scabs

I work at Dr. Cole's office and I'm a six-time repair patient. For me personally recipient scabs seem to hang around 12+ days when I don't use the spray designed to soften scabs. Not a problem at all for me personally. You may want to ask your doctor if he has/recommends a spray to soften the scabs and help them to come off quicker.

35YrsAfter works at Dr. Cole's office

Gino,

Most of the scabbing (dried blood), should pretty much be gone especially since you have been spraying a saline based spray several times per day. Normal shampooing should be okay at this point in time to remove any lingering scabs.

What you are probably referring to are the crusts which are different than scabs. These tiny crusts that form post-op are really dried tissue above the scalp line. They are the very tips of the graft tissue that are exposed after placement. The saline and air dires out these tiny parts of the graft tissue and can become hard once they dry out.

Everytime you wet your scalp these crusts will soften up a bit so that they are somewhat easier to remove. But sometimes they do not just fall off. You can also facilitate their removal by using the pads on your fingertips to dislodge the stubborn ones. Even when the scalp is dry, the crusts can be removed by rubbing them but it may take a little more aggressive effort in removing them. Some docs recommend applying vitamin E to the recipient area before removing them.

Again, your scalp should be healed enough at 12 days post-op to safely remove them. The other thing that you may notice is that the hair stubbles that were within the grafts may come out with the crusts. IMHO it's not a problem because most of the grafts go into telogen post-op and it's normal for the hair stubbles to come out with the crusts.

It's important to clean our scalps once the recipient area heals, and when its strip, the donor zone can take longer to heal for the obvious reasons. The donor strip will be sore for a longer period but once the sutures or staples are removed, most docs will want their patients to clean that area as well.

With FUE, the extraction sites heal much quicker for most patients and one of the advantages of that technique. There are no crusts to deal with in the donor zone because there are no grafts placed there.

If ever in doubt, contact your doctor for their opinion. Personally, I think you are doing just fine my friend!

You should be in contact with your clinic to see what they recommend and follow their instructions to the letter.