What is Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP)?
PRP stands for platelet rich plasma. It is simply blood that has been treated so that the growth factors, stem cells, and cell signaling molecules (cytokines) responsible for wound healing become highly concentrated.
How Does PRP Work?
Platelet rich plasma, or PRP, is rich component of the blood. It contains a high concentration of growth factors that stimulate healing, reduce scarring and promote a youthful appearance. While PRP therapy is relatively new in the aesthetic arena, PRP has been effectively used since the 1990s in the dental and oral surgery fields. We are now able to harness the power of your own growth factors to promote healing and speed recovery after many facial aesthetic, and feminine rejuvenation treatments.
After removal of a small amount (one or two tablespoons) of your blood, a centrifuge is used to purify and concentrate your own growth factors by isolating the PRP component. After this 12 minute process, the PRP serum is then applied topically, or injected, to promote healing and rejuvenation for an overall more youthful effect.
Is PRP Effective?
The answer to this depends on two major factors: How good is the quality of the PRP and what is it being used for? High quality PRP has been shown to work consistently in healing second degree burns, superficial trauma and graft adhesion. There is also consistently good data for PRP as a treatment for multiple causes of shoulder, knee and elbow pain. PRP has also be studied and shows some excellent preliminary data for treatment of alopecia (hair loss) due to various conditions and in general hair restoration.
How Do You Get High Quality PRP?
The trick to the best PRP is how the blood is treated in order to separate and concentrate the platelet rich plasma. In most systems, the blood is spun in a centrifuge where at a certain level a layer spills off. Although this will isolate some platelets the total counts tend to be poor and many of the other growth factors are lost in this separation process. A better way to isolate the growth factors needed is optical photometry.
Essence Laser & Wellness uses the ECLIPSE PRP ® machine, which utilizes light and sensors to constantly measure the plasma as it spins in order to collect the best mix of platelets and growth factors. Optical photometry is much more consistent than older spin methods and ensures platelet concentration that can be as high as 14 times. This helps ensure the most effective PRP treatment.
What Can PRP Do For Me?
PRP can result in:
- Finer surgical scars
- Improvement in acne scarring
- More rapid healing after skin treatments and surgery
- Diminished swelling and bruising after procedures
- Skin Rejuvenation
- Dry Eye Therapy, with or without IPL
- Eyelash Growth
PRP can be added to and improve:
- CO2 laser resurfacing results
- IPL for Dry Eye: The I-Drop and the I-Shot
- Microneedling
- Scar treatments