Approximately 56 million men and women in the United States experience significant hair loss, and they’re typically faced with three choices: 1) Let the hair loss continue, 2) try creams, shampoos, vitamins, and other products, or 3) undergo painful hair transplantation.
What if there’s another solution, one that’s natural, effective, and doesn’t require painful grafting? Well, there is with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy, and we offer this cutting-edge technique here at SINY Dermatology.
Our team of hair restoration experts has helped many of our patients regrow hair naturally using their body’s own regenerative resources, namely platelets.
Here’s a look at how PRP works and how it can help combat thinning hair.
Platelets are widely recognized for their importance in clotting your blood, but their role in your health extends far beyond this one task. After your platelets halt the bleeding, they release growth factors that promote cell regeneration to help heal the damaged tissue.
Orthopedic specialists have long understood the power of platelets and have successfully used PRP therapy to help patients heal more quickly from musculoskeletal conditions of all kinds, from arthritis to torn ligaments.
In recent years, we’ve tapped this same power to provide your hair follicles with the resources they need to continue to grow hair. More specifically, our goal with PRP therapy is to stimulate your dermal papilla cells to encourage hair growth.
The genius of PRP therapy is that we harness and concentrate your own platelets and redirect them to areas where your body can use a little boost in regenerative resources.
To get started, we draw a sample of your blood. Then, using a centrifuge, we spin your blood to separate out your platelets, creating a platelet concentrate that’s five times stronger than your blood. We mix this concentrate back in with your plasma and inject it into your scalp in areas where your hair follicles are weakening.
The ideal candidate for PRP hair restoration is someone whose hair loss is just getting started. If you already have shiny bald spots, this therapy won’t be effective, as we need to tackle areas where your follicles are still active. Ultimately, this approach to hair loss helps with thinning hair, not baldness.
Most patients benefit from a series of PRP treatments, which we space apart to allow time for your body to respond. Each session takes about an hour, but there's no downtime afterward, which means you’re free to get back to your day.
If you’d like to explore how we can tap your body’s own resources to tackle thinning hair, contact one of our several New York City offices to learn more about PRP.
