How long til I see results?

CITness

Waiting for growth can be a stressful situation considering the hair transplant may have caused common temporary loss (shock loss) as a result of the transplant. At the six month mark, you should be seeing new growth on the recipient areas. Once the hairs are transplanted, they go into shock then a dormant phase from approx. 3 to 25 weeks. During this time, we advise our patients to wear a thick hat over the scalp for 6 months if they are exposed to prolonged sun exposure. Then one morning, you will start to notice hair in places where it used to be. Your friends and associates will not know what has actually occurred but will more than likely say, "You been working out". And that's how the results subtely arrive.

DCJ

Hi Citness,

I am roughly 17 weeks(4 months) post op with Dr. Cole and had 1640 grafts in the frontal and forelock area. In your post you mention that sometimes the transplanted hair can lie dormant up to 25 weeks before growing. Is this the case often for the hair to take that long to start growing in the recipient area? Does the hair line normally take longer as well? At 4 months post op, should I be worried if I have not had a lot of growth yet? It seems one side of the hair line has not started yet. What is the normal yield percentage that one would expect of the transplanted hairs.....example: 90%----95%...lower or higher?? Any thoughts or advice? Thanks for your time Smile

Thanks,

DCJ

CITness

Hi DCJ,

It's totally normal to see the hair shafts of the transplanted follicles shed after 2-3 weeks. The increase of density to the hair line comes in very subtle in appearance and growth can be seen just like any other area of the scalp. You will also notice that after about 3 months, the pre-existing hair surrounding the hair on the hair line is much longer in length.

Some of the transplanted grafts do go into a non-growing phase (dormant phase) due to trauma on the scalp. Every follicular unit in the donor area grows at a different rate there for a small percentage of the transplanted hair will continue to stagger in throughout a 12 month time frame. Hair line growth is really no different from any other growth region of the scalp besides the crown.

Please remember, that if a patient has a great amount of hair loss then has a hair transplant to increase density, the cosmetic change or amount of growth isn't as noticeable than a patient who had no density before hair transplant procedure.

DCJ, hang in there and stay positive. Patients should care for the transplanted grafts and limit extended sun exposure. I hope my words were helpful?