Scabs

EastCoast

Hi Dr. Cole --

I had two and a half days "in the chair" Nov. 13-15. Everybody was great, and I was very impressed.

I have two post-op questions that I wanted to post.

Over the last 9-10 days, I've been vigilant about using bioten spray to keep my scalp moist (days 0-6), careful about washing my hair daily (at first just dabbing with fingertips, later very light lathering and circular figertip massaging), and keep my head out of the sun.

Question #1 (Scabs): Yesterday (day 10) post-surgery (day 9, if you count the extra 100 graft touch-up I had on the 3rd day), I started gently caressing my new hair back and forth trying to remove the scabs. I also began very carefully picking off the scabs with my fingertips (I couldn't resist actually -- it jusr felt like it was time). There was no blood whatsoever. What came off were very small scabs, a few had hair attached, but the vast majority were just small, hairless, dry round scabs. I hadn't read the forum, which -- as luck would have it -- recommended waiting until day 9/10. After reading the forum, I decided to get more aggressive by wetting my hair with shampoo and massaging the recipient areas in circular motions. Again, no blood whatsoever, just lots of little red (dried blood from the day of surgery) and yellow crusts (again, some with hair attached). Is everything ok? Like others on this forum, I've spent a lot of money on my transplant and want to make sure everything is ok and that I didn't just screw up an otherwise perfect 1900 graft procedure because I couldn't keep my hands off my head. Assuming everything's ok, how aggressive should I get now, days 11-12-13-14 post-op. There are still a few scabs left.

Question #2 (Hair appearance) -- Now, 10 days post-op, can I get a haircut that evens out my appearance. How careful does the stylist need to be? During surgery, I left my hair long on top -- so I now have short transplanted hairs mixed in with my longer hair (which looks kind of funny). Also, as I look at my transplanted hair today, it looks more dense in the days after surgery. There seemed to be more little hairs in the donor area than there is now. Maybe this is from the little hairs falling out (particularly the 1s and 2s), or maybe it looked more dense because it was surrounded by dried blood. Either way, can I expect greater density in several months than I'm seeing today (day 10) or than I saw on day 1-2?