Did I Lose a Graft after My Hair Transplant Surgery?

This question, from a member of our hair loss social community and discussion forums, was answered by a staff physician from Coalition hair transplant clinic Feller Medical:

I noticed a small whitehead near the grafts but it didn’t have a hair on it, so I drained it and the puss came out but so did some blood immediately after. Did I just lose a graft?

You see a very characteristic “stream” of blood after a follicular unit graft is lost. Sometimes you can even see the dislodged graft laying on the scalp if you look near the origin of the bleeding. It usually looks like a grain of rice. I usually try to keep it simple and tell worried patients: “no bleeding, no lost graft.”

What you describe doesn’t sound like a dislodged graft. More likely a trimmed hair growing back and having some difficultly penetrating the surface of the scalp. If you were a few months out, I’d say it may be new hair growth as well (though it looks like you just had the surgery). You’d definitely notice if you pushed out a graft forcefully while trying to pop it as well (and again, it doesn’t sound like this happened).

You may want to send a picture to your hair transplant surgeon just to be on the safe side and see if they recommend anything or would like to evaluate the little bump in further detail.

~ Feller Medical
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David
Editorial Assistant and Forum Co-Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q & A Blog.

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