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Hair Maintenance After Surgery

For those thousands of men a year who undergo hair transplant surgery, the most common question remains - How do I take care of my new hair?

This is a very important question to have answered after your hair transplant surgery, seeing as proper post-operative care is vital to the success of the surgery.

Although your hair transplant surgeon will give you all the specific details about caring for your new hair, here are some general post-operative care guidelines:

• Do not shampoo your hair for the first 24 hours following your hair transplant surgery. After this time, regular washing may resume, and despite popular belief, it will not disturb your hair grafts. Regular shampooing is important because it helps remove dirt, blood, oil, and scabs from the recipient area.

• To prevent swelling after the hair transplant surgery, your surgeon may prescribe anti-inflammatory medication. Another good way of decreasing the risk of swelling in the recipient area is sleeping with your head elevated on pillows. You can also use cold compresses to ease the discomfort of swelling or bruising.

• Control the pain of swelling, bruising, and headache with a mild, over-the-counter pain reliever like aspirin.

• Do not scrape off scabs that form at the graft sites. Vigorous rubbing or scratching with the fingernails may dislodge grafts, which may cause mild bleeding or loss of one or more hairs. Keeping the recipient and donor areas moist with a spray-on saline solution promotes their healing, and helps the scabs fall off faster.

• Strenuous activities should be avoided in the first few days after the hair transplant surgery because of the slight chance of the implants being ejected from the scalp during vigorous exercise. Also, exercise stimulates blood flow to the scalp and may lead to bleeding around the transplants.

This special care is needed for about 5-10 days following your hair transplant surgery. After this brief recovery period, no special treatment is needed, and you may resume all normal activities.