Hair Loss: What is New? What Works? PRP and Hair Genesis

By Kate Dee, MD

I have been treating hair loss with PRP for 4 years now. I fell into it by accident: a nurse came into my practice having researched it for a long time and asked me to do the procedure for her. It worked so effectively for her, I decided to incorporate it into my practice. Since then, I’ve read every study I can find (there aren’t many) and had a lot of my own anecdotal experience. The bottom line is that it does work for most people.

PRP is Platelet-Rich Plasma. You get it from your own blood. There are very strong growth factors in your blood that can stimulate the skin, hair follicles and other cells. Doctors have been using it for decades in joints for arthritis and other joint problems. We use it in the face for skin rejuvenation. And for hair loss. It works where the hair is thinning, but not on bald spots. It decreases the rate of loss and increases the length, thickness and color of the hair. It also seems to stimulate new baby hairs to grow.

The latest Hair Loss treatment in my office is with AmnioFix. It is a product made from human placenta—yes, real human placentas! It is currently being used in surgery for wound healing; plastic surgeons and dermatologists have found that it is amazing at closing up BIG wounds, and it works really fast. There are even more potent growth factors in AmnioFix, and it has been shown to recruit your own stem cells into areas where it is used. What does that mean? It is the first product that I have ever seen that gets your own stem cells to work to create brand new tissue in the body. This treatment is entirely new and has yet to be proven with clinical trials, but it is incredibly promising. The advantage I see for this treatment is that we believe that it will be needed about once every 3 months for the treatment and only once every 6-12 months for maintenance. This is half the number of treatments than with PRP. So, though each treatment is slightly more, the total treatment should cost LESS and require about half the number of treatments as PRP. I’m pretty excited about it. I’m calling it Hair Genesis.

As always, we recommend you take great care of your skin and scalp to support what you are doing to treat hair loss. We highly recommend Nutrafol supplements and a topical alopecia medication to ensure your scalp can respond to the growth factors in our treatments. This is akin to eating a great diet at the same time you’re working out at the gym. If you have questions about our hair loss treatments, we are happy to help. Schedule a consultation here, or call us at 206-800-7379.