Should I Be Concerned about Folliculitis One Month after 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 Shapiro Medical:

I am almost a month post strip surgery. I have a mild bit of folliculitis going on around my hairline and just below. Just wondering if anyone else has had this experience and can share some info on how to treat it, Also will this have an impact on the hair growth of the new transplanted hairs?

You may or may not have folliculitis. Folliculitis is an actual inflammation of the hair follicles. It is quite common after hair transplant surgery to have an area of redness. Most of the time this is just the areas of graft insertion healing. Did you just start to get this redness or has it been going on for some time?

If it is quite new, it could be just that the outside shaft of the hair grafts themselves have just broken off and fallen out. As you may know, this is normal and the root or follicle is still within the skin and is dormant for a time until it starts to grow again in a month or two into a new hair. You may just be having a slight irritation of the skin secondary to the hair breaking off and now the skin in healing over that.

It may benefit to send some photos along to see if you are having distinct areas of inflammation or worse yet, folliculitis. For both cases, I would recommend washing your hair well every day with shampoo. Make sure you are doing a good job of cleaning the area of grafting. Many patients are too cautious of the grafted area even months after surgery. There is no risk to the grafts a month out.

Also make sure you are keeping the area clean throughout the day by wearing a hat if you are working or playing in a dirty or dusty environment. Finally, try applying antibiotic ointment to the worst offending areas of redness at least once a day for about a week to ten days. This will help to reduce the inflammation. If you are having pain in the area or there is discharge from the grafted area, you should see your hair restoration physician. They may recommend an oral antibiotic.

In answer to your final question, this should not affect the overall result.

-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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