For what it’s worth . . .
News Video on PRP: https://gma.yahoo.com/video/treatment-millions-people-suffering-hair-123453201.html
I wonder if it’s injury from the needles during the PRP injections that is actually causing any hair regrowth, and not the stuff being injected.
As an experiment control, has anyone tried injecting a “liquid sugar pill (maybe a saline solution)” so to speak, to see if the results equal the injection of PRP?
That Good Morning America segment is actually pretty old (it aired at least 2 years ago, I think). But I notice people keep posting it.
I have absolutely no faith or interest in PRP. It is pure hype by the hair transplant industry. There is no proof that it does anything on anyone who’s already lost substantial hair – all the “evidence” has been completely exaggerated and blown out of proportion.
It’s just a great way for HT doctors to increase revenues. It’s something they can do quickly and easily in their offices, with inexpensive equipment, and yet charge a huge mark-up for. They’ll charge $600 - $1000 to take a little bit of your blood and centrifuge it, then inject the plasma back into your scalp. An extremely simple lab procedure that costs them next to nothing.
PRP started out as a proposed way of improving WOUND HEALING on HT patients. It seems to have some positive effects in that regard.
Then after that some HT surgeons started “pushing the envelope” and implying that it can grow hair. The evidence they’ve showed to prove this idea is a complete joke. Yet they push it and push it because (1) it’s cheap for them to do; (2) it’s a quick and easy way to do “upselling” by adding on a treatment for which they can charge a ridiculous premium.
I would even say that the docs who were featured in that ABC News report approached Good Morning America themselves and pitched the story. There have been many similar “segments” on PRP on local news broadcasts all around the country. HT clinics are approaching local TV news stations and proposing the story. Many of these stations need “filler” to run for their regular health segments. Some of these docs are probably even paying the stations to air these reports.
You know, at HT doctors’ conventions around the country, this is exactly the kind of thing they teach as a marketing technique to increase sales.
Did you read my second posting in this thread, proposing it might be injuries from the needle sticking itself that might be growing any hair, and not the PRP solution?
Yes, and I think that is plausible. I’m not saying this stuff can’t have an effect on some people, I just think that it’s only likely to result in slight improvement on those with MPB who are just starting to thin, or on women with very mild thinning. NOT on people like you, me, jarjar and most people here who have already lost substantial hair. It’s not worth our attention. Any growth factors in PRP will be in Histogen’s HSC in far higher concentrations, and guaranteed instead of just speculative, as PRP is not actually tested for levels or presence of growth factors before it’s administered.)
It’s true about a lot of different things that get touted as MPB fighters - anything that involves superficial abrasions/wounds/needlings of the scalp is liable to produce a little regrowth from that alone. And in most cases (like PRP) the effects are temporary.
Agreed. Whatever minimal effect this has is probably caused by both the needling and the PRP. I just wanted to stress, though, that the results are probably so slight and unreliable – especially in people with substantial hair loss – that it’s not worthwhile for us to seriously treat this as an option, unless we just started to lose hair very recently. Even then, it would have to repeated frequently to maintain whatever was regrown.