How Pattern Hair Loss Increases In Women Over 50, And How Menopause Can Affect Hair

Thank you for your question.. You submitted your question without a photo and you’re asking if PRP can restore the hair quality that was there prior to menopause., And you describe in the details of your question that you’re 54-years-old and that your hair after menopause became thin and flat. Further. You describe having undergone applying the use of Rogaine, which resulted in some blood pressure issues.. Well, I can certainly assist you in understanding how we treat patients like yourself every day in our practice. A little bit of background, I’m a Board-certified, cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon.. I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years.. I am also the founder of TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration Centers.. This is a system that evolved from performing hair transplant surgery using regenerative medicine technology, and we have made a significant impact in the treatment of female pattern: hair loss.. We have been doing this over 8 years and I’ll describe for you some of the challenges of your situation and how we manage problems like yours every day as I mentioned earlier.. So, to begin with, it is important to understand that, although it’s commonly understood that there is male pattern, hair loss, beginning at a very early age, one of the areas that has been underserved is female pattern. Hair loss. - And it is a generally accepted statistic - that 30 % of women under the age of 50 and 50 % of women over the age of 50 will have female pattern. Hair loss.. And although it is important to certainly recognize that the effect of estrogen being diminished after menopause commonly has an impact on hair growth, it is also important to understand that this condition is often referred to as androgenetic alopecia, which means genetic pattern, hair loss. And what happens With androgenetic alopecia is the numbers of hairs slowly diminish the hair. Slowly becomes thinner as you describe, and eventually it progresses until the volume of hair, diminishes. And scalp coverage is a function of both the number of hairs, as well as the thickness of the individual hairs.. Now, when we were first doing this treatment, Hair Regeneration, which we developed using platelet-rich plasma, (, PRP ) and a material called Acellular matrix, we were first using this for male pattern: hair loss in the context of hair transplant surgery.. A very pleasant side-effect was seen, which was that thinning hair became thicker.. Now, although PRP was part of this formulation at that time, it was very important that we recognize that Acellular matrix made a big impact. Now in the early years back in 2011-2012, when we were first presenting preliminary results, which was fairly dramatic for both male and female Pattern: hair loss: there was a lot of skepticism in the medical community, particularly amongst hair transplant doctors and dermatologist.. Well, we persisted in developing this and over the course of many years, we’ve essentially developed a system, a system based on certain key elements of a person’s. What we refer to as hair loss profile, and that includes gender age, age of onset of hair loss rate of progression, degree of progression and other medical treatments that have been applied.. We have patients with female pattern, hair loss as young as 16 and 18-years-old. And we’ve treated patients with female pattern, hair loss well into their 70s.. Currently, there has been a significant growth and awareness about the benefits of PRP, both in the medical literature and now in clinical practice.. The distinction I would make is that at the level that PRP is being offered currently is essentially what I describe as a shotgun approach.. Basically, there is established benefit with PRP treatment of hair loss, but the challenge is sustaining the treatment in a way that will be effective.. A lot of my colleagues are offering treatments once a month once every 2-3 months, and I find that a lot of patients who come to us find that very difficult to sustain and are often challenged by seeing the relative benefits.. In fact, current opinion amongst my colleagues is that PRP works 50 % of the time. Well in our practice, what we developed with Hair Regeneration that we ultimately expanded into TrichoStem™, Hair Regeneration Centers, are formulations and systems based on those parameters I described earlier. Generally, we treat Patients like yourself, where we do a treatment and then somewhere 15-18 months later we’ll do another treatment. Between the two treatments. We have been able to sustain improvement for several years, even with a single injection alone., Consistently female pattern. Hair loss patients have seen improvement in quality and quantity of hair. On average. We see improvements around 9-10 months, but we can see improvements occurring as early 1-3 months. It’s an ongoing process without the need for multiple injections., Essentially one treatment followed by what we refer to as the booster treatment after 15-18 months.. We follow our patients very closely., So we learn that every 3-6 months of observation we have been able to establish systems and processes that reflect the various types of hair loss, even within the broad category of female pattern, hair loss. Now, as far as the progression of Hair loss it’s important to understand that hair loss is basically a genetic program. And therefore, what we’re doing is manipulating the environment of the hair and we’re stimulating growth.. Basically, we’re reactivating hair that isn't growing, thicken, thinning hair and prolonging the lifespan of the hair that, by nature of androgenetic alopecia, the lifespan gets shorter or what’s known as the anagen phase of the growth cycle.. So at this point certainly, I can also support the issue with the Rogaine, where a lot of people do report blood pressure issues.. What we’ve generally done is if someone hasn't been on Rogaine or has just started using it, we don't usually recommend it as part of a long-term strategy. When we do this treatment, basically, instead of losing hair people gain hair and are able to sustain that growth. For several years again, based on 8 years of data from patients, we’ve been treating from all over the world.. So at this point I think the question to explore is not so much. Can you get your premenopausal hair, but how does a treatment strategy using this regenerative medicine technology can help you manage this progression and maximize coverage for a longer period of time.? There may be some value in exploring concepts such as hormone replacement therapy, but that is contingent on the relative risk you may have for estrogen stimulated malignancies, whether it’s breast cancer or uterine cancer, but that’s a question to explore with your medical doctor.. So at this point I would advise that you meet with qualified doctors who have extensive experience with platelet-rich plasma, ( PRP ) platelet-rich plasma with extracellular matrix., Learn about that individual doctor’s experience and see their before and afters.. I think it’s very important to recognize that a lot of doctors don't have a lot of experience in this area and are just getting into this. And, of course it is important. We all started somewhere. We started this 8 years ago and it took us a lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of analysis to get to where we are now.. So I hope that was helpful. I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.