Hair shedding after PRP: Why is my PRP treatment causing me more shedding?

PRP: A closer look at the realities of hair shedding

In my opinion, there are many myths and misconceptions when it comes to the use of platelet rich plasma (PRP) treatments. PRP does not help everyone and in fact, in some cases actually makes hair worse. Fortunately, it fairly uncommon that PRP actually makes hair worse.

Many people who are not patients of the practice contacts our office with concerns that they are shedding more hair after their PRP treatment. It’s a pretty common email or call actually. So, this leads me to believe that hair shedding after PRP is fairly common.

It makes good sense that shedding occurs. After all, PRP involves flooding the scalp with many different growth factors, cytokines and chemokine - suddenly. Within a matter of minutes, hairs are essentially bathing in a new environment.

For some hairs - this whole experience is a bit much - and they shed.

There are two main scenarios that can happen whenever a patient experiences more shedding after their PRP treatment session.

Scenario 1. The hair shedding is a good sign and thicker hair follows. For any treatment that actually works in treating androgenetic alopecia, we expect some hair shedding. Miniaturized hairs leave the scalp quickly in order to regrow as thicker and stronger hairs. Shedding in this case is a good thing.

Scenario 2. The hair shedding speeds up the process of the genetic hair loss. PRP can sometimes cause a telogen effluvium that drives the underlying androgenetic alopecia to worsen. This is a well recognized phenomenon overall - but tends not to be discussed in the PRP field. But there’s no doubt in some people that PRP does not work and the who process of having the PRP done just pushes the androgenteic alopecia along down the road a bit faster than it would have otherwise if PRP was not done.

Final Comments

When I’m told that a person has worse shedding after their PRP session, my first thought is that we’ll now need to wait to see if the hair is going to be better or worse. For some patients who get shedding, the shedding is just the first step en route to better hair. For others who get shedding, this shedding experience carries the risk of actually worsening (speeding up) their genetic hair loss.

PRP induced hair shedding is not uncommon - but certainly is uncommonly talked about in my opinion and experience.