I tried a non FDA-approved hair loss treatment in Turkey

I tried a non FDA-approved hair loss treatment in Turkey

These are the graft sites at the back of my head. Four small chunks of skin were taken, spun down to extract the stem cells, and then reinjected across my scalp. This is my experience of Regenera Activa, an autologous micrografting treatment for hair loss, done in a walk-in clinic in Istanbul for about 800 euros. Here is why I chose it over the drugs that definitely work, what the procedure was actually like, and what I expect from it.

Declaration: I paid for this myself. I am a doctor, but I am not a hair loss specialist, so treat this as one person’s experience rather than advice.

Why now

I was in Istanbul and thought, “I’m in the epicentre of hair treatments in the world.” Over the last few years I have noticed a bit of receding at the temples, and someone kindly pointed out a little thinning elsewhere too. I’m 36, so I think I have had a good run. I have been relatively lucky compared to my brother, who went bald at 30. He got a lot of other beneficial genetic traits, so the Lord giveth and taketh away.

The reason to act early is simple: by the time you notice hair loss, you have probably already lost about 50% of the hair in that area. So I thought now is the time to start trying to slow the progression.

The treatments that definitely work, and why I said no

Going down the rabbit hole of hair loss treatment and prevention, the two that definitely work are finasteride and minoxidil. Hair transplant works too, but it usually requires finasteride and minoxidil long-term to protect the result. The more systemic the treatment, the more effective it is. Take the minoxidil pill and the finasteride pill together and, through two different mechanisms, you will improve hair density across the scalp in male androgenic alopecia.

That is not a risk-reward ratio I am willing to take on. Finasteride is a DHT blocker. Even the topical version, which you could argue is less systemically absorbed, is still absorbed systemically. When you are someone who spends the rest of your life trying to optimise every part of your hormonal axis, decimating it for the sake of some hair feels like a sledgehammer.

So I started looking at the non-hormonal medical treatments. Sadly, they are not as effective. There is a guy on YouTube who went full beans on trying every alternative hair loss therapy: rubbing peppermint into his head, micro-needling, all sorts. I think he did around 20 interventions, very systematically, every 3 months, with photos. He saw basically no improvement from any of them. So that route is potentially a dead end.

What Regenera Activa is

Regenera is an autologous micrografting treatment. “Autologous” means the material comes from you. Small skin biopsies are taken from the back of your head, processed to extract the cells, and the resulting suspension is injected back into the thinning areas. This is not something I learned in medical school. It is all quite fringe stuff, pardon the pun.

The safety profile is relatively good, even if the efficacy in the studies is debated. Some studies show it is very effective, halting hair loss and sometimes improving hair thickness by around 30% over a two-year period, with results that last a long time. But when it is compared head-to-head against the big players like finasteride, there are methodological flaws that suggest the numbers were fiddled a little. So I am not expecting miracles. For the sake of testing a relatively safe thing for 800 quid, I thought I would give it a go.

Booking a procedure in Istanbul

It is a very unusual experience being in a country where private healthcare is much more free and loose. Booking the appointment is: you WhatsApp the clinic and they say, “Yeah, come in tomorrow.” Then you walk in and it is, “Sit there. What’s your name? Lie down there. Does that hurt? Okay, let’s go. Right, there’s a plaster, here’s some stuff, here’s your credit card, see you later.” It is great. Low litigation, very easy, but quite odd to see from the perspective of a UK hospital doctor, because the UK loves its red tape.

The clinic was Dr Okyu Celan. Lovely, very approachable, answered every question, very friendly. I did not feel rushed. I did not go deep on researching all the different providers because there are so many, and I do not necessarily trust Google reviews, positive or negative, because it is a very gameable system. The clinic was a 15-minute walk from where I was staying, on a street full of dermatologists, all at roughly the same price. For a low-intervention procedure, any choice is as good as any, and I am glad I landed with her.

The procedure, step by step

• Cup of tea, quick hello, lie down on the table.
• Lidocaine injected on both sides of the back of the head.
• Two 2 mm punch biopsies taken from each side. The same kind of biopsy I used to take in dermatology clinic for histopathology.
• The biopsies go into the stem cell extraction machine, which spins them down for 10 to 20 minutes.
• The extract is mixed with a mesotherapy mix, presumably vitamins and peptides, alongside the stem cells.
• The mixture is reinjected in a grid across the whole scalp with a tiny needle.

Neither the biopsy nor the injections were too painful. The lidocaine is very effective. There was a little bleeding afterwards, so both sites were plastered. My pillow had a bit of blood on it the next morning, but nothing crazy. The scalp injections were a tiny needle and nothing dramatic.

Aftercare

The instructions were: no training for the next couple of days, do not get too sweaty (especially in Istanbul), and apply mupirocin (Bactroban) to the biopsy sites. I was also given two products to apply morning and evening: a Turkish topical foam and spray called Capigen. There are no drugs in it. It is biotin, vitamin E, phyto-keratin, menthol and allantoin. It is there to support follicular health rather than doing any anti-miniaturisation, DHT-based work.

Other than that, no adverse effects. Even if it does nothing, I am not going to be too bothered. The expected timeline is that shedding should slow after about one month and regrowth should start after about three months. It will not cause growth in areas where the follicles are entirely gone, and I think I have lost some at the front, with a loss of density further back as well. We will see.

Will I ever take finasteride or minoxidil?

Finasteride: no. Minoxidil: possibly. In my opinion minoxidil is a one-way door. As soon as you start taking it, that is it for life; you need to keep taking it. There is also a six-month window where shedding actually accelerates, because you kick the cellular growth phase forward a step. People think it is not working or is making things worse. You just have to persist through that.

I am generally sceptical, or fearful, of one-way-door treatments such as TRT as well. It is admin for the rest of your life, and you have taken an axis in your body and said, “This is now entirely reliant on this drug.” That is what attracted me to Regenera: it is something I could maybe repeat in two years’ time, and it was a very easy process.

What’s next

My plan is to support this with PRP in about three to six months, and maybe have a few of those treatments. PRP, if you do not know, is taking a blood sample, spinning it down for the platelets, and reinjecting the plasma into the scalp. It is a similar mechanism, with somewhat more robust evidence behind it, and it is cheaper.

I will follow up in three to six months with proper photos all the way round so you can judge the density for yourself if this is something you are considering. If you have questions, post them in the comments on the video. I may not be able to answer everything, as I am not a hair loss expert, but I can talk about my experience. See you in six months with my lovely flowing locks, I’m sure.