About Pain & Scarring
During your procedure, your doctor will manage your pain, so the most uncomfortable thing about it is sitting in a chair for up to 8 hours straight. Most docs will give patients regular breaks to get up and stretch, though. Afterward, you might experience some soreness but it shouldn’t exceed the level of pain that can be managed by OTC painkillers.
Scarring will also be minimal, especially if you had the individual hair transfer procedure. Scarring from that is basically undetectable to the untrained eye. However, with the other type of removal there will be a scar at the donor site on the back of your scalp. Doctors are careful to take this from a place that will be hidden by existing hair.
If you can manage 3 weeks of relative solitude (or loose hat wearing), the redness will have dissipated and the shaved areas will be filling back in. No one that you don’t tell about the surgery should be able to notice that it was done.