Procedures to help regrow hair: While at-home treatments offer convenience, a procedure performed by a board-certified dermatologist tends to be more effective. For this reason, your dermatologist may include one of the following in your treatment plan:
Steroids (Corticosteroids) injection: Some females may also respond to corticosteroid injections. Doctors use this treatment only when necessary for conditions such as alopecia areata. Alopecia areata results in a person’s hair falling out in random patches.
According to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF), injecting corticosteroids directly into the hairless patch may encourage new hair growth. However, this may not prevent other hair from falling out.
Topical corticosteroids, which are available as creams, lotions, and other preparations, may also reduce hair loss.
To help your hair regrow, your dermatologist injects this medication into the bald (or thinning) areas. These injections are usually given every 4 to 8 weeks as needed, so you will need to return to your dermatologist’s office for treatment.
In one study of 127 patients with patchy alopecia areata, more than 80% who were treated with these injections had at least half of their hair regrow within 12 weeks.
This is considered the most effective treatment for people who have a few patches of alopecia areata, a condition that causes hair loss. It helps to reduce inflammation. You can either apply them to your scalp or have them injected into the affected area.
Hair transplant surgery: In some cases where other treatments are not effective, a healthcare professional may recommend hair transplantation. If you have an area of thinning or balding due to male (or female) pattern baldness, your dermatologist may mention a hair transplant as an option. This can be an effective and permanent solution. Hair transplantation, a procedure used in the United States since the 1950s to treat androgenic alopecia, involves removing a strip of scalp from the back of the head and using it to fill in a bald patch. Today, 90% of hair-transplant surgeons use a technique called follicular unit transplantation, which was introduced in the mid-1990s.
During this procedure, surgeons remove a narrow strip of scalp and divide it into hundreds of tiny grafts, each containing just a few hairs. Each graft is planted in a slit in the scalp created by a blade or needle in the area of missing hair. Hair grows naturally this way, in small clusters of one to four follicles, called follicular units. As a result, the graft looks better than the larger "plugs" associated with hair transplants of yesteryear. This procedure doesn't require hospitalization, but it is painful, so you'll be given a sedation medicine to ease any discomfort. Possible risks include bleeding, bruising, swelling, and infection. You may need more than one surgery to get the effect you want. Hereditary hair loss will eventually progress despite surgery. Not everyone with female pattern hair loss is a good candidate for hair transplantation, especially if hair loss is widespread and severe. In addition, hair transplantation is expensive, can be time-intensive, and is not always successful. This technique is touted as being dependable approach to addressing alopecia. But it’s not without risks, including infection or shock that may cause hair to fall out of the transplanted areas. Insurance plans typically don’t cover hair transplants, and the cost (often thousands of dollars) may be a barrier.
Hair transplant therapy can be more costly than other treatments and is not suitable for everybody.
Follicular Unit Extraction for Hair Loss in Women: Follicular unit extraction (FUE) is a treatment that extracts hair follicles from one area and places them in another to allow for improved density and natural-looking hair growth. During the procedure, the Doctor will take hair follicles from portions of your scalp that are less affected by hair loss. He can take up to 20% of those donor follicles before they become noticeably thinner. He will then move the follicles to areas of the scalp where you would like thicker hair growth. Depending on the severity of your hair loss, the Doctor can also perform autologous conditioned plasma (ACP) treatments. During an ACP treatment, he will draw a blood sample from you and process it in a centrifuge to extract plasma. He can apply the plasma to your scalp with a thin needle to support the new growth. The results from FUE are long-lasting if you take good care of your scalp, and the follicles will allow new strands of hair to grow as if they had never been disturbed. No new hair will grow in the donor site, but a doctor will carefully harvest your follicles so their absence should not be noticeable.
Light therapy (Laser therapy): If using minoxidil every day or taking medication to treat hair loss seems unappealing to you, laser therapy may be an option. Also called low-level laser therapy, a few studies suggest that this may help:
Studies indicate that laser therapy is safe and painless, but requires many treatment sessions. To see a bit of hair growth, you may need several treatments a week for many months. Low-level light therapy may not be a sufficient treatment for hair loss on its own, but it may act to amplify the effects of other hair loss treatments, such as minoxidil. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a low-level laser device as a treatment for hereditary hair loss in men and women. A few small studies have shown that it improves hair density. More studies are needed to show long-term effects. A healthcare provider might recommend forms of light therapy, like using the HairMax Lasercomb®. This low-light laser is approved by the U.S. FDA to treat FPHL(Female Pattern Hair Loss). Another FDA-approved laser product is the Theradome LH80 PRO® helmet, and low-light laser helmets and caps. Research from 2018 found that compared to control groups, adding low light therapy to regular 5% minoxidil treatment for androgenetic alopecia helped improve the recovery of the hair and the participants’ overall satisfaction with their treatment. Further research is needed to help strengthen these results.
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection: Injections of protein-rich plasma (PRP) are used to encourage hair growth. Early evidence suggests that injections of platelet-rich plasma may also help reduce hair loss. A plasma-rich injection involves a healthcare professional drawing the person’s blood, separating the platelet-rich plasma from the blood, and injecting it back into the scalp at the affected areas. This helps speed up tissue repair. The entire procedure takes about 10 minutes and usually doesn’t require any downtime. You will need to return for repeat injections. Most patients return once a month for 3 months and then once every 3 to 6 months. Within the first few months of treatment, you may notice that you are losing less or minimal amounts of hair. Studies show that this can be a safe and effective hair loss treatment. It is noted that this therapy reduces hair loss, increases hair density, and increases the diameter of each hair. However, because most studies up until now have been very small, the review calls for more research using platelet-rich plasma for androgenic alopecia.
Microneedling: A microneedling device contains hundreds of tiny needles. A few studies have shown that it can help stimulate hair growth. In one study, men between the ages of 20 and 35 years old who had mild or moderate hereditary hair loss were treated with either:
After 12 weeks of treatment, the patients treated with minoxidil and microneedling had significantly more hair growth. Other studies have shown that using microneedling along with another treatment, including platelet-rich plasma or a corticosteroid that you apply to the thinning area, helps improve hair growth.
While you can buy a microneedling device without a prescription, it’s best to check with your dermatologist first. Microneedling can worsen some conditions. It’s also important to get the right microneedling device. The devices used for hair loss contain longer needles than those used to treat the skin.
Microneedling of the scalp with and without the application of minoxidil can be recommended by the dermatologist as per the need.
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