For those who've had a beard-to-scalp transplant

[Westview]

Questions for those who've had a beard-to-scalp transplant:

 

1.  After the surgery, did you use a regular head pillow to protect the grafts while sleeping, or something else??

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=head+pillow&crid=4MI2JME5SS3V&sprefix=head+pillow%2Caps%2C131&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

2.  How painful were the beard extractions??  I heard its worse than scalp extractions.

3.  How fast did your beard area heal from surgery and did it leave any permanent scars??

[Al - Moderator]

 

 

12 hours ago, Westview said:

1.  After the surgery, did you use a regular head pillow to protect the grafts while sleeping, or something else??

I used a neck pillow just like the one in the picture below:

 

 

 

12 hours ago, Westview said:

2.  How painful were the beard extractions??  I heard its worse than scalp extractions.

It's the needle to inject the anesthesia that is more painful than on the scalp. Once that's done you don't feel the actual extractions because the area is numb. But yeah the numbing part is really rough!

 

12 hours ago, Westview said:

3.  How fast did your beard area heal from surgery and did it leave any permanent scars??

For me, after about 10 days it healed enough where it was mostly just some redness and I could get away with people seeing it and not noticing. It looked more like a bit of a rash. I personally have very sensitive skin under my chin area and I sometimes get some redness there just from shaving, so a bit of redness in that area on me wasn't unusual for anyone who knows me to see, so nobody really knew I did anything. After that it is a gradual clearing of the redness over a few months, however most of it is under the chin area and not noticeable anyway. After the first few weeks you really have to be looking for it to see it. @Gatsby has a few pictures of his sideburn redness where he had extractions done on his sideburns. You can see that on his thread.

 

 

 

[Al - Moderator]

I was reluctant to have grafts removed from my beard at first too because I was so afraid to have visible scars on my face, so what I did was I went for a session of just chest grafts first. I figured if I ended up with scars there nobody would ever see it in normal day to day interactions because I'd always have a shirt on. Once I saw that I didn't have any real noticeable scars on my chest I felt a lot better about taking grafts from my beard. I just thought I'd throw that out there if that may be an option for anyone else.

[Gatsby]

I also used a travel neck pillow the same as @BeHappy has shown. This was on top of a couple of pillows under this and a pillow under each arm. It was more of thrown than a bed! 🤣 

I have a very high pain threshold. The extractions were sensitive at worst at first but the anaesthesia soon numbs everything. I told Dr Shishir to take grafts from my mustache but he told me it would be too painful to do. After I informed Dr Pradeep to go ahead anyway, once the area was number it was no different from the rest of the beard and it added an extra 500 grafts to the donor supply.

The extraction under the chin, the mustache area and along the’Elvis’ side burn area healed very quickly. The area around the cheeks took longer and really just appeared red like a blush. Five months later today they are practically gone and I know that by 12 months they will disappear completely. I was using vitamin E cream on my facial area every night but gave up after a couple of months.   

[Gatsby]

I should add also that my surgery wasn’t a sprint. It was a marathon that I had prepared myself for. It went for six days straight! On the sixth day I was having grafts inserted into the the scar/s in the back donor region of my scalp. We had harvested 232. It felt like it was going on forever and by this stage I was mentally exhausted. I could feel the anesthetic wearing off. I was going to ask for more pain killers but instead I first asked the two techs working on me  how many grafts are left to implant. They replied something like 22. To this instead of asking for more anesthesia I told them to just keep going! After nearly 60 hours of surgery I could see the finish line. I just bit down hard as I just wanted this to finally be over now and I counted down and felt everyone of those 22 grafts going into my scars! But after the first 8,701 it could have been worse!!

[Westview]

51 minutes ago, Gatsby said:

The extraction under the chin, the mustache area and along the’Elvis’ side burn area healed very quickly. The area around the cheeks took longer and really just appeared red like a blush. Five months later today they are practically gone and I know that by 12 months they will disappear completely. I was using vitamin E cream on my facial area every night but gave up after a couple of months.   

I heard Aloe Vera cream works wonders for healing skin

[Eugenix Hair Sciences]

16 hours ago, Westview said:

Questions for those who've had a beard-to-scalp transplant:

 

1.  After the surgery, did you use a regular head pillow to protect the grafts while sleeping, or something else??

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=head+pillow&crid=4MI2JME5SS3V&sprefix=head+pillow%2Caps%2C131&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

2.  How painful were the beard extractions??  I heard its worse than scalp extractions.

3.  How fast did your beard area heal from surgery and did it leave any permanent scars??

1. A travel pillow would be very helpful after the procedure.

2. Once the anaesthesia has been administered, it is not painful.

3. The beard area heals as fast as the scalp donor area. Any surgery will have scars. However, the visibility of the scars depend on the size of the punches used. The absence of hair in the beard area are visible. However, they are not obvious.

[Melvin- Admin]

How I slept

it wasn’t more painful than scalp. 
 

My beard healed within few days. Much faster than my scalp. 

[Westview]

For my 2nd transplant I bought one of these contraptions.

They're great for watching TV while you heal and recover

https://www.amazon.com/ComfortSpa-Reading-Backrest-Cushion-Heartburn/dp/B07GZB5SJZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2A08RJ4OKXERC&keywords=bed+chair&qid=1656373083&sprefix=bed+chair%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1