post transplant pain

[Marie32]

I am a 32 year old woman and I had HT 6 days ago. I was shocked by just how much pain I have been in, in the donor area. I was not prepared for that as most of what I have read says many people go back to work the next day or so.I thought I had a high tolerance for pain as I previously had 2 C-sections and that was a breeze compared to this. The transplanted area really doesn't bother me but my head still feels tremendously tight and more pain than expected in the donor area still. When does this and the tightness let up?

[Marie32]

I am a 32 year old woman and I had HT 6 days ago. I was shocked by just how much pain I have been in, in the donor area. I was not prepared for that as most of what I have read says many people go back to work the next day or so.I thought I had a high tolerance for pain as I previously had 2 C-sections and that was a breeze compared to this. The transplanted area really doesn't bother me but my head still feels tremendously tight and more pain than expected in the donor area still. When does this and the tightness let up?

[Reverse the Curse]

m32

the only pain i had was those damn staples when i would press on them. other then that there was no real pain. i took the pain killers for a couple of days & got through it fine. what does your doctor say? call him if you haven't yet.

rtc

[mmhce]

This seems highly irregular. As far as I have been informed, anaesthetics are only prescribed when there is evidence of sufficient pain inducing trauma. How this evidence is measured is beyond the scope of my knowledge as I am not a medical doctor.

 

You need to check with your surgeon as well as your family doctor if you are indeed very much pain.

 

I must take your word for it (that you know what your pain tolerance is), as woman who has had Caeserian sections for delivery.

[latinlotus]

What is your donor strip size?

The pain you described is not common, although it can occur. Next week will likely be better. In the meantime, you may need to consult with your doctor and take some pain killers. I personally did not have any pain after the anesthesia wears off, then again my strip donor max width was only 1.4 cm.

[mmhce]

my strip donor max width was only 1.4 cm

It stands to reason that a larger strip extraction/excision would be more painful.

 

But can we make an assumption notwitstanding each persons idiosyncrastic pain tolerance?

[Ceasar08]

Do you have staples in your head at the moment? I was uncomfortable (especially when attempting to sleep) until those staples came out. After they come out, things should instantly and significantly improve.

[Goldilocks]

I can identify with you on a number of levels. I too am a female and in fact, I am almost the same age as you.

 

I had a hair transplant over a year ago and I gotta say that what I had read and heard about the recovery process seemed to be very much downplayed. In other words, people made it sound so much easier than it really was. I was horribly uncomfortable for longer than I had expected.

 

Like you, I had a LOT of discomfort in the donor area and my scalp felt extremely tight and numb. It was very disconcerting. Couple this with the fact that I was not sleeping very well at all for the first two weeks and I was worried that my scalp would never feel normal again.

 

I suppose if I had taken the prescription Tylenol 3s, I might have felt better, but I don't like those kinds of drugs so I simply took non-prescription extra strength Tylenol. It did very little for the pain however so I simply learned to tolerate it.

 

On a more positive note though, when I was able to get my stitches out at 14 days, my donor area actually felt quite a bit better. I could actually lie on the back of my head again! I hope the same will be true for you too.

 

I continued to have a tight scalp for quite some time following the procedure. I would say it lasted several weeks, but of course gradually faded over that time. In contrast, the numb feeling in my scalp lasted several months, and only recently, I pretty much stopped noticing much numbness at all, if any.

 

Please know that I can very much sympathize with you. Hang in there!

[Marie32]

Thank you so much.I completely agree with you that in all of the research I had done prior to the HT it had very much been downplayed as far as pain and HT in general. I have basically all the same issues as you seemed to have had. I am glad to know that I am not alone. I called the docs office and they said that everything I am experiencing is normal so I will just keep my fingers crossed. I know some people go through this more than once but for me I must say I would rather have someone else's hair donated as that is the worst part I think.

[Bill - Seemiller]

Marie,

 

Welcome to our discussion forum and congratulations on your recent hair transplant.

 

In my experience talking to thousands of patients over the years, pain varies, especially given that each patient has a different threshold for it.

 

I also felt that my first hair transplant was more painful the first couple days than subsequent procedures with other doctors. I have no real reason to explain this, but the pain did subside in a few days.

 

Any extended pain should be reported to your physician so he/she can evaluate your situation.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[Janna]

On a more positive note though, when I was able to get my stitches out at 14 days, my donor area actually felt quite a bit better. I could actually lie on the back of my head again! I hope the same will be true for you too.

 

It's true our patients report back how much the tightness goes away after sutures/staples are taken out. Our patients are able to get their sutures taken out as early as 10 days post op. They are able to sleep a lot better.

Best of luck!

[mmhce]

BTW Marie32, who is your HT surgeon?

[Petchski]

Have slight numbness at back of head, but fading now. Top of head is still numb, i.e recipient area...just over 3 weeks. I expect it will take a while to get back to normal.

 

Pain post op was bearable for me, once staples were out i've had no pain at all since...itchiness, yes.

[new2thissite]

Marie32---

Sorry to hear that you are experiencing some pain. I had some pain the first evening and since then, except when pulling out the staples, relatively pain free.

[wesley949]

I also had vey little pain and the staples were more of an inconveience than painful. Sorry to hear of your problems.

[chargedup]

Sorry to hear about this Marie.

 

I am going through my 2nd day of post op. In fact, they sent me home about 46 hours ago.

 

I don't have a huge pain tolerance of any sort, and I've been lucky with the amount of minimal discomfort I feel at the moment.

 

My Dr. used, what my wife says, to be regular stitches/sutures (black fishing line type). There is no discomfort with them at all. My wife is damn good with her sewing machine (pretty much a pro) and she thinks the Doc sewed me up perfectly. READ ALL ABOUT HERE

 

I was given some pain/relaxing drugs, but If I can go without meds I do. I was given Lortab (Hydrocodone w/APAP) for pain, but only used a half of a caplet the first night and no more since. He also gave me Valium to help sleep and I had one of those the first night, but have stopped that dose too.

 

Who knows maybe the pain train is a comin', but so far, so little.

 

I hope you get to feeling better.

[chantal]

I had HT with Dr Rahal in December 2008..(1925 grafts- 3,675 hairs) and I experienced everything you have...The donor area hurt quite a bit, I had a constant burning sensation on the recipient area...The first 2 weeks were the hardest...the pain, the lack of sleep...After the sutures were taken out after 13 days, things got much better. I am now at 3 months. My hair is growing. My scalp is still VERY red and I have lots of pimples...but I'M told that this is normal and I am not too worried...I have stopped using rogaine to see if the redness will go away..I'm still numb mostly at the back of my head. I did have shockloss around the donor area but my hair is growing quickly.. Can't wait to have a full head of hair!

[Bill - Seemiller]

Chantal,

 

Postoperative pain can vary from patient to patient. But I'm glad your past it and in the waiting phase. Though often times the waiting phase seems more painful than the healing phase.

 

I encourage you to start your own thread if you haven't already to share your experience and photos. Feel free also to create a free hair loss weblog to document your progress with pictures.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

[Marie32]

It seems we had alot in coomon regarding the first 2 weeks. I am glad to hear that everything is going well now with your hair growing. I can't wait for that. I have quite a bit of shockloss on my entire head which is not good so I wear a hat when I go out.

[AMR1]

my pain only lasted around 48 hours then it was ok and even so better when the stiches came out! it was not so much pain as uncomfortable when or trying to sleep!

[canadian_buba]

My pain was intense for the first evening after my HT. After that the drugs worked very well! I found that the tight scalp was a non issue around the 1 month marker.

[Guest wanthairs]

I have to agree with the Ladies here. On both my transplants I had much more pain than I was expecting although all pain went away very quickly, the numbness took many months. I think the fact that it is men describing pain here is why it may be underplayed as I think most men have a tendency to take pain or wounds with a pinch of "manly salt" although, We would be complete wimps if we had to go through the bravery required of pregnancy.

[latinlotus]

Wanthairs:

 

It is generally known that men's tolerance to pain is lower than woman. This is an anonymous forum, so i don't think people would downplay the pain since they are lying to themselves. I would think that a man would play the 'hero' when there are people around, which is not the case here.

 

Healing is different for everybody. It is not because you experienced the post-op pain that the others are exaggerating their lack of pain. In my experience, it is not matter of subjective perception of pain, I did not feel any pain. Of course, when I touched/pressed the scar, it was painful for a few days...I know i don't have a high tolerance for pain.

[Janna]

Originally posted by latinlotus:

 

 

It is generally known that men's tolerance to pain is lower than woman.

 

This is very much true from my experience as well (not just because I'm a female). Our female patients also tend to tolerate the anesthetic much better too.

 

I agree whole heartedly with Latinlotus on the level of pain threshold varying a great deal for each individual no matter if it's 1st, 2nd or 3rd surgery.