Post-Transplant Shock Loss – Hair Loss Information by Dr. William Rassman

First off you give excellent advice! I recently had a hair transplant.

1) How long should one wait before engaging in:

• Running (2k)
• Chin ups / Push ups / sit ups
• Light weights

2) How long does it take for the shock loss around the donor area to grow again?. Is this normal?.

Thank you kindly.

Generally after a surgery with the small wounds we create, I tell the patient that they can engage in full aerobics within 5-7 days after the surgey and can even run a marathon at a week. Chin-ups, push ups, and sit-ups are out for about 6 weeks in order to avoid stress on the neck muscles for a strip harvesting procedure. For an FUE harvest, there are no restrictions after 5 days. For FUE, full weights are ok after a few days, but for a strip harvest, you will be restricted to light weights provided that no significant stress exists on the neck muscles. One of the keys to prevent scars from forming, is not to stress the suture line. For FUE, there is no suture line.

Shock loss is unusual in you are on Propecia. Men who lose hair from shock loss. lose it in the genetically miniaturized hair and when this happens it may not re-grow. If the hair is not miniaturized, it should return in 4-6 months. For the donor area, when hair loss happens near the suture line and the person does not have Diffuse Unpatterned Alopecia (in other words has a healthy donor area) and there is not unusual compression stress on the donor wound from the surgery (no significant tension in the wound), the hair loss will almost always return in the 4-6 month time period from the date of the surgery.