One of the most alarming experiences after a hair transplant — and one that almost every patient goes through — is watching the newly transplanted hair fall out. It begins around two to four weeks after surgery and can seem as though the procedure has failed entirely. It has not.
The shedding of transplanted hair is a normal, expected phase of the recovery process. When a follicle is moved from one location to another, the trauma of surgery causes the hair shaft to enter a resting phase known as telogen. The follicle does not die — it simply pauses growth and ejects the existing hair shaft before re-entering the active growth phase.
The process is analogous to the natural hair shedding that occurs at the end of every growth cycle. The difference is that it happens simultaneously in a large number of transplanted follicles rather than in the gradual, barely perceptible way that normal daily shedding occurs.
What falls out is the hair shaft only. The follicle — the living structure beneath the scalp surface — remains in place and will produce a new hair shaft when it re-enters the growth phase, typically at months three to four. By month six, the majority of surviving grafts are actively growing and the results are becoming clearly visible.
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