Post hair transplant care seems tricky and the crusting makes it a whole lot tough to deal with. But with careful washing techniques, you can remove the crusting in first few days. The key tips to remember while dealing with the crust are:
1. Rubbing motion
It is recommended that you do not rub the transplanted area to avoid any damage.
2. Shampooing over the graft
You can shampoo once or twice a day. While doing so, use a sponge to roll over the grafted area. It must be soaked in water as well as shampoo. The rolling motion over the recipient area is applied to squeeze the shampoo mixture from the sponge. A surgical scrub brush is also used and you can get it from your surgeon. These brushes do not contain soap which makes them ideal for use on the grafted areas.
Be careful not to move the brush/ sponge in a back and forth motion. This can lead to pulling out the graft. You can use this and the side to side motion over the donor area as there is no graft that you need to protect.
3. Washing donor area
After surgery, the blood must be present over the scalp. On your first day after surgery, you can wash the donor area comparatively forcefully. After washing the blood, keep the scalp clean. You can use the back and forth or the side to side motion to clean the donor area. The chances of damage are minimum as no graft is present there.
4. Showering style
Try not to stand directly below the shower to rinse off the shampoo. In fact, instead of spraying the shower water, use your hand between the shower and your head and let the water flow. Rinse off the shampoo in this way and use a clean towel to pat dry the scalp.
5. Avoid staying in the water for a long period
Staying in the water for a long time can cause the graft to swell. The area rises above the skin surface looking like white bumps. Though it isn’t dangerous, you need to reduce the soaking time span. Not to worry about the raised bumps as they will disappear when the graft will settle down on scalp’s drying.
6. How to deal with larger size crust?
The possible incident that occurs on the first night of transplant is the enlarging of crust. The bleeding makes the crust appear larger than the graft. In such cases, you need to use a moist cotton swab and get the crust off through the rolling motion. Simply rolling instead of wiping would do as the cotton fibers will slowly pull off the crust pieces. Without forcing the grafts out, gently roll the cotton over the area repeatedly until the crust disappears.
7. Fifth post-transplant day
The graft is implanted in the scalp by fifth post-op day if you keep the area crust free. In a case otherwise, where you have failed to wash vigorously, the crust remains for more than five days. Scrubbing or forcefully pulling off the remaining crust after five days can lead to graft displacement or damage.