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After Your Hair Transplant at Bernstein Medical

What To Do After Your Hair Restoration Surgery

The night of your hair transplant, and for the next few nights afterwards, you are encouraged to sleep with your head elevated on pillows. Medication is given for sleep and pain (if needed). Antibiotics are generally not required. The morning after your hair transplant surgery, you will remove the headband and shower and shampoo your scalp every four hours – just for the first day. We'll call you the next day to make sure that everything is OK. You won't need to come into the office at this time, but are welcome to do so.

For the remainder of the week, you should shower twice a day. When showering, you will be instructed to gently clean the transplanted area with a special shampoo. The follicular unit grafts are made to fit snugly into the recipient sites and will not be dislodged in the shower, if you follow the instructions given to you. After your first shower, no further bandages are required.

Although you must be very gentle for the first week, normal shampooing, brushing and hair care can be resumed after two weeks since, by this time, the grafts are firmly in place. You can also have a haircut at this point. You are able to dye your hair, if you choose, four weeks after the hair transplant.

You should avoid alcohol for three days following your hair replacement procedure and abstain from smoking for two weeks. When in strong sunlight, you should wear a hat. After two weeks you may use a sunscreen with a SPF of 30+.

Generally patients can resume normal daily routine almost immediately. Limited exercise can be started in the first week. You should avoid strenuous exercise for several weeks following hair restoration surgery, depending upon the type of donor incision and the laxity of your scalp. We ask you to return to the office for a one week follow-up visit, but for those who live at a distance from our facilities, this can generally be handled by phone.

What To Expect After Your Hair Transplant Surgery

If the post-operative instructions are followed carefully, in most patients, the transplant is minimally detectable after a few days and almost undetectable after the first week to ten days. Patients are given medication for swelling at the time of surgery, but some still experience swelling of the forehead that settles across the bridge of the nose and around the eyes. If this occurs, it is almost always gone by the end of the first week.

The newly transplanted hair begins to grow at around 10 weeks. It is long enough to be groomed in about 6 months and, in most cases, will be fully grown in at one year. In the few months following a transplant, before the new hair starts to grow, there may be some shedding of your original hair so that the transplanted area may temporarily appear slightly thinner. This is a transient phenomenon and will be corrected when the new hair begins to grow. It should not be a cause for concern.

The following table describes the usual course for persons having Follicular Unit Hair Transplantation or Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) where indicated. There will generally be significant person to person variability, so if you do not follow the course exactly, do not be concerned.

POST-OP	THE TRANSPLANTED AREA	THE DONOR AREA
The Day Following Surgery	Patients are instructed to wash their hair gently, but thoroughly, so that the scalp is free of any blood.	Expect some soreness, tightness and possibly some numbness. With FUE there will be some oozing in the donor area.
Days 2-3	Scabbing is largely gone. Moderate redness may be present. Some swelling may appear on the forehead.	Soreness in the donor area begins to disappear. Some numbness may continue. There is generally no discomfort in the recipient area.
Days 4-6	If there is significant swelling, it may settle across the bridge of the nose and around the eyes and cheeks.	In the donor area only, any residual crusting can be removed with directly running shower water.
End of  Week 1	Swelling usually has subsided. Redness is faint or absent.  The hair transplants look and feel like a week-old beard. Patients are seen in follow-up.	Soreness is generally gone. Rarely there is some persistent numbness. With FUE, the donor area is usually healed.
Day 10	Grafts are firmly in place.  Any residual crusting may be gently scrubbed off.	Sutures or first set of staples will be removed.
End of  Week 2	The grafts are permanently in place and cannot be dislodged. The transplanted hair begins to be shed. Patients may return to normal shampooing, brushing and combing and may get haircuts.	Sutures begin to absorb. Numbness is uncommon.  If staples are used, some or all will be removed.
End of  Week 3	The majority of the transplanted hair has been shed.	The knots at the ends of the absorbable sutures begin to disappear. Remaining staples are removed.
End of  Month 1	The follicles enter a resting phase. You will look very much like you did before the procedure.  Patients may dye their hair.	The donor area should still be protected against strenuous activity that stretches or puts undue pressure on the back of the scalp.
Months 2-5	The newly transplanted hair starts to grow, initially as very fine hair. Some or all of the original hair that was shed begins to grow back.	Any residual numbness in the donor area has generally resolved.
Months 6-9	Hair is groomable, but it continues to grow and thicken. Slight textural changes in hair are occasionally present.	The donor area regains most of its strength.
Month 10	Patients are seen in follow-up. If a second session is considered, it will be discussed.	Donor laxity has been restored.
1 Year	The final appearance of the hair transplants can begin to be appreciated.
1-2 Years	There may be additional fullness. Any textural change in hair usually returns to normal.

Post-op Instructions for a Hair Transplant at Bernstein Medical

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