Hair Transplant is a Painful Surgery?

Pain! It is the most dreaded thing by almost every person who comes to us for hair transplant procedure. Everyone is concerned about pain and discomfort during procedure and some are also concerned about pain in post operative period. So let’s discuss them separately.

1. Pain during procedure

Hair Transplantation is done under local anesthesia. This simply means that only that part of skin is anesthetized where the transplant is going to happen. A very small needle is used and even depth of injection is only skin deep so it is less painful than other injections that you take on hand or buttocks.

During injection, pain occurs at 2 stages. One is at the time of prick and second is while injecting anesthetic solution. We apply surface anesthesia cream on the skin to decrease this prick pain by 90%. Second pain is minimized by using very slow speed to inject and by using vibration which helps in decreasing the pain to quite an extent.

Same anesthesia is used for donor as well as recipient area. Two anesthetic solutions are used for maximizing its good quality and to avoid repeated injections. One solution helps in numbing the skin quickly and other one helps in keeping anesthesia for longer time.

2. Pain after hair transplant

This is easily controlled. You will be given painkiller medication even before anesthesia wears off. So technically you won’t feel pain at all. If this medication is taken regularly then you can breeze through the post transplant period. There can be burning sensation at area of transplant for about 1 hour after procedure which is quite tolerable.

Some people report discomfort after transplant, mainly due to sleep position.

Discomfort or pain is more after FUT technique of hair transplant because it involves stitches and stitches are removed after 14 days. During stitching skin is stretched leading to sourness at donor site for 2 to 3 weeks. In comparison to this FUE procedure is more comfortable and so is preferred by doctors as well as patients.

There can be some pain at the donor area occasionally for 2 to 3 months but is very rare and goes off without medication.

Finally we would say pain is a subjective thing. That means it depends on perception. Some people have low pain threshold and feel pain a lot and others don’t feel pain at all. So every person has different experience. There is no gain without pain and there is so much to gain through hair transplant results that it is all worth it.