At Nashville Hair Doctor, we know from experience that one of the biggest concerns for our patients is the recovery afterwards, and how long they might have to take off from work. This article addresses that concern, and we hope that it helps you in planning for your hair transplant experience.
Why do people delay undergoing hair transplantation? It’s simple: they can’t, or don’t want to, deal with a long recovery.
For many men suffering from hair loss, getting a hair transplant can be a life-changing experience. There is no doubt that filling in your hair where it has been thinning and receding will make you look years younger and boost your confidence. However, even if it is clear that a hair transplant can do wonders for their appearance, patients often times shy away from going through with it. Or, at the least, they delay their decision for months, losing valuable time for potential hair growth.
Why do people delay undergoing hair transplantation? It’s simple: they can’t, or don’t want to, deal with a long recovery.
How Long Does it Take to Recover After a Hair Transplant?
What we mean by recovery is really a combination of two things. The first is your physical recovery, i.e. how long you need to recuperate to get back on your feet. This is time lost that you’ll have to take off from work and during which you won’t be able to engage in your regular activities.
But there is a second aspect to your recovery, which we might call the social recovery period. This is the time it takes for your scalp to heal so that the marks of the transplant are no longer visible. You may be in perfect physical shape after your procedure, but you may be reluctant to show yourself at work if there are any visible signs that you’ve undergone hair restoration. If you’re self-employed or work outdoors or in a casual environment, you might simply don a hat (once you are cleared to wear a hat), but for our patients in a corporate environment this poses a challenge.
Recovery Time Depends on the Type of Hair Transplant
Different types of hair transplants vary in both of these recovery times. With the so-called Strip Method, your physical recovery is substantially longer than with an FUE transplant such as NeoGraft, because the trauma of surgically removing a strip of scalp requires a longer time to heal.
This is why NeoGraft is so popular with professional athletes who can’t afford to stay off the field for weeks at a time. A NeoGraft hair transplant uses simple pneumatic pressure to extract hair follicles for transplantation. It is so minimally-invasive that most patients are perfectly fine to return back to all of their regular activities, even strenuous exercise, within 2 days of their procedure. Many patients return to work the very next day.
This fast recovery after NeoGraft is wonderful news if you have a busy life and don’t want to be told to take it easy for several weeks. But what about your social recovery? When can you safely go back to the office without people asking what happened to your head?
Physical Recovery is Different from Social Recovery
In our experience at our Hair Doctor offices in Nashville, Memphis, and Louisville, patients need 7-10 days of time after their NeoGraft hair transplant to return to a “normal” look. This is approximately how long it takes for the small red marks of transplantation to scab over and disappear, and for the hair in the donor area to completely grow back in.
Please bear in mind that there won’t be any scarring. But there will be temporary marks from extracting and re-inserting the individual hair grafts. Depending on the number of grafts, entire areas of your head may be covered in those temporary marks that look like small red dots. Again, if you don’t mind about this appearance, there is no need to miss much or any work at all. You’ll physically be able to return to your job the day after your procedure. Or perhaps you schedule it on a Friday and return to work on Monday.
View Your Downtime as Playtime
But if you work in an office environment with a more formal dress code, you’ll probably want to schedule up to ten days off after your hair transplant procedure. The good news is that you won’t be physically impacted at all. This is why we don’t call it downtime. We prefer to call it playtime. Many of our patients use the opportunity to travel – wearing a hat on the beach is totally acceptable! You can be as active as you want. If you want to lounge in a chair and read a book all day, that’s fine too.
For more information, contact Nashville Hair Doctor.
