Is my PRP working? How long does it take? Will it work?

This varies between individuals but keep in mind that PRP not only stimulates new hair growth but also causes thickening of hair and faster rates of growth.  There are other steps you can also take under your doctor's care including use of minoxidil and propecia.  Propecia will help with hair shedding.  Give the PRP some time, it made a big difference for me!In good health,Ellen Mahony, MD

Thank you for your question. You submitted a question without a photo asking if your PRP working. You describe you suddenly noticed significant hair thinning, so you went ahead with the PRP treatment, then a second one. By the time you submitted this question, you had undergone a third one. You feel your progress photos do not show improvement, and it appears you were getting worse. You’re also asking if this should be working out this way, if PRP will stimulate hair growth, and if it should already have an effect on your hair growth.
I can help you understand how I counsel patients who have hair loss in my practice, and give you a sense of where this modality has a role, and in what kind of strategy is employed. A little 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. Hair transplant and managing hair loss has been a very big part of my practice. I’m the founder of TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration Centers, a system that we developed starting about 7 years ago using PRP and Acellular matrix to help men and women with genetic pattern hair loss, and leveraging this concept of stem cell-based restoration of hair growth.
With the current state of knowledge, and slow but steady acceptance of PRP as a modality for hair loss, I feel like there are still a lot of questions remaining unresolved, which is often the reality in medicine. There are many things that clinically have benefit at the basic science level, but it is still difficult to fully explain the cause and effect, and predictability. The art of clinical medicine is to treat, observe, and extrapolate based on information and experience.
What we did with our procedure Hair Regeneration approximately 7 years ago when we were doing a lot of transplants, was we were using a combination of platelet-rich plasma and Acellular matrix, which is a wound healing material to help improve graft survival, as well as improving the healing of the donor area, both of which were always challenges of hair transplant. A beneficial side-effect was thinning hair appeared to grow thicker. Thinning hair that grew thicker occurred long after the procedure was completed and the material was placed.
We took it upon ourselves to explore the opportunity to see if we can have a process where we can treat hair thinning with a non-surgical approach, rather than allow the hair to go away, then keep doing transplants. To make the long story short, we were very successful with this. We developed Hair Regeneration and the company called TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration. We treat patients from all over the world, so we have so much volume of patients with a wide range of ages and conditions that I’ve been able to define different sub groups of people on how they respond. Globally speaking, the overwhelming majority of our patients have benefit from this treatment sustainable for 5 years,for both men and women. Within these groups, there are going to be certain patients who have more aggressive hair loss patterns who tend to be younger people with an early onset from their teens to 20s who have very rapid progression.
When we think about an aggressive pattern, we also have to look at what are the known associated causes or interventions available to medically treat hair loss. There is finasteride, an oral drug that is a DHT blocker (dihydrotestosterone), and minoxidil. It’s very important to understand that hair loss is a progressive condition, and regardless of what modalities are being used, there is no cure for genetic pattern hair loss. There are strategies to slow it down, and prolong the lifespan of hair to provide longer coverage, and the surgical strategy to place grafts of hair in places that need coverage, so it boils down to providing coverage.
One of the things I find is a lot of  doctors relatively new to stem cell-based hair loss treatment is when you don’t really do hair loss management as a long-term strategy, often they take a shotgun approach. I’m not saying this is the situation for you, but a lot of doctors relatively new to this are getting excited because they go to meetings, see good results with PRP, then decide they’re going to add that to their practice. However, when people are not doing well, they shrug their shoulders.  
The challenge with hair loss management is understanding the likely prognosis for individuals with a clinical picture. You describe you had suddenly had significant thinning. Well, that is unusual unless it’s more of the awareness of significant thinning. There’s the awareness of significant thinning as it often occurs when people think they have more hair than they do, then suddenly they realize they barely have any scalp coverage, or they get a view of the top of their head from a mirror or a photo, then feel, “Oh, suddenly I lost my hair.” Often it has been progressing, but because their view when they look at the mirror is only the frontal hairline and they look pretty good, they don’t realize how much hair they’ve lost.
When you think about this type of steady downward progression, it’s important to at least consider if you’re male a DHT blocker. Without more details about your clinical picture that I rely on from the age of onset, current age, degree of hair loss, history of other interventions, and the effectiveness of other interventions. The reality is there are only a finite number of interventions.
To answer the question about whether or not the PRP is really working requires more detail of your clinical situation. One thing I can add that might be helpful for you is to ask your physician if it is advisable to add a DHT blocker like finasteride to try to reduce the effect of DHT on your hair. If you have male pattern hair loss, and 95% of hair loss is genetic pattern loss, then you might be in a situation where a DHT blocker can help improve the longevity of the hair follicles, so the PRP may have an opportunity to have an effective stimulatory effect.  This comes from a lot of experience and many patients, reviewing our photos very carefully, and again with almost 7 years of doing this treatment for patients from all over the world. I think it’s worthwhile to discuss this with your doctor, learn a little about their experience with medical and surgical treatment of hair loss, and take it from there. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for your question.

Thank you for your question.  Timing and results from PRP vary widely but overall many people have had success with hair growth and diminished loss.  The literature supports initial improvements to hair density at approximately 3 months.  This time frame, however, is not a "hard rule" and many patients take longer to demonstrate improvements in growth. Hang in there for now and wait to see what happens. 
Not everyone is a good candidate for this treatment so please see a Board Certified or Board Eligible Plastic Surgeon to evaluate if you may benefit. Good luck!
This content is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment provided by a qualified healthcare professional.  You should always seek the advice of your physician or healthcare professional for any questions you have about your own medical condition.