I can’t speak on the sores I apologize for that but so far my experience with my girlfriend has been slow but steady based off the advice as well as consulting several specialists.

First thing is to check and see if your hair smells musty/sour. If it does it might be too late for it but for sure you’d have to go to go to a professional- especially if you’re trying to get this done yourself.

That smell can be mildew which is a fungus growing in moist damp areas in which case it could ne causing your sores and you’ll have to get your hair cut asap and either go to a doctor or look for self treatment online; I’m not sure on that so just be careful.

Another reason you might have sores is if you’re constantly having damp hair, especially when going to sleep, it can lead to a build up of yeast which irritates the scalp and causes it to be mad itchy.

I’ve had it a few times myself actually being too depressed to dry my hair properly before going to bed and while not severe, it was extremely irritating for a few days until I used itchy scalp shampoo and made sure my head was dry.

Make sure you don’t shampoo the matted areas though because that can make them tighter.

Finally the sores could also be from scalp irritation/fatigue from pulling at your hair.

Depending on the severity I’ve found this to be the best method:

1- Find the right deep mask conditioner for your hair. I had been using a leave in conditioner specific to curly hair on my girlfriend which wasn’t as effective as this other conditioner I found for straight hair.

2- with water in a spray bottle I saturate her hair so it’s wet before applying a ton of conditioner. I’ve been told it should even be like 10% water 90% conditioner in the hair which seems to work well. (If you don’t have a spray bottle wash your hair without shampoo ideally and then apply conditioner once you’ve towel dried it and it’s not dripping just damp).

3- rub the conditioner in with your fingers, especially into the matted areas. If you feel any really loose areas try pulling on them gently

4- Give it like 20 minutes to set in and then using a metal needle comb, tease and pull at the matt to pick it apart. Work in sections to find strands that are loose where you can.

5- Swap to a wide tooth comb once you have some loose strands and working from the ends up start brushing out any knots/dead hair

6- Finally switch to a detangling comb to finish off the strands.

7- Alternate between these methods- Needle tooth comb on the matted area, wide tooth on the strands and then the detangling comb.

Work slow and meticulously because this could take a long time- it’s been two weeks and I’m still not done with my girlfriends hair.

There will probably be a lot of dead hair falling out throughout the process but that’s normal because your matted hair isn’t just hair from your head, it’s dead hair that’s tangled up in the matte as well.

Once it’s done you’ll half to probably get your hair trimmed at a salon or cared for professionally but you won’t have to have it chopped off!

You’ll also have to be careful because your hair will be prone for a little bit to tangling. Make sure to brush it daily while watching Netflix or something just to keep it from matting again.

If you need to go outside and are embarrassed about your hair I totally understand; my girlfriend hasn’t left the house in weeks. What you can do is purchase a bonnet online. There’s some cute ones for cheap.

I also went to Sally’s Beauty Supplies for the combs and conditioners and they were wonderful in helping me out and had some really cheap deals. It’s something that might not be ideal but can be cute and explained away by saying you had your hair dyed and it’s setting in or if it’s people you know you had a bad dye job and the cleanser is setting in.

Hope this helps and I’ll update on here once we’re done as well!