Post-Op Hair Results & Hair Growth Challenge!

I took this picture last night, right before putting my bonnet on. This is slightly damp hair, dry enough I knew it would finish drying in the bonnet, after a good wash, scalp oiling, chebe butter application, and steam treatment, plus 4 hours of air drying. I didn’t clump the curls after the steam treatment, but you can still see I have the entire range of the C pattern on my head. Also, I have significant shrinkage, when this is stretched it’s perfectly sitting at shoulder length.

Final result of post-op hair preservation methods: full success. Now, there’s been zero growth over the past week, and yes, my hair grows fast enough that I do see noticeable growth in just a week. Understandable, my hip is a lot more important to put the nutrients towards right now.

But my body didn’t shed hair to take the resources of growth off the pressure of repairing bone. It just… forgot about the hair for a minute. Even after 48 hours of zero calorie consumption, I had enough nutrients in reserve to still heal my leg and not sacrifice my hair for it.

And my ends are still pristine from the cut they got a week and a half ago now, thanks to regular spray-in conditioner and wearing a bonnet 24/7.

So, how am I attaining this biological feat?

First of all, I’ve been preparing my body for this for literally years. I was diagnosed with food allergies in 2024, and spent last year really gelling in my safe diet, which is a lot of whole, clean, unprocessed, nutritionally dense food.

I also conquered my sugar addiction, which helped me build that nutritional base faster, and lose significant weight.

And I have had a daily nutritional suppement routine for years. I discovered my electrolyte supplement in summer 2023, first summer post spinal cord injury and it got REAL obvious that the injury had drastically affected my heat tolerance and ability to dehydrate. I started dosing bovine collagen with my morning coffee a couple of months later, when the stats came out about how your body stops producing collagen altogether at 40, just as I have a follow up MRI showing widespread moderate-severe degenerative disc disease at all levels of my spine. If you’re taking collagen, you need high dose vitamin C to go with. And that also helps with the absorption of the high-dose iron I apparently also need on the daily since the SCI… my doc wanted to try a maintenance dose last year, which resulted in a big chop at the end of September. And I also high dose a magnesium complex at bedtime for my migraines and sleep.

When it comes to skin and haircare, the only other real step is to understand how to best use humectants and UV protection. And I’ve written a few posts about that already.

This all now has me perfectly poised to join the hair growth year that the natural hair community is starting in February 1. Shoulder length is a very easy starting point to calculate from, February should be when my hair growth kicks in again, and February 1st is my FLOOFIEST son’s second birthday, so this is auspicious day to start a floofiness journey. Especially considering two years ago, Milosh was a preemie micro kitten no one thought would survive, and now he is the largest, FLOOFIEST boy.

So, I hereby declare February 1, 2026-February 1, 2027 as Milosh’s Mumma gets FLOOFY year. Me and the boy are gonna match.