Thank you for your question.
You submitted your question without a photo. And you’re essentially asking why is there
such a wide difference in PRP treatments for hair loss. You seem to feel that you can understand
what the difference is when it comes to hair transplant surgery but you’re trying to
get a sense of why there is such a wide difference and who is most qualified.
Well, I can certainly share with you a little bit of understanding based on my practice.
A little bit of background, I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial
plastic and reconstructive surgeon. I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island
for over 20 years. I am also the founder of TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration Centers, a
system we developed starting about 7 or 8 years ago using PRP and extracellular matrix
to help men and women with male and female pattern hair loss non-surgically and this
was derived from hair transplant surgery. And so I can certainly speak to you from a
perspective of a pioneer of somebody who has been an innovator and ultimately developed
a system that has been very successful.
So to give you a certain sense of how I ultimately first derived this treatment and then how
I try to arrive at costs that can be reasonable. So to begin with, we were doing a lot of transplants.
I’m a cosmetic surgeon and I’ve been doing hair transplants for many years. And when
you do hair transplants, you have two major concerns: one was to have the healing of the
donor area to be as good as possible and two was to get the grafts to grow and to heal
as well as possible. There’s a certain loss of graft viability in any hair transplant.
And so we used this material called extracellular matrix with PRP. Well, a very pleasant side-effect
was thinning hair became thicker in a lot of our patients. And so, I basically asked
the question can we take this effect and reproduce it with consistency.
And so we started looking at different formulations and treatments and we follow our patients
very closely. We are seeing them every 3 months and we were seeing them for years. Well, to
make the long story short, we ultimately developed an algorithm, a system of customization of
concentration and method of delivery to maximize the growth of hair non-surgically.
Now in addition, with all of this experience over all these years, I also developed a classification
system and I’ve developed this classification system to help our patients have a sense of
prognosis to expectations to what they can see with our treatment. Now the classification
system is based on gender, age, age of onset of hair loss, rate of progression, degree
of progression and other medical variables including previous surgery, previous injections
and previous treatments as well as hormonal and other levels.
Now when it comes to cost, I think it’s very important, whenever I do a consultation
with a patient at this point, we treat so many patients from around the world. We’ve
reached a point where I’m actually being very selective on who I treat because it can
really take up a lot of your practice’s resources. In a practice like mine where I
do cosmetic surgery, I do cosmetic eyelid surgery, I do facelifting surgery, I do lasers
and I do injectables and in addition, developing this hair loss treatment has been so successful
that we actually developed additional offices and we’re trying to scale in a way that
is predictable and continuous to be something that we are working on.
So I would say that one of the things that I’ve had to look at in terms of this treatment,
in terms of cost has been, it’s not just the cost of a procedure but rather, when we
developed our cost, we looked at the overall management of the individual patient. And
I think it’s very important for you to select a doctor who you feel comfortable with, who’s
going to look at your situation from a hair loss management perspective. What does that
mean?
Well, a lot of my colleagues will just do an injection and then that’s it. When we
see our patients, our consultations take a long time. We spend at least 30 minutes or
more taking standardized digital photography, microscope photos and getting extensive medical
history and do an examination and having an extensive discussion and ultimately developing
a treatment plan. With that treatment plan, typically there is at least one to maybe to
2 injection treatments separated by anywhere from 15 to 24 months. And in between, we see
our patients every 3-6 months and all of that is under one cost. So you can imagine with
every follow-up, we’re also taking photos and taking microscope photos and we’re looking
and reviewing results. We’re basically being accountable to every patient for their treatment
strategy and we work hard to make sure that we get a successful outcome or have a high
probability of a successful outcome.
There are no guarantees in medicine. With all this experience, we have ultimately developed
a system and that system means that also there are others things that can be done in conjunction
with Hair Regeneration to maximize hair growth for as long as possible. Remember hair loss
is hardwired in your DNA and what we’re doing is manipulating different pathways to
prolong the lifespan of the hair as well as to ultimately maximize coverage as long as
possible. So the cost differential or I should say the cost for our treatment, this is how
I arrived at it.
Now I would certainly say that you have to look at the level of follow-up as an important
part of your decision. And when doctors try to do procedures in a more of a transactional
way, very often they’re just saying, “Come and get injections and we’ll see what happens.”
I have seen other doctors’ photos and patients coming in with photos and I am amazed how
inconsistent these photos are and how often patients don't get photos taken and how things
are done kind of halfheartedly. And ultimately, they’re paying for just seeing if something
works. So it’s really important.
Don’t be fooled by one claim of better PRP compared to another. Look at the individual
doctor’s real personal experience. Look at their before and after pictures. Look at
how long they’ve been doing their treatments. Look at how confident they are with their
treatment. Therein lies the value. It’s in the expertise, it’s in the experience,
it’s in the accountability, it’s in the longevity of the commitment to your individual
treatment and how many times you’ll be seen and the availability of that doctor. You know
our patients have very good relationships with us. They’ll call us and either I or
my technicians will always return their phone calls.
So it’s important to think about those variables instead of just thinking that one person’s
PRP is better than someone else’s. That’s just mostly nonsense. It really is about experience
and expertise and what I just mentioned. So I think you have to look at it from that perspective.
Again remember, hair loss is managed and you just don't take a shotgun approach. And I
think that a lot of doctors are offering what is essentially a shotgun approach and trying
to see if it works or it doesn't and not having that level of commitment in their practice
to managing patients with hair loss.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.