Day 1

Today was the day I received my 700 grafts in the front of my head. They finished in the early afternoon and I felt good enough to walk back to the hotel from the clinic. After sitting still for four hours, I was anxious to get on my feet again. Besides, the walk was only about a mile and a half, and the weather was beautiful. After getting back to the hotel, however, I didn’t do much moving around for the rest of the day. I didn’t really feel much pain or discomfort, but I still didn’t want to take any chances.

Day 2

I slept well last night and woke up early. I was feeling very little pain but this was the day I dreaded. I had to fly back home, would be spending over five hours in the air, and had to change planes. That’s the last place I wanted to feel pain. When you get a headache on an airplane there’s not a whole lot you can do for it until you get home. Because of this, I took two Tylenol pills before getting on. Fortunately, the flight went fine and I didn’t feel any pain.

The other big event of the day was taking off the bandages and washing my hair. I had to be very careful not to let the jets hit the grafts. I poured soapy water over the top of the recipient area, and then rinsed it in the same manner. There was no pain or irritation in doing this, and my head actually felt better afterwards. Some people will avoid washing their hair for awhile after surgery because they’re afraid it might hurt the grafts. According to Dr. Chang, just the opposite is true. The grafts need to be kept clean in order to avoid infection.

Day 3

Today everybody who knew what I was doing wanted to see what it looked like. They were all very surprised. One person mentioned that she expected holes all over my head. The common theme that just about everybody agreed on was that it looked a lot better than they thought it would. Regardless, I still wore a baseball cap whenever I went out in public. Don’t ever trust anyone that says a hair transplant can be undetectable the day after surgery. I don’t think it’s possible. [Unless you have some hair to cover the scabs.-NHT]

Other than the appearance of the scabs, however, I could easily forget that I just had surgery two days earlier. There is absolutely no pain or discomfort and very little swelling. (I still took my prednisone pills, just in case.)

Day 4

Some of the scabs started to fall off today, and the redness in the recipient area has faded quite a bit. The different thing about today is that the cut in the donor area started to hurt. I think this is because the healing and scabbing is drying out the area. It’s not really painful, just irritating. I took a Tylenol early in the evening, just in case it might get worse. It never did.

Day 5

When I woke up this morning the stitches in the back of my head were still bothering me a little. But the irritation was gone an hour after waking up, and it really didn’t bother me for the rest of the day.

I also encountered the beginning of a new side effect today. As the scabs continue to fall off, the recipient area is starting to itch. It’s very minor at this point, but I’ve heard that it can get awfully annoying eventually. Some patients have said that alcohol free aloe vera gel can help reduce the itching, so I bought a bottle in preparation for what might happen. I don’t need it yet but I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

Day 6

Getting to sleep last night wasn’t a problem. There is some irritation where the stitches are, but not enough to hamper any normal activities. In addition, there is some very slight bruising just below the hairline. It’s not really noticeable, however, unless someone were to look really close. And it doesn’t hurt at all, not even when I press on it. It seems like it’s just some left over blood from the swelling. (Which has now gone down completely.)

Washing my hair today was no longer the ordeal it was the past few days. Instead of pouring the soapy water over the front, I used my fingers to gently rub in the shampoo. (I still used the cup to rinse the shampoo out. I don’t want to let the shower jets hit the grafts for at LEAST a few more days.) And I still don’t use a brush on my hair.

Finally, the itching around the grafts is getting progressively worse. It’s not constant, and is still very minor, but I fear that it foreshadows what’s ahead. I haven’t used the aloe vera gel yet but it’s stationed next to my bed just in case.

Day 8

Most of the scabs have fallen off, but a few are left. Surprisingly, the itching has gotten better instead of worse. I haven’t used the aloe vera gel and maybe I won’t have to. But it’s still too early to tell.

I also started exercising again today. I didn’t do anything major. Just rode the exercise bike for about thirty minutes. As much as I miss it, I’m not going to start working out for at least another week or two.

Day 9

Just about all of the scabs have fallen off. There is still a little redness, but other than that, it’s no longer obvious that anything was done.

Day 10

The recipient area has healed so well that even I have to look close to see that anything was done. Aside from VERY slight redness, the only way anyone can tell is because there are now very short new hairs where there weren’t any before. None of those hairs have fallen out yet, but I expect them to do so within the next week or two. I would love to be one of the few who don’t lose the transplanted hair during the dormant period, but I don’t expect that to happen.

Day 11

I can tell the donor area is healing because it’s starting to itch. Another thing I noticed is that there is a step in the hair pattern in the back of my head. I’ve heard, however, that that happens to just about everybody in the beginning. Eventually the hair will grow and blend better as the size of the scar goes down. Besides, when I’ve pointed this out to others, they said they never would have noticed. Unfortunately, I still probably will never be able to cut my hair very short anymore. While this bothers me, assuming everything works out, it will be a sacrifice worth making.

Day 13

The scar in the donor area itches like a @%$#, although I’m careful not to scratch on the cut itself. I want to rub aloe vera on it, but I’ll wait until the stitches are out. The grafts have not gone dormant yet, but they don’t appear to be growing as fast as they were last week. I don’t know whether this is just my imagination or if that means they’re getting ready to fall out. We’ll find out in the next couple of days.

Day 14

Something unexpected happened today. My stitches came out. I had planned on taking them out on Saturday, but the healing scar literally pushed the thread out. Before taking a shower, I noticed that the ties on each end of the scar were unwinding. Then, after getting out of the shower, the whole thread just came out. All that needed to be cut were the four cross threads, which was not quite as painless. I think I may have actually waited too long to take them out because scabs were starting to grow over the threads. Therefore, the scabs needed to be pulled off in order to get the stitches out.

Day 16

The donor area is healing well. There is very little scabbing left, and I can hardly even feel a bump along the cut line. If things continue the way they are going, I shouldn’t have much of a scar at all. They say that this is an individualized thing, and some people scar more than others. I’ve had several serious cuts and stitches in my life and luckily I’ve never really scarred very much. Even still, I expected something a lot bigger than this. In addition, I’m happy to say that the step in the hair pattern has almost disappeared.

Day 18

I started lifting weights again today. I took it fairly easy, just trying to test everything out. I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary with my head, so I guess everything’s okay. Unfortunately, for my body, I can’t say the same thing. After not having worked out for almost three weeks, it’s going to be awfully sore tomorrow.

Everything else is going along normally. The scar in the donor area gets better and better everyday. I’m now gently rubbing Vitamin E gel on it before I go to bed. Some people say that this could reduce the severity of the scar. I don’t know if that’s true but as long as it’s not causing any harm, I might as well try it. As for the recipient area, I don’t think any of the hair in the grafts has fallen out yet, but it’s hard to tell.

Day 19

Some of the grafts are definitely starting to go into the dormant phase. This morning, I noticed that there was less hair in the recipient area. Then, after washing, it seems more hair came out. In a way, I’m kind of happy. While I hoped I would be one of the few whose hair continues to grow right after the transplant, I didn’t really expect it to happen. And the sooner the hair falls out, the sooner it will start to grow again.

Day 21

Many of the new hairs are now gone, and I no longer even think about the donor area. It looks like all that’s left is the waiting game. We’ll see in a few months.

(Since than, we have been giving ‘Bacitracin Ointment’ to our patients. This has reduced the redness and itching of the donor site.)

EA-1997