 Hey everyone, Raif DeRozzi here and this is the night before my flight to Istanbul, Turkey tomorrow where I will be getting a hair transplant. What? Raif! You don't need a hair transplant, you're saying. Well, thank you. So taking it back, I wasn't exactly in search of getting a hair transplant. I have thought about it numerous times in the past. I've researched it, I've looked it up, I've followed Instagram accounts that specialized in it. I don't really have... So I'm thinking about my hairline. I don't really have hair loss there. I've always had a high forehead. Genetically, that's just what it is. It's a five-head. That's my genetics. It's always been like that ever since I was a little kid. And I've always thought about, wow, it would be kind of cool to get a hair transplant and just lower the hairline, fill in the temples a little bit. So that's what I'm going to do. And also, I forget how many years ago, but I started to notice thinning in my crown. I started to take finasteride for that, and it instantly stopped it, even got a little more hair density back. But they're going to take a look at that and see if they want to put any there as well. But primarily, the focus is on lowering my hairline a bit. And they mentioned about... And of course, this is just from pictures, because I haven't been there in person yet for the consultation. But based on the pictures I sent them, they're thinking like 3,000 graphs. So 3,000 holes in my head where they are going to take hair out. 3,000 of those. And then 3,000 places where they are going to insert it into my head for a total of 6,000 holes in my head. If you're like me and you have... What's the name of that fear? Oh, I can't even think about it. Where you see lots of holes. I got to look it up really quick. Fear of lots of holes. Oh, trypophobia. Look it up if you haven't heard of it. It's a real thing. Trypophobia, T-R-Y-P-O phobia. And seeing pictures of hair transplants after they've just had it done and all the holes. Oh, it makes my skin crawl. So that's what I have to prepare for. So this clinic, Hair Center of Turkey, reached out to me via Instagram. The wonders of social media. They have 2.5 million followers. You can look them up at Hair Center of Turkey, I believe. I'll have all the information down below in the description box. Anyway, they have great reviews. I liked all their content that they had on Instagram. It looks really good. They have really polished videos as well for people getting before and after with the hair transplant. They have great reviews on Google as well. And you can also see independent videos on influencers' YouTube channels where they had the procedure done and everything looks good. I'm going to take them up on it. YOLO, you only live once. And so I'm going to take them up on this offer. Let's go. Let's just do it. So here are the details. All I had to take care of personally was the flight. They are going to set me up in a 5-star hotel. They are going to pick me up from the airport. Take me to the hotel. They'll take me from the hotel to the clinic each day that I need to go and back. And then they'll take me back to the airport at the end of the week when I'm ready to go home. So like I've done in the past with other cosmetic procedures and things, I will document this for you. And hopefully you will walk away with a better understanding of what getting a hair transplant may entail, of course, depending on where you go and who you see. But this should give you a general idea of what to expect as I uncover in real time what to expect. Of course, I had some reservations. My agent, as well as many other loved ones in my life, were like, Rafe, how do you know that this is legit? How do you know that this Instagram account is real? They could have picked the followers. How do you know that the Google reviews are real? They could have faked those as well. That's not that hard. Their website could be fake. Their WhatsApp, all of that, the way that they're communicating with you. Have you corroborated anything? And honestly, so I've looked at their Instagram and their Google reviews and their website and the WhatsApp that I'm communicating through them with and all of the contact information matches. That's good, right? I've met a guy with over 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube getting his hair transplant done at Hair Center of Turkey and in the description box below his video he has the same WhatsApp that links to the WhatsApp that I'm communicating with. All the corroborating evidence put together, I'm not worried. Yes, it's crazy. I'm going to a foreign country I've never been to before to meet people I've never met I'm going by myself because that's just the way I didn't have a choice, that's just how the cards played out. I'm just going to do it. In the meantime, I've been doing a ton of research and talking to people about hair transplants and Reddit has been a huge source of great information for me. There's a hair transplant sub-Reddit you can follow, I've been following that. People have provided incredible resources to prepare for beforehand what to expect during and then what to expect for the healing process after and how the hell do you get home from Turkey on a plane looking like I don't know, the elephant man all bandaged up and potentially oozing out of your head and get on a plane and go home and deal with all of that so that's been an endeavor to research but I got a bunch of stuff that I prepared for the things that I got for the trip and why. So first things first, I got this neck pillow like travel neck pillow and that is essentially after I get my procedure the graphs that are going to be placed in my head are going to be very loose and something as easy as hitting my head or resting it on something can dislodge it and kill it essentially so when I go to sleep at night I have to have this around my neck and I have to sleep I'm supposed to be a little bit elevated as well because there can be swelling and inflammation and so you want your head to be elevated above your body preferably around 30 degrees so I'll just have a bunch of pillows behind me and then I'll also have this around my neck and then just try to sleep on my back as best as possible without like rolling over and potentially you know pressing my head against the pillow so neck pillow and that's also really great for when I'm traveling home I think that'll keep everything nice and secure okay I heard that there is the potential for oozing especially out of the donor site because you know graphs are actually being pulled out so you have literal holes there that have to heal so yes there will be bandages covering the holes however there still could be some oozing and it might get through, go through the bandages so I bought these pillowcases to actually cover the hotel pillows I heard that asked from people who didn't have that that it went through the bandages onto the pillow case or the pillow itself and then you're damaging a hotel property you're going to get charged for that in addition to the pillowcases that I'm bringing I got this big old bag of puppy pee pads I probably got too many I mean I hope I don't need that many and so I'm thinking I'm going to put the hotel pillow and then cover that with my pillow cover so that if there is oozing it goes onto my pillow cover and if it goes through that it goes into the pee pad and gets absorbed there there's no way it's getting onto hotel pillow property might be overkill but I would rather be overly prepared and take every precaution then find myself in a position where I'm like oh shit I wish I would have done something in addition to that I got these I'm not going to take it out because it's so neatly put in here but they're disposable airplane seat covers it's like a really cheap thin fabric and I just put it over the seat cover on the plane and that way I just think it's courteous on my part if I have oozing that that's not getting transferred to the airline seat and then in addition I'm protecting myself from whatever microbes or whatever could be on the airplane seat getting onto my essentially open wounds after the procedure it's expected to have swelling and so I've heard people say that they have to wear headbands so I'll have this put around my head to hopefully contain the swelling I've seen some pretty shockingly grotesque pictures not gonna lie of the swelling traveling down from the head into the eyes and people looking like they got hit by a car so hopefully it'll keep it all contained from here up the swelling that is I've got this baby shampoo super gentle after the treatment put this on and you just like use a cup of warm water to rinse it off you don't want direct pressure but that is very sensitive for the scalp as it's healing so I'm gonna use that a couple things to treat my scalp this aloe vera gel this is specifically for the donor site because people have said that they get intense itching as it's healing and putting this on just lightly coating it and aloe gel is cooling and soothing and it helps and then I also have this saline spray and I'm not 100% whether this is for donor site or the recipient site or both sites but I'm gonna talk to the doctor and see if they even recommend but I wanted to have it on hand in case I need it while I'm there so I've got all that and then also just having button up shirts because again you don't want anything touching especially the recipient site of the grafts because anything can dislodge it so taking off on and off a shirt just exposing yourself to the potential of the collar or some part of the shirt rubbing and dislodging grafts so you wanna have button up shirts so I brought a bunch of button up shirts and that'll all get packed up as well so I'll get there tomorrow they're gonna pick me up from the airport I'm gonna go to the hotel and rest for the night and then in the morning I'll go and then we'll do the consult and talk to the doctor and everything and get their advice on everything so I really wanna bring in the camera and then we'll do the consult so you can see what that's like also beforehand I mentioned obviously hey I mean they did reach out to me on Instagram it's very obvious if you look at my Instagram account but I'm living with HIV, I'm an HIV advocate it's what I do but I wanted to be very direct and make sure that was clear I'm living with HIV is that an issue, are you prepared for that even though in my head I'm thinking it shouldn't be an issue at all whatsoever and when you're doing something in a clinical setting you have to have certain practices anyway that should mitigate any concern over something like HIV but it's helpful to communicate that and that I'm on medication and undetectable so I communicated all that they're totally cool with that in fact the person that I'm in contact with now said that one of their doctors actually did a YouTube video it's in Turkish because I looked at it briefly but there are captions subtitles where they specifically address HIV which I think is really cool and unexpected that they would even take the time to do a whole video on it as it relates to hair transplants so I'm gonna do a little more research on that and hopefully talk to the doctor about it because I'm sure that a lot of you folks living with HIV you assume that there are so many things that are outside of the potential of what you can do for yourself because you have HIV or that you might get judged or criticized but at least I can show you one clinic where they are educated they're well informed and they're not judgmental and they're accepting of it and so you know that there is potential if you do your research to find places where you can do the things you want in life because HIV shouldn't hold you back nor should the stigma of people who are uneducated so I think that's it for now I'm gonna finish packing I'm gonna put all my gear, my camera my tripod, my spare batteries all that stuff, try not to forget anything so that I have that and yeah so that'll be interesting and then the next time I see you will be when I'm in Turkey probably at the hair center to go through the consultation alright stay tuned I'll put that video up for you next cheers talk to you soon