Coping with long hair in a hospital bed

5 weeks on, I’m pleased to report that my friend’s situation has improved greatly since my initial post (https://www.carersuk.org/forum/support-and-advice/all-about-caring/brain-injury-when-away-in-london-advice-needed-34798) but I wonder if I could trouble you for some advice? She’s been trying to do her physio by pulling herself up the hospital bed using the rails on either side, but no matter what she does with it (plait, bun, …) her long hair always seems to get in the way and badly and painfully yanked when she does so. Has anyone found an effective way of dealing with this? She’s threatening to get it all cut off if she can’t find a solution, and that would be such a shame.

Personally, I would have thought that AT THE MOMENT short hair was the answer, because it would be so much easier to manage and with hot sweat inducing pillows, make her so much more comfortable. Why not turn it into a positive, that she has her hair cut off and donates it to a charity. I don’t have time to research right now, but I think there is one called something involving the word Princess. Once she is well again, she can easily grow it long again.

"Once she is well again, she can easily grow it long again. "

Could take YEARS!!!

I do WISH the hairdresser labs would focus on inventing a shampoo that massively accelerated growth That would be brilliant!

But, yes, in the circumstances, I think some kind of ‘charitiable donation’ would be good. Nuns used to sell their hair when it was cut, as I recall.

And didn’t Jo in Little Women famously sell her hair one Christmas to buy presents?!

You could google ‘selling hair’ if she wants to make some money out of it. Or, maybe, what about Breast Cancer charities, raising money for real-hair wigs???

If she does keep it long, then how about a high pony tail, plaited, then wound into a high bun (ie, on the TOP of her head, not on the back, where she would feel it on her pillow), and then maybe with a cotton night cap (tied under the chin for greater security and undislodgeability) over her whole head to keep the hair in place while she exercises???


PS - re the time it takes to regrow hair - at my age (‘old’!) I know that if I cut my hair short I wouldn’t live long enough for it to grow back to how long it is now!!! Really focusses the mind, sigh.

On the other hand, there are people like me who need their hair cut every month!! I spend a fortune having my roots done.

I need my hair cut every month. Otherwise it’s a real mess honestly. No roots to worry about now, I grew the colour out and am silver grey. Don’t like it very much, but my hairdresser tells me people pay a fortune for the colour. Don’t want the expense or bother of colour my hair now.
The long hair, would a bun, then old fashioned hair net do the trick or something similar?

“I spend a fortune having my roots done.”

A fiver a bottle and DIY!!! Bathroom looks like someone’s been murdered in it afterwards though! Ditto the towel. But it’s CHHHHHHHHEAP!!!

Pet - a hair net! Brilliant. LIke Ena Sharples (I hope not!).

I do think snoods are back in fashion though, so another variant on a hair net?

I can vividly remember as a young child in the early sixties (pre Mary Quant and ‘sharp’ hairstyles), being fascinated by the teenage daughter of a friend of my mum’s staying with us for some reason (I think she wanted to marry an ‘unsuitable’ boy and her mum thought staying with us at the far end of the country might break it up!), sitting in bed each evening painstakingly doing her hair up in hard plastic rollers, and then covering her entire head in a kind of lacy nylon frilly cap…I loved that cap! Wanted one, but not the rollers. IMPOSSIBLE to sleep on (until ‘softee’ rollers came in …and then, oh even more wonderful, Carmen HEATED rollers - five minutes to fab! Hurrah!)

I have a towelling “turban” to pull on your hair after you’ve showered.

Also a good idea. However, if you have long hair, you need a large turban. Mine won’t fit in to a standard one.

Also, what about those ‘pre-wigs’ that actresses put on before they put the actual wig on! The most unflattering thing in the world, but they seem to squash down their own hair very successfully.

Also, what about those horrible swimming caps? Not the racing ones (nightmare to get on and off) but the softer more decorative ones like you see in old movies (often with decorations on them!).

Thanks for the suggestions. She beat me to it and decided to get it cut anyway!

Hopefully donating to charity?

Oh no!!! :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:

Hi buddy, I really sympathize with your friend and I beg her to do nothing with her hair. She was lucky that she still had hair after such a hemorrhage in the brain. I just didn’t appreciate my hair before, but everything changed when I started allopecia and my hair began to fall out. After I realized that no medicine was helping me, I decided to take extreme measures and began to think about the operation. I read about hair transplant turkey and decided to try, despite the great risk. I am grateful to God that everything went well and that I now have the same hair as before. So let her value her hair and take care of it, otherwise it will be too late.

Make an appointment with the GP.

Melly1

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