When people discuss methods of hair restoration, they commonly focus on follicular unit extraction (FUE) and follicular unit transplantation (FUT). While both procedures are certainly effective in tackling a receding hairline, they are not the only options available to somebody hoping to cure their alopecia. Among the many alternative routes one could take is platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy. PRP therapy has a number of advantages over FUE and FUT. We’re going to be discussing the most noteworthy of them below.
A Non-Surgical Option
As effective as FUE and FUT can be, they come with the significant disadvantage of being surgical procedures. FUT can require more than a month of recovery time, and the surgery itself can be quite painful. While FUE is markedly less painful than FUT and rarely requires more than a week of convalescence, it still has a recovery time that is inconvenient to many. If you would like to undergo a hair restoration procedure but don’t have days to dedicate to recovery, PRP therapy may be the choice for you. The typical PRP therapy session involves a series of injections of platelet-rich plasma into the patient’s scalp. These injections are virtually painless and require next to no time to recover from.
No Negative Reactions
When you go with a surgical method of hair restoration, you run the risk of your body rejecting the procedure. This is not an issue with PRP therapy. This is because PRP therapy works by drawing blood from the patient, isolating the platelet-rich plasma in the blood, and injecting it into the area of the patient’s scalp that is in need of stimulation. Because the procedure merely involves the injecting of the patient’s own blood into their scalp, there is virtually zero risk of their body reacting negatively to the procedure.
Affordable
In most portions of the world, a hair transplant will set you back a whole lot of money. In the United States, for example, an FUE procedure can cost upwards of $20,000. FUT, which is supposed to be the affordable alternative to FUE, is not too far behind. PRP therapy, however, will rarely set you back more than $500 per session. Even when performed over the course of a couple of sessions (as it almost always is), PRP therapy will still only cost a fraction of FUE and FUT. If saving money is your primary goal, we suggest traveling to Turkey for PRP treatment. Turkish clinics offer all hair restoration procedures for significantly less than their Western counterparts. In Istanbul’s Vera Clinic, for example, patients pay between $100 and $250 per PRP session.
Versatility
One of the major advantages of PRP therapy is that it has applications far beyond the realm of hair transplantation. As useful as it can be in restoring a receding hairline, it can also be relied upon to tackle muscle damage and joint pain. Athletes suffering from injuries often turn to PRP therapy over surgery as it allows them to heal without taking too much time away from their chosen sport. For further details on the versatility of PRP therapy, feast your eyes on this brief but in-depth article from Medical News Today.