Hey guys,
Here’s the time and it’s been exactly 8.5 days since I got my hair transplant.
Currently my head it itching like it’s literally got severe eczema or acne or whatever might cause intense itching. In this cause I gets it’s the healing process and the thousands of tiny scabs that I’ve got atop my head.
This is what I’ve got atop my barnet right now:
It’s some foam lotion I was given that’s meant to go onto my transplanted hair area and help with the healing process. Effectively I’m washing it right now.
So I’ll leave the foam there for 30 minutes and this is how far into it I am now:
Less than 10 minutes, and already it feels like I want to scratch my head off.
I had literally no idea that the recovery process from getting a hair transplant would be so intense.
Sleepless nights, intense headaches, severe itching.
This is actually my first day back writing in over a week.
I just wasn’t waking up, wasn’t in the mood for writing and so it stopped whilst I was going through the recovery process.
I’m still in the mix and midst of it now – but was meant to start back up writing yesterday – didn’t do that either and thought f*ck it I’ll find the way through and write right now.
It’s a struggle.
I’ve been looking at the work that Chris is posting for me over on Medium – and it’s damn cool:
Medium is a much more accessible platform for many people than my blog – and Chris is going over the best parts of my blog and repurposing it for this platform.
I think this way more people will be exposed to my writing and hopefully I’ll become a more recognised writer as a result.
Here’s my stats for the last 30 days – which means I’m averaging around 22 views per day.
Chris himself gets 400 views per day – so I’ve got a long way to go before I reach those levels.
However, Chris is posting daily and I’ve got a big back catalogue of content to work with which means we’ll be posting for 30 days straight and see where it ends up going.
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Anyway, the title of this blog reads ‘Lessons learnt in recovering from a hair transplant’ and I suppose I should give some of my insights into what I think about it –
And they are as follows:
Take 3-5 days off after getting a hair transplant to allow yourself time to sleep, time to rest and recover and adjusting to how your head could feel for a fair while.
I went straight back into work like usual, and with the transplant coupled with a lack of sleep – come 7pm each day I would end up with a terrible headache.
For the whole week, I attributed that to the transplant, but having slept just SLIGHTLY better the last 2 nights than I have on some of my worst nights this week – I’ve seen what that does to my headache.
It’s 15% less intense, making it that little bit more manageable.
Of course now it’s the intense itching I am trying to content with that suffocates me – but new day, new challenges I guess.
Overall, what happened with this transplant is that I didn’t read up much upon people’s personal accounts of getting their hair transplanted.
Had I, then I’d definitely have a better idea of what to expect.
For the most part, unfortunately, it feels like I’ve been riding blind, and that the blindness has been of my own accord.
It is incredible where lack of preparation can take you in life.
It’s conceivable that if I’d read up on it some more, maybe I would have taken a different direction with my hair.
I.e just cut it short and not bother with a hair transplant instead.
Ironically, since I’ve cut my hair short, several people have said that short hair suits me anyway.
The irony for you.
It’s been a week in which I’ve not studied as I normally do when listening to Audible books. I’ve not written as this is my first day back – and I can more distinctly see the difference in myself from learning and creating from not learning and not creating.
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I’m a happier man when I’m giving my mind something new, and giving myself room to express my creative life force.
As I am now basically.
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So my hair, or my head – which is constantly in my thoughts is basically a top layer of dried/crusting scabs, underneath which I’ve got new and old hair trying to grow anew.
There’s a lot that’s going on under the skin as well as above it as my head heals.
Hang on I’ll show you a picture taken from last night:
Pretty disgusting right?
That’s the intense scabbing/drying of the top layer of my scalp as I guess my implants underneath the skin really begin to settle in.
As Craig advised me –
What sits atop my head – as horrible looking as it is – is normal – and there’s nothing I’m to do about it – but just wash my hair as normal.
And allow it to come of itself in the wash.
It’s only when I get to around Tuesday (we’re Sunday now) will I consider being slightly more aggressive in the wash and take off some of the scabs forming above healed skin.
This incidentally, is what Longevita advise when going through the recovery process.
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It’s really been a mixed bag in terms of my experience with the company.
Some things were handled excellently, some things were not great at all.
I’ll do a lengthier breakdown of the whole journey later on – but here are some of the things that have frustrated me somewhat.
- I don’t think a proper explanation is given as to what to expect from the healing period. It’s spoken off in the post-operative consultation – but the consultant says ‘now the hardest part is over’
I don’t think that’s true at all, as it’s the recovery phase which can take months that’s the challenging part.
Or mostly – the first week (based upon my experience so far) has been the most challenging part of the process to date.
- Inconsistent recovery advice
Subtle things such as how long you’re meant to keep the foam shampoo on your head are different from being told by the consultant versus what you later read in the recovery documentation. Whose actually right – or is it that no one is really sure?
When you start googling you quickly see there is tons of contrasting advice online and that actually there’s no definitive consensus as to what specifically the recovery process should entail.
- The lack of English of the surgeons.
This perhaps is just my personal opinion, but during surgery which ran several hours – I would really have benefited from having a native English speaker talk and walk me through the surgery.
I just went through it with the bad English of my medical team.
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Reading this back – I am actually nitpicking – and there are definitely many many things they did right.
The price was right.
The service has been right.
The transfers to and from airport has been right
And hopefully – time will tell of course…
The result will be right.
Anyway, I’ll bring proceedings to a close here – and catch you in the next one 🙂
