Hey guys,
as promised I'm reporting here on my PRP treatment.
Will it work? I don't know. I read some research papers before which are quite positive about its efficacy. Hence I decided to give it a try and monitor closely.
Current status:
How it went:
They drew some of my blood, which took less than 3 minutes. Two syringes, each of them 10 ml. They filled them until around 8.5 ml, so they got around 17 ml of my blood in total. Then they started preparing it with a centrifuge, resulting in 4 or 5 smaller syringes with the PRP concentrate. This took around 10 minutes, maybe a bit less. After these 10 minutes I immediately received the injections, i.e. directly when the PRP was ready. As stated above, most of them were injected about 1 cm below my hairline (IIRC around 10 of them) and three or four in my vertex. Surprisingly, the injections did indeed hurt (has to do with scalp being sensitive in general apparently), but it was definitely bearable. Nothing compared to DR'ing
How things will go from here:
Doctor says first results, if any, should be seen approximately 8 weeks after the injection session. They will show as young, weak terminal hair. Similar to the first signs of regrowth on finasteride or minoxidil - very weak, new hairs breaking through the skin.
Will new hairs show in my case? I don't know, but I'll report back. If there is any effect at all, I will get a second treatment session cause the Doctor says that effect can be stacked initially up to three times. No additional effect can usually be noticed past three injection sessions in a short amount of time according to him. He also says that effect can be refreshed once a year, but in follow-up years only once a year makes sense according to him. I will judge for myself though if it's worth it and not just blindly trust him.
Anyway, I will report back in 8 weeks to give a status update and report whether there was any regrowth at all or none at all. In the following days I will also add some photos to document my state before treatment.
as promised I'm reporting here on my PRP treatment.
Will it work? I don't know. I read some research papers before which are quite positive about its efficacy. Hence I decided to give it a try and monitor closely.
Current status:
- NW3 on the border to NW4. Vertex recently restored thanks to finasteride. Had first visible loss of density in my vertex around August 2014. Started finasteride in November 2014 and vertex is restored by now (May 2015). finasteride did not have any effect on my hairline up until now and only on the vertex. But for assessing PRP efficacy it should be kept in mind that finasteride might after all show some effect too. I just think it's highly unlikely it will show effect just in these 8 weeks during which I will assess PRP efficacy (more on that below).
- 25 years of age, soon turning 26
- hair loss since 17
- minoxidil in varying doses and with a 6 month break for 3 years
- finasteride 0.5 mg every three days since beginning of November 2014
- I'm paying 600€ for the first injection session; if I decide for follow-ups I'll get them for 500€ per session. Tried to bargain with the Doctor and he told me that his costs for one session are around 300€ to 350€ everything included (i.e. personnel, licensing, running equipment costs and retrospectively financing the centrifuges, etc), just to give you a rough idea of the price range and why it can't be had for (much) cheaper.
- Apparently the PRP is somewhat sensitive to external factors. He told me not to use any shampoo for 24 hours past injection, and no topicals for at least 48h, better 72h after the injection session. After that you can proceed as usual.
- PRP activation lasts only for a few minutes after centrifugation. Treatment must be performed within 20 minutes after centrifugation; the quicker the better.
- No sports for 24h so as not to risk sweat interfering with the PRP.
- One injection session for my state (somewhere between NW3 and NW4) will be around 16 injections in total, each injection will cover an area of roughly 1 cm^2. He will use them to evenly distribute along the hairline (a bit below such that the covered area will be touching right with my current hairline) to maximize treatment area. A few remaining injections will be used to fill up my vertex a bit.
- With some young clients, he has actually witnessed reactivation of completely dormant follicles. I.e. some single terminal hairs penetrating through slick bald areas, which definitely proves effectiveness. All in all, young patients are the most likely to receive gains.
- First few very weak terminal hairs can be witnessed breaking through the skin around 8 weeks after the injection session, but obviously only in the areas covered by treatment.
- Treatment will hurt a little bit, but can be endured without any anaesthetics.
How it went:
They drew some of my blood, which took less than 3 minutes. Two syringes, each of them 10 ml. They filled them until around 8.5 ml, so they got around 17 ml of my blood in total. Then they started preparing it with a centrifuge, resulting in 4 or 5 smaller syringes with the PRP concentrate. This took around 10 minutes, maybe a bit less. After these 10 minutes I immediately received the injections, i.e. directly when the PRP was ready. As stated above, most of them were injected about 1 cm below my hairline (IIRC around 10 of them) and three or four in my vertex. Surprisingly, the injections did indeed hurt (has to do with scalp being sensitive in general apparently), but it was definitely bearable. Nothing compared to DR'ing
How things will go from here:
Doctor says first results, if any, should be seen approximately 8 weeks after the injection session. They will show as young, weak terminal hair. Similar to the first signs of regrowth on finasteride or minoxidil - very weak, new hairs breaking through the skin.
Will new hairs show in my case? I don't know, but I'll report back. If there is any effect at all, I will get a second treatment session cause the Doctor says that effect can be stacked initially up to three times. No additional effect can usually be noticed past three injection sessions in a short amount of time according to him. He also says that effect can be refreshed once a year, but in follow-up years only once a year makes sense according to him. I will judge for myself though if it's worth it and not just blindly trust him.
Anyway, I will report back in 8 weeks to give a status update and report whether there was any regrowth at all or none at all. In the following days I will also add some photos to document my state before treatment.
