JohnJohnB

i am in a foreign country where it is very hot. it had been 5 months since my last hair cut and exactly 60 days since my ht. i felt it was time to get a hair cut and some relief from the heat. i went to a salon in a mall and tried to explain that i just had surgery on my head. i dont speak the native language very well. the barber raked the comb across my donor scar pretty hard. i dont think he noticed it was there. but he did it several times before i told him to go easy. he didnt understand me and did it again before i explained it better. now my scar, especially near my occiptial bump feels a bit raw. no bleeding or anything serious but can scars stretch or have healing impaired by this kind of treatment?

thats also good news Gillenator. But I hope these things do go away even if they are covered by a transplant. they are kind of weird looking.

thats good to hear. so it didnt effect your growth at all? i was worried i was going to end up looking like this guy This Guy's Scalp Looks Like the Surface of a Brain

a few weeks after my ht i noticed a couple wrinkles/furrows/creases/folds or whatever you want to call them on my scalp. they run from where i had the ht at my temples back into my native hair. first it was just the right side but not i notice it on the left. is there something to be worried about here? will it harm the growth of my grafts? i also started minoxidil after my ht so maybe thats playing a role.

I am at 7 weeks post op. Today I noticed that the right side of my donor scar is slightly swollen and a tiny bit painful. My best guess is that the inflamed scar is now 1cm wide in this spot. Is this normal? Does this mean i have stretched out my scar in this area?

I have been trying to get rid of pimples by using a hot towel to draw them out to the surface. I soak a towel in hot water then put it on my head. But this time i went overboard and used water that was too hot. Now my scalp is redder than before. Its not blistering or anything but the water was definitely too hot. I am 6.5 weeks post op. Is there going to be any damage to my grafts? what about scalp discoloration?

Dr. Path told me to pop my pimples then put on alcohol and/or antibiotic cream like bactoderm.

Thanks Eman. I am following Doctor's orders. What confuses me is that while most doctors out there say folliculitis/pimples are not damaging to growth of grafts, they also want you to tell them when its happening and treat them somehow. Why do they need treatment if they don't affect hair growth? Just because they are unsightly and maybe a little bothersome? They were completely covered up by my native hair and had no pain, yet Dr Path's staff wants me to take some serious meds to treat them. As long as I have a nice thick transplant in the end nothing else matters.

I had a HT with Dr. Path 6 weeks ago. In the past 2 weeks I have been getting a fair amount of pimples, maybe 5-10 at any given time. They go away on their own in 3-4 days without any application of warm compress, bacterial cream or popping them. None of them pop on their own and bleed. They just simply fade away and are replaced by new ones on a different spot. However when his assistant Dr. Oravan looked at my 6 week pictures I sent in, she said i had "too many" pimples and should use antibiotic cream and pills like doxycycline. She said I had nothing to worry about with regard to final results of hair growth but still the words "too many pimples" made me think I had severe folliculitis that could hurt my growth. I will start taking the meds Dr. Oravan recommended. Does everybody agree that i have nothing to worry about here? I worry that I left these pimples untreated for too long and did some kind of damage.

he did. they fell out 3-4 weeks ago

OK so its 6 weeks post op and Dr. Path says I can go back to weight lifting. but i still feel some tightness/swelling/stretching when i bend over to touch my toes in a simple hamstring stretch. its not painful at all but it still worries me. anybody have an opinion on this? should i continue to refrain from physical activity?

i started doing some light stretching/yoga exercises 3 weeks post op. when i would bend over to do downward dog or a simple hamstring stretch i would sometimes feel a sensation at my donor scar. while it was not painful, it felt like a rush of blood to the head that swelled under my scar a little bit. i continued stretching for a week like this until i emailed Dr Path who told me it would be best to stop stretching/yoga until 6 weeks post op, which i will do. does it sound like i stretched out my donor scar? when will i be able to tell if my scar is stretched wider than normal?

i think it is helping a little bit. it feels good on the scalp. i am at 3 weeks today as well. while i am still red it is definitely better than where it was a week ago. i have not found anything that definitively says its bad to use this "unnatural" gel which mixes in vitamin e. a lot of forum posts just say use "aloe gel." Dr. Path said the product is safe but others like Spex said that there should be no alcohol in the gel. the gel i am using has linalool in it which is a type of alcohol. is this the kind of alcohol that could be problematic? once grafts are secure in the scalp, past day 10 or so, its going to be impossible to damage them with some topical treatment like alcohol in an aloe gel?

Do you have any evidence to support the idea that the other chemicals in this gel are somehow bad for the grafts/scalp? Dr. Path's assistant told me the gel was safe to use so I will take his word for it. Or are you just saying you wanted to be "natural" because its more effective? I have been using the Hawaiian Tropic stuff for about a week now 2-3 times a day. So far I have not noticed anything problems. I still get some mild itchiness and tingling sensations once in a while. But my transplanted hairs are starting to shed on schedule and the redness has started to fade ever so slightly

Tinkz, You can see my pictures from the consultation which show my hair before the procedure. Just check my blog under the entry "Consultation Day." Good luck. I don't think you can go wrong with Dr. Path. -John