While hair loss is often an inevitable part of getting older, that doesn’t make it any easier if you’re bothered by changes to your scalp. Thinning hair can affect your confidence and satisfaction with your appearance.
A regenerative medicine technique may be the answer to your hair restoration dilemma. Using the power of your own body’s platelets, you now have a natural, drug-free alternative for restoring thickness and health to your locks, without expensive and time-consuming transplant surgery. Dermatologist Jennifer A. Baron, MD, FAAD, FACMS recommends platelet-rich plasma (PRP) hair restoration for her patients struggling with hair loss.
You’re likely aware that your blood is a mixture of liquid, the plasma portion, and solids like red and white blood cells and platelets. You may know, too, that platelets have clotting abilities to help stop bleeding from cuts and scrapes.
Platelets also carry growth factor hormones that help drive the healing process, and it’s these properties that help with hair restoration. Using a sample of blood, about the same amount as that taken for an ordinary blood test, Dr. Baron creates a powerful regenerative solution called platelet-rich plasma (PRP).
Extracting platelets is a quick process, typically taking less than 20 minutes. Your blood sample is centrifuged, which separates it into layers by component density. The heaviest blood cells drop to the bottom, while platelets settle in the middle. Extracting this fortified plasma provides the treatment for your hair restoration with a solution that has about five times the normal concentration of platelets.
The PRP solution is injected into the skin on your scalp, a very shallow injection, so that hair follicles are bathed in this nutrient-rich treatment. PRP essentially provides your body with more resources so that it can regenerate new hairs faster, overtaking the rate of loss for many patients.
While PRP hair restoration shows promise for many types of hair loss, perhaps the most exciting news is that PRP shows results when treating androgenic alopecia, one of the most common types of hair loss in both women and men. If you’re genetically prone to androgenic alopecia, there’s nothing you can do to sidestep it, you can only try treating it once your genetic clock kicks in.
If you’re already using pharmaceutical hair loss treatments, there’s even more good news. PRP hair restoration is compatible with these. There are no medications present in PRP; it’s all from your body, so there’s no chance for harmful drug interactions.
There’s also little downtime associated with PRP hair restoration. You can return to your normal activities right after an appointment. All you need to do is skip high-impact hair maintenance like blow-drying or coloring for a few days.
Find out more about PRP hair restoration and the results you could expect by booking an appointment with Jennifer A. Baron, MD, FAAD, FACMS in San Jose. Call the office to set up your consultation now.
