Thank you for your question. You’re 64-years-old. You state that you are thinning and that you
are under the impression that 65% of your hair is still present throughout the scalp
and you are asking will platelet-rich plasma (PRP) help restore or improve your appearance.
Well, I can certainly give you some guidance on how we answer this type of question when
people come to us in our practice. I’ll give you a little bit of background. I’m
a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
I’ve been in practice for over 20 years in Manhattan and Long Island. I am also the
founder of TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration Centers, a system we developed in our practice
where we use platelet-rich plasma (PRP) as well as Acellular matrix in a way that non-surgically
successfully helps 99% of men and women with genetic pattern loss such as what you are
describing. So I have a lot of experience with platelet-rich plasma (PRP). In fact,
we use PRP in our practice for a lot of indications from skin texture, quality, scar revision,
acne scars, for wrinkles, for under eye dark circles and in the context of our solutions
for hair loss.
So let’s begin with first answering the question about whether or not platelet-rich
plasma (PRP) helps hair loss. Now this is a question that has an answer that is somewhat
measured especially because you did not submit any photo. I’ll explain it. Platelet-rich
plasma (PRP) does stimulate hair growth. However, the limitation is the number of hair follicles
and how much your hair will respond. Because in my experience, when people will go for
platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections for hair loss, they need to go at least once a
month, if not once every 2-3 months to keep getting the injections in order to sustain
some growth. And when you stop the injections, the growth stops as well.
In our practice, what we have is a solution called Hair Regeneration. Now in a situation
where you describe, let’s say you do have 65% of your hair, well how many follicles
are there on your scalp that is salvageable and what stage of hair thinning are the rest
of the hair follicles? With Hair Regeneration, we’re able to stop progression, we’re
able to reactivate hair that’s not been growing which is a characteristic of pattern
genetic hair loss where hair is in a prolonged or it is called the telogen phase and we are
able to induce thinning hairs to shed so thicker hairs grow in. This treatment is actually
usually a one-time treatment. We do the injection and patients come in for follow-up every 3-6
months. And in some situations, for more advanced hair loss and some not so advanced, we will
do another injection somewhere around 15-18 months. There’s a big distinction between
Hair Regeneration because we are employing this material called Acellular matrix and
we have figured out, over several years, an algorithm that takes into account the age,
progression, level of hair loss, gender and other variables that we figured out over many
years. We have patients who come from all over the world and so we certainly have more
than enough of experience and we do a lot of these treatments.
So, I think that you should meet with doctors. I would question whether or not you really
have 65% of your hair. It is commonly accepted in our field that when someone notices hair
thinning, they’ve already lost 50% of their hair. You may have thicker hair which means
you have good coverage but you probably don’t have necessarily 65% of your hair. If you
do, that’s fantastic. It just gives someone like myself more to work with and better results.
And that brings home the last point which is the more hair that we have to work with
in terms of hair follicles, the better it is because we have something to work with
to regenerate. Once the hair follicle is gone, it’s gone.
So in answering the question about being able to recover, essentially when you think about
hair thinning, if you have a frontal or temporal recession, last one out is from the back end.
The temple areas or the farthest point will start to come forward. If it’s the crown
area, well then the fringe goes inward, goes from in to out. When you are losing hair,
it goes from out to in when your hair is coming back. So the more you have to work with, the
better it is. So I would say learn about the differentiation between platelet-rich plasma
(PRP) alone and this technology that I described called Hair Regeneration.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.