wheresmyhair111

Hello, I recently had a hair transplant via strip procedure, and I have been concerned after the first week of the operation. As many of you can appreciate, I have been scared about whether my experience is normal and was hoping to get more information to (hopefully) appease my concerns. Below are the facts - would love to get your input! Date of Procedure: 10/14/2013 # of Grafts: 1930 Norwood Scale: 4A As far as I could tell, the procedure went fine and I didn't feel any noticeable pain. My concerns arose after about a 8 days, when I noticed that most of the recipient sites seemed to be "hard", crusty, and painful to the touch. I was told that after 10 days the scabs should be gone, however, I still have scabs on the recipient sites. Furthermore, the recipient sites are raised extremely dry to the touch. For example, I can feel many individual bumps when I run my fingers through my scalp. Is this normal? Some of these recipient sites were not only very dry, but they ultimately become loose. As each one is hard, I could go through and pull each one out individually (I don't though!). When they come out, they included the bulb as well, so I know the entire graft was removed. It has now been nearly 3 weeks, and these hardened recipient sites aren't showing any signs of getting better, which leaves me extremely worried. I've attached a few pictures that show how these recipient sites look. The black dots you see are hardened recipient sites - it's almost some type of film has surrounded the individual hairs and hardened them. It strikes me as very odd that nearly 3 weeks later the recipient sites look like this. My doctor was surprised by this reaction and prescribed me to antibiotics in case it was an infection. I felt I'd reach out to this community in hopes of finding someone who can shed some light and hopefully comfort my concern.... Thanks so much for your input!