Postoperative period

Post surgery we accompany the patient to hotel and remove the bandages covering the recipient area. It is recommended to keep the head upright during the day following surgery.

It is important that the patient be able to rest during the first evening following surgery. The recipient area (the area to which the hair has been transplanted) should not come into contact with anything during sleep. It is important to avoid any trauma to the recipient area.

Although most patients report little or no pain following the operation, it is recommended that the patient take analgetics twice a day for 3–4 days should they experience pain.

The next day we accompany the patient to the clinic to remove the bandage covering the donor zone and for a physical examination.

During the postoperative period it is essential that the patient wash their head on the second or third day after surgery. The clinic officer helps the patient to wash their head for the first time and will demonstrate how to do it unassisted in future.

The head should be washed in the following way: apply lather from a children’s soap to the wet hair, leave for 2 minutes and carefully rinse with warm water. Hair also should be dried with the utmost care. It is necessary to wash the head daily for a week. From second week it is possible to wash the head more vigorously, however caution should still be exercised.

A fortnight following surgery, the patient can wash their head with their normal shampoo.

The stitches in the donor area begin to dissolve around the 14th day. During this period, the hairs will fall out from the transplanted bulbs, this is perfectly normal and does not indicate a problem with the procedure.

To avoid interfering with the blood circulation in the head area or the stretching of the suture during the recovery period, physical activities are only allowed 8–12 days after surgery.

The growth of hair from the transplanted grafts begins from the second month and can be accompanied by a small amount of dermal irritation which quickly subsides in the process of hair growth.

The suture becomes virtually invisible after the 8th month as the hair grows.

The first hairs which grow from the transplanted are more twisted than the patient's normal hair, and can be hard to brush. However after a couple of haircuts the structure of hair is restored to its usual form. In a year after the surgery all differences will have disappeared.

 

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