Many hair transplant patients want to know if they should use minoxidil after their hair transplant. For many patients, it's usually a good idea. Use of minoxidil after a hair transplant can do two things:
1. speed of the rate that the transplanted hairs start growing by about 1 month.
2. reduce the chances of ongoing hair loss in existing hairs (non transplanted hairs)
For some, they do not want to use and this was important in their decision to get a transplant in the first place. But for those who we do decide to start minoxidil, I advise starting (or restarting it) 5 to 7 days after the hair transplant. The decision on how long to continue is also important. For preventing loss of existing hair, clearly it needs to be continued long term. However, for boosting growth of transplanted hairs, it can be continued 4 to 6 months.