What to Expect After Hair Transplant Surgery

August 23, 2018

Are you tired of being self-conscious about your hair loss? Maybe you’re even thinking about having hair transplant surgery? If so, at Dr. Cotterill’s clinic in Toronto, we provide hair transplants for men and women suffering from hair loss for a variety of reasons. The Procedure Itself Is Virtually Painless and the Recovery Period Is Fairly Quick. Here’s a Timeline of What You Can Expect:

The day of the surgery

You’ll be instructed to sleep with your head elevated at a 45-degree angle to avoid rubbing and dislodging your new grafts. You can also apply ice packs to avoid swelling.

The next day

You’ll come back to the office so Dr. Cotterill can assess your grafts and so you can have your hair washed. After this, you’ll be allowed to wash your hair gently once a day with a special shampoo. At this point, you can also return to work. However, you may wish to take additional time off, as scabbing will be visible on the transplant site for another six days or so.

Second and third day

You’ll begin to notice some scabbing and crusting and your scalp will begin to swell slightly. Continue sleeping with your head elevated and applying ice packs to bring down swelling.

One week later

You’ll be able to return to your normal exercise routine. Around this time, you’ll come back to the doctor’s office to have the stitches from the donor area removed. Any swelling should be gone by now.

Eight to 10 days later

Your hair grafts will now be firmly rooted in the scalp and the danger of dislodging them will be gone. If there’s still scabbing, it should be gone by the 12th day.

Two to three weeks later

Don’t be surprised when the newly grafted hair begins to fall out. This is expected and normal. You may also experience some minor shock loss, in which non-transplanted hair falls out and go into a typical 3 month dormant phase.

One month later

You can have your hair cut at this point. Your hairline will look much like it did before your surgery, because the hair follicles are still dormant.

Three months later

The grafted hair will begin to grow. If you experienced shock loss, this hair will also begin to grow back.

Six months later

The hair will be about an inch-and-a-half long, but its texture will be thinner and finer than your regular hair.

One year later

You’ll have full hair growth at this point. Your hair’s thickness and texture will be at its new normal.