One of the things that can happen as we get older is that we may start to lose hair. And it doesn’t just happen to pensioners but can start in your 30’s and sometimes even earlier. It depends on your genetic makeup in many cases.
The problem is that, while a lot of people may just shrug their shoulders and regard it as a fact of life, for others – especially women – it can be a source of acute embarrassment.
However, the good news is that there are answers to hair loss. One of those is a hair transplant, and this can be done either manually or by a robot – believe it or not. The robot is known as ARTAS and was invented and developed by a team of experts led by one Dr. Miguel Canales, who just happens to be the director of Silicon Valley Hair Institute.
The ARTAS robot is one of the alternative therapies for hair loss and has many benefits over and above having a manual hair transplant carried out by a surgeon, not the least of which is that it harvests groups of one to four hair follicles at a time rather than taking a whole strip of hair from the back of the head which leaves an obvious scar. It then inserts the follicles into the recipient area at the precise angle, height, and direction of other hairs already there. Furthermore, it is perfectly accurate as it doesn’t tire, even if working for several hours.
At The Forefront of Alternative Therapies
However, as you might imagine, Dr. Canales is right at the forefront of developing alternative therapies for hair loss, one of which is known as PRP. This stands for Platelet-Rich Plasma and involves taking a sample of the patient’s own blood which is then spun in a centrifuge and has the effect of separating the solid and liquid parts of the blood. The solid parts of the blood contain between three and five times the number of platelets that are in the blood that circulates in the body.
Platelets are what begin the process of coagulation when you have a cut or other wound. As one of the latest alternative therapies for hair loss, the PRP is then injected into the areas of thinning hair, and this seems to stimulate the growth of miniaturized hair follicles and help them to grow into thicker, terminal hairs.
PRP for hair loss works best in areas of thinning hair rather than in completely bald areas, although it can also be used as an adjunct to a hair transplant in order to promote the growth of newly transplanted follicles.