Numbness After a Hair Transplant

I have had a hair transplant and I have numbness in both my front and back. How is this possible, how long will it last and will I become normal again as I love to have my scalp massaged.

Numbness does happen frequently after a hair transplant, both in the recepient and donor areas. Everytime a person gets a cut or a bruise, the area that is cut or bruised will develop swelling and numbness. The numbness will abate with time. The cutting and/or swelling of small nerve fibers are the cause of the numbness after a surgery, but in the scalp, there is a rich supply of redundant nerves so if one small nerve is cut, another picks up the function fairly fast. There should be no long-term numbness, but I have seen an occasional patient who had their major nerve cut in the back of the head. Even when this complication happens, the alternative pathways will frequently take over and that process may take weeks, months, or on rare occasions, up to two years to correct. Most experienced surgeons should be able to avoid this problem. In conclusion, many very small cutaneous nerves are often cut, but the sensation returns with time. Having had two hair transplants, I can tell you first hand that my scalp was normal within a couple of weeks and within a month of the transplant, I was able to enjoy a scalp massage.