Thank you for your question.
You've submitted a question which is very basic.
You're asking, “Why does PRP have to be done so frequently?”
And it’s certainly a very understandable question.
It’s for the treatment of hair loss.
I could certainly assist you with this.
I'm a board certified cosmetic surgeon practicing in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years.
And I've been performing hair transplant surgery for that duration.
And in addition, I'm also the founder of TrichoStem Hair Regeneration Center which is based on
our system of hair regeneration that uses PRP as part of the process.
And it actually is a non-surgical solution and alternative to hair transplantation.
So I've a lot of experience with the use of platelet-rich plasma not just for hair but
also in my practice for skin rejuvenation, for acne scars, and for other treatments;
wrinkles, sun damage, etcetera.
Now my intention is to educate and describe our experience and in no way am I interested
in disparaging any other colleague or physician who is offering PRP as an option for hair
loss.
My – from my understanding and from my experience, I think that everyone who is using it is doing
their best to see if they can help their patients stop the progression of hair loss.
That being said, in our practice, we use platelet-rich plasma but we combine this with something
called extracellular matrix.
This is a wound healing material which was originally intended to assist in the healing
of the donor area of a hair transplant as well as to improve the viability and survivability
of hair graphs.
Serendipitously, it was noticed that thinning hair became thicker.
So to differentiate what we do with our treatment which we call hair regeneration; which is
a customized combination of platelet-rich plasma with extracellular matrix from platelet-rich
plasma alone, I can give you some basic understanding.
In my experience, platelet-rich plasma alone will stimulate short term hair growth.
And that’s the explanation for the frequency.
When people come to a doctor and get PRP injections, they’ll get some short hairs and those hairs
will grow for a short period but left alone, they’ll stop growing.
And that’s why a lot of people come to us who have had PRP done elsewhere will say they
had to go every month.
They often did it without any anesthetic which certainly after a couple of sessions becomes
less than fun.
But in our practice, when we do what we do which is hair regeneration treatment, we have
patients who with one treatment will actually grow hair continuously.
What will happen is these will stop the progression as well as reverse and thicken thinning hair.
In a way it’s a reactivation of growth cycles that are actually thickening the hair rather
than allowing the genetic progression of hair thinning.
It’s successful for both men and women.
Ninety nine plus percent of men and more than ninety percent of women from our clinical
data from hundreds of patients who we treat from around the world every year, we have
seen that the benefit can really be sustainable without repeat injections.
So I think that the answer to the question, of course, is the – from my experience and
from the experience of patients is that PRP alone cannot sustain hair growth.
PRP will certainly be beneficial in many other areas of the body as I described.
But for hair growth, it doesn’t do the job that you want it to do which is to stop your
hair loss progression.
In some ways, it’s almost comparable to the effectiveness of minoxidil.
Now that being said, for patients like – people like yourself who inquire about PRP, we spent
a lot of time educating our patients about the long term benefit and the strategy we
employ with hair regeneration.
And such to the point that we have built TrichoStem Hair Regeneration Centers and we’re now
trying to bring this technology out to people who may or may not be able to come to us.
As we said, being in New York City, we see patients who are coming from around the world
who have excellent, sustainable results.
And we follow our patients closely and we’re able to customize treatments.
Sometimes it does take more than one treatment but we have a system in place based on a lot
of clinical data to help our patients get the maximum result.
And along that point, I would also suggest that you consider doing something earlier
rather than later.
The more hair somebody has, even if it’s very thin, the better it is because the volume
and density can really have an impact on coverage the sooner somebody comes.
We’re treating people both men and women as early as in their 20s and 30s.
But even men and women we’ve treated in the 70s have also done very well with hair
regeneration.
So this is a remarkable treatment that bridges some very important gap between medications
such as minoxidil and finasteride; and surgery which has the limitations of the number of
graphs and the amount of coverage before you run out of donor area.
With that being said, learn more about this other procedure which is – involves PRP
but not PRP alone.
And I think you'll find that there is an option other than doing PRP injections every few
months.
So I hope that was helpful.
I wish you the best of luck.
And thank you for your question.