Your Hair Transplant Day

The exact schedule will vary for each person but this will guide you to what happens on your hair transplant day.

Because it can be a long day, we strongly recommend you have something to eat for breakfast, even if you don’t normally. And although we do provide simple sandwiches for lunch, if you have any specific dietary requirements, it’s a good idea to bring something yourself.

We normally ask you to attend the clinic at 0845 (but this can vary, so please do check). This gives you time to complete the paperwork, finances and consent form
Then you see the doctor for consultation to make sure we know exactly what you aim to achieve. This often involves marking the hairline with a marking pencil.
After that, we take the “before” photos so that we can compare them to the result in your 12 month review.

Next, you change into your patient gown and we check your blood pressure and going through any last questions. We usually give some medication as well, which helps prevent bruising and swelling. And it’s a good idea to go to the toilet, as it can be very “inconvenient” to go half way through.

Then, it’s time to go into our minor ops theatre, which is very much like a dentists’. You will meet the rest of the staff and if it’s FUE you’re having, we’ll shave your donor hair first, possibly the whole head but that isn’t always necessary and does depend on patient preference. Generally, with the strip technique, we comb the donor hair up and keep it there with a strip of Micropore tape. When this is removed at the end, your hair will cover the stitches and remain unseen.

In either treatment, we lay you face down, like on a massage couch, to actually remove the hair.

If you are having a strip hair transplant, then it takes about one hour to inject local anaesthetic, remove the hair, place the stitches and let you go back to the patients’ room, to relax and eat/drink. After that, it’s back in to numb the recipient area and replace the hair.

If it’s FUE, then the removal process is much longer, typically 4-6 hours, again, letting you have a break before coming back in to replace the hair.

The re implantation of the hair grafts is exactly the same for FUT as FUE, it’s only the extraction that is different. In essence, planting a hair graft is very similar to threading the eye of a needle with cotton thread and almost exactly the same size. Imagine doing this thousands of times! You can see why hair transplants take a long time.

Once they’ve finished putting the hair grafts back in, the hair techs will clean the area, so that it just looks a little pink/red. Some people will leave the clinic like that but most prefer to wear a stiff, adjustable base ball cap afterwards to go home in, especially on public transport.