Hair care after coma

[thenugking]

This is for a story in a vaguely medieval fantasy setting. My main character took a head wound, and was in a coma for a while (I currently don't have a definite time frame but let's say 6 months), during which time they were moved around a bit, but weren't particularly well cared for or kept in clean living conditions. (Muscle atrophy is not an issue Because Reasons.) They had thigh-length type 1C hair at this time, which they kept styled with braids and maybe decorated with some charms/jewellery.

The idea here is that there's a lot of matting and they cut it off to around chin length to make sorting it out easier to deal with. Does this make sense? What kind of state would their hair actually be in at this point? How long will it take to brush their hair back to normality? How badly is it going to smell? Is it sort-out-able at all without having to shave it all off? Conversely, have I overestimated how big a problem this would even be? What kind of products might they need to sort it?

Additional info:

- They don't have the time to immediately deal with their hair after waking up from the coma, this is probably a day or so later, and they've been in a few fights during that time

- They've definitely washed between waking up and trying to sort out their hair. Maybe immediatly before trying to sort it too, I can go either way with that

- they have someone helping with cutting and brushing their hair

- the blood from the head wound was likely never cleaned away during the coma

- I can probably use magic to bullshit my way out of any severe problems

Very grateful for any advice anyone can give <3

Comments

[conuly]

If the hair is totally matted then they might not have combed it out at all - in some time periods and regions people could get very superstitious about hair like that, and worried that they might cause illness by damaging it.

[lilacsigil]

If there was blood in their hair and it wasn't washed out, you're going to need to shave their head. It's not just going to be matted, it's going to be rank and possibly rotted.

[thenugking]

Oof, might have to figure a way to get that washed at the start of the coma then. I want things bad, but not rot-bad. Thank you!

[armiphlage]

Head lice, body lice (a separate species from head lice), bedbugs, and fleas would have prospered with six months of limited movement and no scratching. Masses of tiny scabs would have formed, fallen off, and accumulated, along with a powdery mass of insect feces.

[chaosmanor]

I've been in ICU in a medically induced coma for a short period of time. While in the coma, I was repositioned frequently to prevent bedsores by the 'turning team', my skin was bathed, and even my teeth were brushed. Excellent nursing care! However, my hair wasn't touched. My hair was already a mess when the medical emergency happened and it did not improve from there. I had long, fine curls at the time.

Once I was awake, one of my people spent some time slowly untangling my hair, removing the large knots and snarls. If I'd stayed in that situation much longer, I would have had matted hair.

Hair down my back, no matting, took a couple of hours of combing to resolve. I don't recall my hair smelling, but I was very glad when I was well enough to shower and wash my hair properly.

[harpers_child]

I had hip length hair I cut off in early high school. I'm a mix of 1A and 1B. Brushed/ combed twice a day. Washed every other day. The tangling was a major factor in my deciding to cut it off. With six months of no maintenance I think chin length is ambitious. If it were me, I'd shave it off or go with a pixie cut.

[azurelunatic]

My (2a-ish, mid-back) worst hair mat situation was during chemo, when my hair was in a braid and suffered a lot of fallout during about three days when I didn't brush it. There was one moment where I knew I needed to brush it to avoid it being unmanageable but I was also extremely sleep-hungry and just didn't. I wound up chopping it off to a few inches in order to deal with it. At six months I probably would have been trimming it at the scalp. The top of my head starts feeling nasty within a day if I'm not able to brush it in a way that scratches my scalp and helps distribute my natural hair oils down my hair.

When my hair is mid-back, it takes a good 10 minutes to do a basic detangle and re-braid when I'm brushing and re-braiding twice a day; add another 10 minutes for every major snarl. One piece of lint can cause a snarl, even while braided. The way to get hair out of snarls when it's that long is to pull from the top and ease it out, pulling it from the bottom is working against the cuticle and you'd have to basically work a millimeter at a time. If there's no room above a knot to get a grasp on the strand of hair, it's been essentially felted and it's time to start over.

Generally, I use a sweet oil (rose scented oil by my personal preference) and a comb and a bristle brush. I oil the hair, tease it out of the knots, and start combing from the bottom and work up. Then I brush all of it with long strokes starting at the top and going down.

One of the old superstitions about hair was that long hair sapped your strength and people would have their hair cut during serious illness to aid recovery.

If I was going to invent hair care spells for situations like this, I would have a hair cleaning spell which would remove dirt and fallen hairs which basically everyone would know unless they had very short hair that didn't need that kind of care, and specialized hair maintenance spells to prevent split ends and such that other people might not think to cast. Hair breakage is one of the banes of extremely long hair, and unless a split end is snipped off above the split, it gets caught on things and the split gets worse. So I could see a situation where your character is moved to prevent bed sores and gets basic hygiene / hair care spells every day or so, and still has a whole Hair Situation on their hands where it's best to start over at chin length.

[azurelunatic]

If you want them to be dealing with nasty but not too nasty hair:

Head wound, coma.
Blood from initial head wound cleaned off, hair is kept clean and largely detangled during coma, but split ends proliferate.
They wake up from the coma.
At this point, whoever had been doing their hair care leaves off, because this person is awake and theoretically taking care of their hair.
They bathe; they may or may not Actually Wash their hair at this point. Dealing with wet loose long hair is a pain; at my longest I brush my hair out before bathing with particular attention to making sure that the bristles of my hairbrush scrape my scalp to loosen any gunk, then re-braid it before getting wet. Using Soap (rather than shampoo) on long hair makes the texture all weird and it's more likely to snarl nastily, but there's a modern technique called C.O. (Conditioner Only) where you (gently) scrub/rub your scalp with conditioner instead of with shampoo, and you could totally replicate that with an oil. The clean oil replaces the nasty dirty oil and most of the oil then rinses away.
If your character washes their loose hair with soap due to not feeling clean after six months in a coma, this will likely damage it more. It's possible to brush long hair out while still immersed in a bath, if there's enough room, and braiding it while immersed will result in a few tangles but nothing major, and I've found that works better than trying to braid it after I get dried off. The braid stays wet longer, but it stays contained and sometimes that's what you need.
This lets your character go into several fights with clean but pretty fried hair, where it will pick up all sorts of blood and sweat and dirt over the course of the fights, plus general wear and tear. A day later when they have time to deal with it properly, it can be satisfyingly nasty and tangled and A Problem.


I have now started to go down a beautiful rabbit hole about DIY conditioners, and getting glycerin out of saponification (soap making) so I think I'll leave this comment at this point.

[azurelunatic]

In a society that makes soap, you can get glycerin (generally as a byproduct from laundry soap); the 1783 name for it was "the sweet principle of fat". If you heat glycerin with waxes and oils (and optionally essential oils) you can get a modern conditioner.

[thenugking]

Thank you so much, this is so much wonderful information, and gives me a better understanding of their pre-coma hair routine too!! (I figured it would take a Long time to brush hair at that length, but didn't think about consistantly having to deal with it twice a day.) I'll let them get basic hair care mid-coma, and pick up more problems after waking up!

[full_metal_ox]

One of the old superstitions about hair was that long hair sapped your strength and people would have their hair cut during serious illness to aid recovery.

Sherlock Holmes fans may recall this belief and practice as a plot point in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”; see also reynardo’s comment below.

[reynardo]

Genrally, people who were bedbound-sick had their hair cut really short just to make it easier to care for, and people who had protein issues (such as severely ill, fevers, etc) had their hair fall out anyway as the body lists that last in "must make sure they have a good supply of protein". Lots of pictures and stories of women and girls who ended up with very short hair thanks to illness, so my guess would be that it was shorn fairly close to the head during the coma, just to stop it getting too disgusting or if it started falling out anyway. Then, once awake, your protagonist could have it trimmed or even just let it grow out to chin-length.

[thenugking]

Thank you everyone for the advice, this is a lot of helpful info. I've learnt a lot and feel more confident about writing this scene now <3

[ffutures]

They don't have the time to immediately deal with their hair after waking up from the coma, this is probably a day or so later, and they've been in a few fights during that time

To be honest, a day after coming out of a coma the hair would be the least of her problems. I'd be astonished if she could stand or fully understand what is happening, let alone fight, without serious magical help.

This may be useful - a brief guide to real-world treatment after coma with links to more

https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/brain-nerves-and-spinal-cord/coma/

[topaz_eyes]

I agree with ffutures. In the real world, a head wound serious enough to cause a months-long coma means the brain has sustained a traumatic and possibly life-altering brain injury that may require extensive months-long rehabilitation.

If your magic worldbuilding allows for it, you may want to consider putting your character into an induced magical healing coma instead.