If you are considering a hair transplant then it’s important that you understand hair grafts, what they are, and how they heal. The healing process of hair grafts is vital to the overall success of your hair transplant procedure and in this article, you will find out when are hair grafts secure after the surgery together with a healing timeline and potential risks.
I get that you may be a little uncertain as to what we mean when we use the term hair grafts. Grafts are used as part of the hair transplantation process and are essentially a tiny piece of your scalp tissue that contains between 2-4 individual hair follicles.
This is a vital part of hair transplants as you need the surrounding tissue and complete hair follicle structure in order for the hairs to regrow and stabilize in their new position. Surrounding the follicle there are things like the sebaceous gland, erector muscle, and sebum which are all vital, hence why a graft is taken as opposed to single hairs.
During a hair transplant, surgical tools are used to cut hair grafts and extract them from your scalp. With the more popular FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) method, a micro punch tool is used to remove groups of hair follicles (or hair grafts) which are then placed in a preservative solution until they are ready to be implanted in the new location.
A series of small surgical incisions are then made on the graft sites and a tool is used to implant the grafts into those open incisions thus completing the process.
The timeline for hair graft healing is relatively simple and there is only really one key waypoint that you have to reach for the grafts to become secure. However, before this, they are extremely fragile so care must be taken. The healing timeline can be broken down as follows:
To answer the original question of when are hair grafts secure, the accepted timeframe is 14 days. After this point, the tissue should have healed properly and effectively blended with your existing scalp tissue. The healing process of the grafts is essentially complete and now its a case of protecting the actual hair follicles and minimizing any risk to them.
So why should you care about the hair graft healing process? Simple – if you do not, and cause damage, the hair grafts may fail, become dislodged, and fall out.
We can use the analogy of a newly planted seed when looking at hair grafts. The seed is initially planted (like an FUE implant), it is then nourished and needs time to stabilize in the soil (your scalp), and grow. Only when the roots (the graft) are secure and implanted in the soil can the plant start to flourish.
Essentially, until the grafts are secure, they could fall out and make your hair transplant procedure worthless. This is a shame due to the fantastic Turkey hair implant prices!
Providing that you follow your surgeon’s guidelines and take the healing process and post-surgery recovery properly, there is no reason why your grafts won’t heal properly and your hair transplant be a resounding success.
Just remember that typically, hair grafts take around 14 days to “take root” while the scalp heals – during this period, extra care is needed to avoid any potential damage.