Does PRP work for hair loss?

Platelet-rich plasma is made from your own blood. I take a sample much as a nurse would for a blood test, spin it in a centrifuge to separate the components by density, and draw off the plasma layer carrying the highest concentration of platelets. That concentrate is injected into the scalp in a grid across the thinning area.

Platelets are not only clotting cells. They carry growth factors — signalling proteins the body releases at a site of injury to recruit repair. The theory of PRP is that delivering a concentrated dose of those signals to a follicle that has become dormant nudges it back toward an active growing phase.

Because it is made from your own blood there is no foreign material and no allergy risk in the way there is with an injected product. What there is instead is variability: the platelet count of the concentrate depends on your own blood on the day, which is one honest reason results differ between people more than they do with a standardised product.

PRP has the most evidence in androgenetic alopecia — pattern hair loss, the gradual thinning that runs in families and affects both men and women. In women it usually shows as a widening parting and a general loss of density across the crown rather than a receding hairline.

It has much weaker evidence in scarring alopecias, where the follicle has been destroyed and replaced with fibrous tissue. If the follicle is gone, no growth signal will bring it back, and I would rather tell you that at consultation than take payment for a course that cannot work.

Hair loss that has come on suddenly, in patches, or alongside other symptoms is a reason to see your GP before you see me. Thyroid disease, iron deficiency, several autoimmune conditions and a number of medicines all cause hair loss, and treating the scalp while the cause goes unaddressed wastes your time and your money. The NHS page on hair loss is a sensible starting point for working out which category you are in.

Published studies in pattern hair loss generally report increases in hair density and hair thickness over a course of treatments, with the clearest effects in people who still have visible miniaturised hairs in the thinning area rather than smooth scalp. The trials are mostly small, the preparation methods vary between them, and there is no single agreed protocol — all of which are reasons to treat the numbers as encouraging rather than settled.

The practical translation is this: PRP is most likely to help you hold and thicken what you still have. It is not a transplant and it does not create follicles. If you are looking at an area that has been completely smooth for years, the honest expectation is very little.

Earlier is better. The window where PRP does its best work is when thinning has started and is bothering you but the density is still there to protect. People often wait until it is obvious in photographs, which is the point at which there is least left to work with.

A typical course is three to four sessions spaced about four weeks apart, then a maintenance session every four to six months. Hair grows slowly, so nothing is visible early — most people notice reduced shedding first, at around six to eight weeks, and any change in density considerably later.

I ask people to photograph the same parting in the same light before we start. Hair change is gradual enough that memory is a poor judge of it, and a set of photographs at week zero is the only way either of us will be able to say honestly whether it has worked.

The appointment takes about forty-five minutes, most of which is drawing and spinning the blood. The injections themselves are quick. The scalp is sensitive, so I use a very fine needle and work in small stages; most people describe it as uncomfortable rather than painful.

The scalp is usually tender and may look slightly puffy for a day. Leave the hair unwashed for the rest of the day, skip the gym and anything that raises the scalp temperature for twenty-four hours, and avoid dye or chemical treatments for a few days.

The real cost to weigh is the maintenance. PRP does not change the underlying hormonal drive behind pattern hair loss, so what it achieves is held only while treatment continues. Stopping does not undo the gains overnight, but the original process resumes. If a repeating cost every few months is not something you want indefinitely, that is worth deciding before the first session rather than after the fourth.

It sits alongside medical treatment rather than replacing it. If a dermatologist or your GP has you on something for the same problem, tell me what you are taking so the plan is built around it.