Platelet-rich plasma therapy aka PRP therapy is a procedure in which a constituent is drawn from your blood that has the characteristics to promote healing when injected into your body. Plasma is obtained from your blood. It contains unique proteins that support cell growth. The researchers have devised PRP therapy by taking out plasma from blood and concentrating it into your body area that requires healing.

Injecting the PRP into damaged tissues like scalp stimulate the scalp to grow new and healthy cells. As the tissue growth proteins concentrated in the growth injections are transmitted into your body, those particular body tissues heal and grow faster.

The PRP therapy has not been proven or approved as of yet. However, many famous personalities and athletes have used these injections to heal their injuries.

Purpose

Researchers are experimenting the use of PRP therapy in many applications like hair loss, tendon injuries, acute injuries etc. It can be used to grow hairs. Doctors have injected PRP injections into the scalp to promote hair growth and stop hair loss. As per a research, PRP therapy is effective in treating androgenic alopecia, also known as male pattern baldness.

Procedure

• A professional draws a sample of your blood. The amount depends on the body part where the PRP will be injected. For injection into the scalp, the amount of blood drawn is around 20 ml.
• The blood is then placed into a centrifuge machine that spins quickly causing the blood constituents to separate. The separation process takes 15 minutes of time.
• The separated plasma from the blood is taken and prepared for injection into the scalp or any other body part to be treated.
• Doctors use an imaging technique, like an ultrasound, to identify areas for injection like the tendon. The doctor then injects PRP in the concerned area.
• The process takes around an hour.

As the injections in PRP therapy are intended to promote growth or healing, you may not notice a difference right away after getting the injections. Nevertheless, in a few weeks or a few months, it will come to your attention that the concerned area is healing faster like the scalp grows more hair than what it would grow in the absence of PRP injections.