Post Op Day 3- I noticed little to no bleeding on the pillow case now and the pain in the donor area has converted to more of just some tightness unless I touch the area. Because I wear a hat when I'm out I applied antiobiotic to the donor area in the morning and the evening. Its a bit sensitive along the staples when I touch it with a Q tip. Overall I'm feeling great and looking forward to being able to trying to style it a bit and see what I can do with it to make it less noticeable when I return to work in a couple days. Though my post op instructions say you can start to use styling product at post op day 3, I'm a bit conservative and can where a hat every where I go so I'm going to just stick with that.

Post Op Day 4-

One thing I will say is that while many experience itching and irritation at their donor area and around the grafts I have none of this in the donor area. I occasionally have some light itching in 1 or 2 small areas on the top of my head that I just kind of apply light pressure to through my hat and thats good enough. Its barely noticable and I'm So thankful I had a great surgeon/team working on me.

Post Op Day 5-

So I messed around with my hair a bit today to see if I could style it a bit so its not too noticable I had a HT. I don't really try to remove the scabs with my fingers even though its safe to do so for the ones that are loose. There aren't many and they are so small I just run a small comb through my hair and the little pieces (again about the size of sand) come out. My scalp is starting to look close to normal now with no redness and only a few little scabs left. With exception to a ton of tiny implanted hairs, I my scalp is getting close to not havine many signs of a HT.

I went out in public without a hat on for the first time when I went to church and I felt like with little to no scabs and my hair just layind down kind of messed up its not really that noticeable that I had a HT unless you knew me before and knew the huge frontal bald spots that I had.

I'm quite relieved as well as excited that things are looking so good just 5 days post op because I head back to work tomorrow. While I plan to just be open and honest with people if they ask, before surgery I had a fear I would be going back to work with a bunch of scabs like some other people had complained about. One of the reasons I chose my surgeon is b/c from talking to previous patients of his and seeins some of their pics it seems like his techniques are so refined and he has such a good team that his patients have little scabbing and heal quick. I'm happy to say that I've had the same experience.

I think it will be quite obvious to the people I work with that I had some work done due to all the tiny hairs replacing a lot of frontal baldness. I have no problem saying, "I had a little work done" because they're gonna find out anyways when all the hair grows in over the next 6-12 months. I figure its my hair, if I wanna move some of if from the back of my head to the top because I don't wanna go bald then thats my choice. I'm happy with my choice and excited for the results to come.

Post Op Day 6 FIrst day back to work-

Most of the scabs have come off and I was able to go to work with barely any noticable scabs. With my hair flat and kind of messed it wasn't too noticeable that I had a HT. I was pretty excited about this b/c while I wasn't going to hide that I had a HT if someone asked, I didn't want it to be glaringly noticeable.

I received a letter from Dr. Haber and Doreen at Haber dermatology confirming the number of drafts placed (2703...awesome), the number of single hair grafts used (779), and the expectations. I was impressed at how quickly they mailed me this info.

Post Op Day 8; Staples removed-

The staples came out without a problem. Special thanks to the people at Haber Dermatology who worked around MY schedule to allow me to come in early to get the staples out today. I'm supposed to work long days tomorrow and the next day so someone from their staff came in early so I could get the staples removed before work today. I greatly appreciate the care and flexibility given to me by everyone a Haber Dermatology.

Exercise notes-

So I'm a bit of a health nut and exercise frequently. Prior to the HT I would run 3x/wk and lift 3x/wk. I was in pretty good shape and even ran a 20:30 5K recently which I think is respectable. But I wanted to share my return to exercise for those in a similar situation.

I was advised that after day 5 I could return to light cardio so on post op day 6 I went for a short, slow run. After day 10 and with the staples out I was advised I could return to intense cardio and weightlifting. I've read a lot of people being concerned about stretching the donor area and other concerns. I'm going to run a race on saturday and return to weight lifting at about post op day 13. I know some people have said they advise taking 30 days off heavy lifting and thats just rediculous. If you want to know when you can go back then forget about looking up oppinions and just look at human physiology. Look at the process of wound healing (i.e. Inflammatory, proliferative, remodeling) and nkow that you are healthy and took good care of the wound then you are likely well outside of the inflammatory and granulation processes of the wound (usually are well ended by day 10 in a healthy individual) and its safe to return to activity. So, between a good diet of veggies, good proteins, and plenty of antioxidants (i.e. tea, coffee, pomagrante joice)... then keeping with wound clean and covered with antiobiotic ointment, etc. I feel quite confident in being able to go back to heavy workouts next week. When getting the staples out today I asked if the scar looked good and they said it looked great (a byproduct of a good surgeon and good wound care) so I feel confident I will be fine to get back to exercise soon without damaging the donor area scar.