to determine your suitability.
💊 Our holistic approach provides advanced technologies and bio-enhancements to ensure you do not need another surgery.
We use intracellular solutions (a.k.a bioenhancements), helping cells stay alive for days outside the body. These solutions increase graft survival rates significantly. 💉
Most importantly, our care assistant/patient manager is in contact with our patients even before and after the surgery, ensuring that your transplant becomes permanent. 🍀
Affordable hair transplant costs, a holistic approach, and experienced dermatologists on-site are here to provide you with the right solution.
Click here to start with a FREE consultation:
Choose the clinic that your hair deserves to avoid a second surgery.
Restore your natural look with a Dermatosurgeon now:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What Is the Best Hair Mill in Turkey?
There is none, as hair mills are not capable of being “good” due to how dangerous they are. A hair transplant is a surgical process that demands professional attention, and I cannot condone any clinic that ignores that.
How Much Do Hair Mill Clinics in Turkey Cost?
Usually, it is much less than the average cost of hair transplantation in Turkey, which is $2056 for 2000 grafts. So, for the same amount of grafts, a hair mill might potentially give you a price between 1000 and 2000 dollars.
How Much Does a Doctor-Involved Operation Cost in Turkey?
Doctor involvement is the fundamental element of being a reliable hair clinic, as the ISHRS states. The average cost of hair transplantation in Turkey is measured according to the prices of reliable clinics. That being said, by logic, a doctor-involved operation in Turkey, on average, can cost around $2056 for 2000 grafts.
