How Soon after Hair Transplant Surgery Can I Wear a Helmet?

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 Shapiro Medical:

I ride a road bike about 10 hours a week, and am going for hair restoration surgery on 12/10. How long will I have to wait before I can wear a helmet and not worry about damaging the grafts or their survival & growth rate? And not disturb the closure (going follicular unit strip surgery)?

I usually will ride 5+ hours at a time on a Saturday or Sunday. I was told 2 weeks by hair transplant surgeon’s office. Just want to make sure. I really don’t want to stay off much longer than that, as I am a competitive racer and a month off of training is a huge loss.

Two weeks after hair transplant surgery is usually a good time for most activities to resume including sports. The skin surrounding the grafts is healed and there is little/no risk for losing grafts. After two weeks we usually even encourage patients in the shower to gently massage any of the remaining scabs that may still be lingering on the scalp.

Having said that, wearing a hard hat or helmet that will cause much friction and/or pressure on the newly grafted area is not always a good idea. A short amount of time is fine, but hours of rubbing on the healed scalp could result in irritation/infection of the area.

A solution to this problem for a bike helmet is to possibly wear a skull cap or bandana over the grafted area followed by the helmet. This will reduce any amount of friction over the area. With regards to the hard hat it is a good idea to make sure none of the straps are directly putting pressure on the newly grafted areas.

-Shapiro 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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