Local anesthesia,swelling post HT and other uses for household injuries

Hair Transplant
1

Dear Readers,
A lot of times I have been asked by patients and fellow doctors alike

  1. Do I do tumescent anesthesia like most others?
  2. Why do my patients not develop the severe forehead swelling, blackeye etc?

This week I hope to be able to tell this difference.

Regards,
Dr. A

2

Post op protocol devised by Dr Arvind Poswal

  1. Minimal tumescence

  2. Apply local anesthetic topically on the strip FUHT wound. This will provide virtually instant pain relief. Can be applied 2 to 3 times a day as required. Since the strip suture line is essentially a cut, the local anesthetic is directly absorbed instead of requiring an injection.

  3. The same can be done for patients with delicate/oversensitive skin who may feel soreness or discomfort after FUSE/fue

  4. Dislodge the scabs and any blood clots in the donor wound at the earliest (maximum 3 days post surgery). Not only do these clots cause pain when the patient lies on them, they delay wound healing.

We have been following this protocol for many years and have found it to be helpful in the post op phase for the patient.
We share this information with patients and fellow hair transplant clinics.
Happy healing.

3

In my case , After FUHT surgery , i had attended my job from the next day of surgery and no one had noticed the forehead swelling after 2-3 days. Rest of my HT scar and receipt area was hidden with CAP.

 Main thing i have also noticed during  FUHT surgery from your clinic, negligible blood clotting on receipt and donor(strip)  area.


 Another great point is that , scar pain would not be felt after  decaying anesthesia effect with in 2-3 months, from the date of surgery . 

I would like to share that ,  still some HT doctors mention post surgery instructions , which include , swelling would be observed on forehead and eyes also.

With regards
Nitesh

4

Thanks for sharing, does post op swelling only apply to strip and not FUE?

5

I am only sharing my HT surgery experience as a patient.

Technical points should be explained by the experts on this website.

Personally i feel that , if the hair transplant is done on the frontal area (to create hair line etc), then swelling may be noticed on the forehead and may progress to eyes . Gravity effect may be reason of temporary progression of swelling to eyes level.

I think swelling on the receipt area is not related to the FUHT and FUE.
In one sentence swelling would be noticed more to people , if receipt area is frontal head , and would be unnoticed if receipt area is top head . But the swelling level may be related to the level of anesthesia and number of punching in receipt area. Different Receipt area (front head or top head )swelling only looks different , because of illusion to people.

Donor swelling is independent from HT receipt area. As i have gone multiple phase surgery from Dr. A’s Clinic , having experience of both FUTH and FUE, I could not identify the difference in swelling on donor and receipt area ,because swelling was negligible.

But i can give my one practical example, In multiple phase surgery , i had also gone beard hair transplant. I shaved my beard after 7 days of surgery and in Job , no one judged it. Reason is that ,at the time of surgery, my beard hair length was 3 mm approx , and doctors had taken my donor beard hair in diffuse pattern . Finally my red blood dots were camouflaged between 3 mm length beard hairs. Then after 7 days , i shaved.

Meaning is that , with in 7 days , FUE donor area red dots were healed up with out leaving a scar and i was able to shave my beard.

Still today , after shave , no one can judge or can point out any dot on my face.

With regards
Nitesh

6

Dear forum readers and fellow doctors,
Local anesthesia has been around for a long time. Its versatile in usage.

Dentists, ENT surgeons, eye surgeons just need to put drops on the mucosa and the area is rendered numb.

Intact skin is, however, another issue.

Cut skin absorbs local anesthetic much like mucosa.
Our method has helped us use much less of the drug then the traditional methods attaining more pain relief with lesser dosage as well as less down time for the patient.

Regards,
Dr. A

P.S. The same applies for any abrasions/ cuts for common injuries (and for changing bandages/debridement for my professional colleagues). A few drops of topically applied local anesthetic will cause a lot less unnecessary pain for the patient.