Tips to Sleep After Hair Transplant!
After a hair transplant, one needs to sleep on their back facing up. One can sleep with one’s head on a pillow with the head slightly elevated. Avoid tossing and turning or sleeping on your stomach.
After you’ve had a hair transplant, the chief part of the healing process takes place in the first 10 to 15 days. From the second week onwards, the transplanted grafts get lodged in to place; healed and secure. Thus, after 15 days, there is a lesser chance of you damaging the grafts during sleep. And hence, how you sleep during the first 2 weeks after your procedure is very crucial.
Day by day, hair transplant surgeries are becoming safer, more effective, and yielding more natural-looking results. We also need to provide a quicker and smoother healing process.
It totally depends upon how well you follow the aftercare routine. Post-surgery, all precautions are to be taken to ensure the new grafts are not damaged. During sleep, extra care is to be taken in the initial 7 days, even if it is a FUE hair transplant.
During post-surgery care, most patients share a common concern about how to sleep after a transplant so that grafts are not dislodged or the donor area is not problematic.
Tips To Sleep After A Hair Transplant:
- Sleep with your head and back slightly elevated, at least 45 degrees, on a soft pillow. Sleeping in an elevated position will help to reduce swelling in your scalp and help you recover faster.
- Avoid sleeping on your stomach for the first 5–6 days.
- Tossing and turning are prohibited as they may damage or dislodge grafts.
- To avoid infection, bedsheets, pillowcases, and the bed itself should be clean. Also, use a soft towel or drape sheets above the pillow to avoid stains.
- Getting a lot of rest after surgery is very important to ensure a quick recovery.
- Take short naps in the daytime for good rest for the body.
- Maintain a safe distance between the recipient and the pillow.
- A neck or travel pillow helps you only during travel or till you get home after surgery. Put a cushion or another pillow under your pillow to keep your head correctly elevated and avoid damaging your hair follicles.
FAQs
After you’ve had a hair transplant procedure, it is important that you sleep on your back, with your head elevated above the heart. This prevents as well as lessens the swelling in the scalp and most importantly, it prevents damage to the grafts at night. Use one pillow for the head and a travel pillow around your neck.
After a hair transplant, you need to make sure that there is no contact between the recipient area with the fresh grafts and the pillow. The grafts are fragile and as a result, friction between the recepient area and the pillow during sleep will uprrot the grafts and damage them, thereby, negatively affecting the outcome of the procedure.
You should avoid sleeping on your sides or on your belly for about 15 days after the hair transplant. After a fortnight, you can sleep like you normally used to.
If a graft is damaged, then there will be bleeding at the site. That’s when you have to be concerned and should talk to your doctor. Thus, you need to be careful about your grafts during the first fortnight after you’ve had the hair transplant.
Ideally, for the first 10 to 15 days, you should sleep on your back; however, there’s no harm in lying over the donor area from where the grafts have been extracted.
You must keep your head elevated when you sleep or lie down during the first fortnight after the hair transplant. You may use a pillow or two to raise your head. Additionally, use a travel pillow to make sure that you don’t turn in your sleep.
Whilst sleeping, there’s a big chance that you may damage or dislodge your newly transplanted grafts. Any pressure on the fresh grafts can damage the surgical site as well as the transplanted hair. Hence, the precaution.
When you lie down or sleep –
- The freshly transplanted grafts should not make any contact with the pillow or the bed sheet.
- Make sure that you sleep on your back, not on your belly. The back should be in a fairly raised position. Never sleep on the belly, for about 15 days; that damages your transplanted hair and augments swelling.
- Your head must be elevated at 45 degrees.
- Your head must be above the level of the heart whilst you sleep, for about a fortnight. This ensures that there is no rush of blood to the scalp and consequently no swelling or bruising occurs.
