Dr. Rassman,
Thank you for maintaining this blog. It is very informative. Although you have made a number of posts about the use of platelet rich plasma (prp) as hair-loss treatment, I was wondering if you could maybe elaborate on some questions I had.
By way of background, I am a 27 year old male with thinning in the crown. I seem to be exhibiting the same pattern of hair loss as my father. (He lost hair in the crown, but has a strong hair line). I am currently using both propecia and rogaine (7 months).
I am considering having the prp treatment. I realize it is in the early stages, but from what I have read (1) it is safe and(2) does not have affect other treatements, such as propecia and rogaine.
Do you agree with these statements? Do you think it may be effecive? Is it safe? Will the use of prp in combination with other treatements (propecia and rogaine) affect that treatment? Will the use of prp affect a patient’s ability to get future procedures (i.e., a hair transplant)?
Thanks in advance.
I do not believe that a PRP (platelet rich plasma or protein rich plasma) treatment will impact a future hair transplant procedure. You can read about this therapy here. It should be a safe procedure, but I do not understand what is being done to you. Are you doing this yourself, is a doctor or someone else doing it for you, and what do you expect from this unproven technique with regard to returning your hair or stopping its loss?
It is your genes. Asian men do not usually grow full thick facial hair (some can, but they generally have less facial and body hair than most). What you describe is normal. If you want a full beard you can consider a hair transplant procedure to the beard area, but I would suggest that you wait a few years and see what grows in first. Full beard growth occurs between the ages of 25-30. Many men have actually had transplants with great success.
There is a science called multi-variant analysis based upon our ability to take complex variables and put them together to get a better understanding of complexity. Estimating the number of hair grafts for a balding pattern is such a complex problem, as the variables include less than pristine numbers. The variables include:
To show the difficulty of the analysis, lets look at an example “average” head size, white skin, and black very fine hair. Let’s make our patient a Class 3A pattern (see diagram at right). With very fine hair, to fill in this area, it may take between 5000-6000 follicular units, but by just increasing the hair shaft thickness from fine to medium coarse, the same size area may only require about 2500 follicular units, substantially less than the same size area with very fine hair. Even with that said, the way the hair is distributed by the surgeon will dictate what the final results will look like. The calculators offered for estimating hair graft numbers clearly do not apply, because the multi-variant analysis is far too complex.
A Chicago-area company that converted strands of Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair into diamonds will soon use the same process on the hair of another music icon — Michael Jackson.