How Does PRP Help with Hair Loss?

It doesn’t matter if your hair is thinning or has fallen out and left bald patches behind — losing your hair feels like fighting a losing battle. 

Those creams and DIY treatments never seem to get the job done, and you’re stuck pulling on a hat to hide your hair (or what’s left of it). 

Until now. 

Kathleen J. Smith, MD, and our team at Dermatology Specialists of Atlanta are proud to bring our patients something that actually works: platelet-rich plasma (PRP).

Here’s a closer look at the science behind this revolutionary treatment. 

The why behind your hair loss

Hair loss is a complicated problem, and two people seldom experience it the same way, especially when you consider male and female hair loss. 

Androgenetic alopecia (you know it as male pattern baldness) is a genetically predetermined disorder that makes up 95% of hair loss in men. 

Women, on the other hand, typically experience hair loss as the result of severe hormonal changes, usually during pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. These swings in hormone levels disrupt your hair’s normal growth cycles and cause them to fall out prematurely. 

Women also tend to use hair care products and style their hair in ways that permanently damage it and lead to thinning and loss.

However, both men and women can experience hair loss at the hands of:

• Certain medications
• Chemotherapy treatments
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Unmanaged stress
• Chronic illness or autoimmune conditions

Regardless of where your hair loss problems came from, PRP is likely an option to help you restore your locks. 

The how behind PRP for hair loss

If you’ve heard of PRP, you likely know it is a treatment athletes use to recover from injuries. But that’s not all it does. 

Pulsing through your veins are some of biology’s most powerful healing and growth factors: platelets. To get them, all we need is a sample of your blood. We place the sample in a machine called a centrifuge, which separates platelets and plasma from the rest of your blood to give us a high-octane healing solution.

It may sound like an advanced science experiment, but the process couldn’t be simpler. Once we have PRP, we inject it into your scalp, targeting the hair follicles that are damaged and malfunctioning.

Sometimes, we start with a microneedling treatment to create tiny micro-punctures in your scalp before administering PRP. 

PRP stimulates your body’s ability to heal itself, and over time, your follicles respond by rebooting your hair’s growth cycle. The result is hair you’ve grown yourself (with a little boost from science).

Virtually everyone can get PRP treatments because they’re derived from your own blood and are well-tolerated. Bonus: You can get follow-up, touch-up, and maintenance treatments for the best results.

If you’re ready to get a thicker, fuller head of hair without the gimmicks, we’d love to have a hair loss consultation with you. Call or click to schedule an appointment with the team at our Decatur, Georgia, office today.