FAQ – After Care

Most surgeons advocate use of surgical dressings to minimize risk of graft loss. Most often, this dressing is removed after 24 hours; no dressing is required thereafter.

It isn`t absolutely mandatory but because you take some medications durins surgery some of them induce drowsiness, You`d better have a friend after finishing of the surgery. it is also necessary to have anyone else drive you home after the procedure.

When you leave the office, you usually have a headband and bandages around your head to protect the donor site. The majority of patients have little trouble sleeping the first night, and any discomfort can be relieved with medications. Patients having second and third procedures sometimes have a little more postoperative discomfort.

For the first 24 hours, there will be a strip of bandage around the head. After that, you will be able to remove the bandage and shampoo your hair. If you have the surgery done on the hairline, the small scabs will remain for seven to ten days. Some patients may want to cover the area with a cap or even a hairpiece at work if they desire. If you have partial hair, it is much easier to cover up the area, or you can use a camouflage product.When the small scabs fall off after seven to ten days, the freshly implanted grafts will be pink, slightly shiny skin which is usually a similar color to the surrounding normal skin and is minimally obvious at first. After approximately six weeks, the areas where the grafts were transplanted are barely visible. Pre-existing hair around or adjacent to the transplanted grafts may shed, giving a thinner look, but will begin to grow back within a few months. This temporary thinning of pre-existing hair is called Telogen Effluvium. Unfortunately there is a time lag between this increased thinning of pre-existing hair and re-growth of transplanted hair, so do not be alarmed if this happens.

With the new-style tiny grafts, little or no time off from work is required and you can resume relatively normal activities the next day with few problems but if you are sensitive about how you will look during the days immediately following, you can wear a hat, or, if that's not possible in your work environment, Dr. Vafaei recommends beginning the process just before your holidays. It is best to avoid heavy exercise for several days. You might not need to take much time off from work or from your routine social activities. With the older style hair plugs, you had to be careful to avoid any activity for fear of losing the grafts, which were four millimeters (about one fifth of an inch) in diameter. Now, you'll just have some redness of your scalp, and usually some scabbing, which will last for 10 days or so.

You`d better return to the office the next day to have their dressings removed and their hair washed. You won't need bandage after that, and the grafts won't usually be very obvious, other than some redness and/or crusting. Any shampooing you do should be done with mild massage very gently. Scratching of the transplanted area is strictly firbidden. Scabbing can last roughly 5 days. You should avoid the sun, and if you live or work in an environment that's dusty or dirty, you should wear a cap. we will recheck you in about 14 days to remove stitches from the donor area. After the first month you may see about a half Cm. of hair growth, but after that the hair will go into a resting period for about 2-3 months, and then start growing again. This is normal, and doesn't mean that the transplant didn't “take.” It’s hard to kill those hair transplants; they are tough. At about 4 months, you will often see one Cm. of hair. The hair will gradually thicken and strengthen over a period of about 12 months.