Everything about hair loss injection treatment: mesotherapy, Moonwon Lee, PRP, exosome, etc.

To increase the effectiveness of hair loss treatment, it is highly recommended to use 'injection therapy', which involves injecting active ingredients directly into the scalp along with oral medication or applied products. Although it is difficult to completely cure hair loss with injection treatment alone, it acts as a powerful 'booster' that maximizes the effect when combined with other treatments. Recently, as various injection treatments such as PRP and exosomes have been introduced, many people are wondering which treatment is right for them. Let’s take a closer look at the principles, characteristics, and precautions of representative hair loss injection treatments.

1. Mesotherapy: Customized cocktail injections

Mesotherapy refers to a treatment method that mixes various active ingredients needed for hair loss treatment like a cocktail and injects them directly into the dermal layer of the scalp. It does not refer to any specific ingredient, but refers to the ‘act of injecting medication directly into the scalp’ itself. Therefore, which ingredients are mixed and in what ratio is the key to determining treatment effectiveness. Depending on the experience and know-how of the doctor performing the procedure, various ingredients that are helpful for scalp health and hair growth, such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, blood circulation improvers, and growth factors, are used.

2. Lee Moon-won’s herbal acupuncture treatment (mesotherapy)

The Oriental medicine herbal acupuncture treatment that I practice can also be seen as a type of mesotherapy that uses ingredients extracted from natural products. This goes beyond simply providing nutrition and aims to fundamentally improve the environment of the scalp where hair loss occurs.

• Main effects:It suppresses chronic inflammation of the scalp, helps create new blood vessels around hair follicles, increases blood supply, and creates an environment in which growth factors necessary for hair growth can be well supplied.
• Treatment modality:It is a method of directly supplying vitality to weakened hair follicles, and it is recommended to receive treatment consistently for more than 6 months, usually once every 2 to 4 weeks.
• * In 2024, Lee Moon-won applied for a patent for ‘an ingredient that promotes hair growth by activating stem cells in hair follicles.’ These ingredients were named LMW-19 and LMW-20 and are injected directly into the scalp through herbal acupuncture.

3. PRP (autologous platelet-rich plasma) injection and plasma therapy

PRP is a method of collecting the patient's own blood, separating only the platelet-concentrated plasma portion using a centrifuge, and injecting it into the scalp. Platelets are rich in various growth factors that help wound healing and cell regeneration. These growth factors act directly on weakened hair follicles to promote cell division and improve blood circulation to help hair grow. Plasma therapy is similar to PRP, but is an evolved form of treatment that seeks to increase the regenerative effect by further activating specific components in plasma or using other active ingredients together.

4. Exosome injection

This is the injection therapy that has recently attracted the most attention, and is a method that directly delivers the key 'signal' for cell regeneration. Exosomes are very small ‘nano delivery boxes’ secreted by cells to exchange information with each other. For hair loss treatment, only exosomes containing growth factors and proteins necessary for hair follicle cell activation are purified and used mainly from stem cell culture medium. The principle is to help restore hair follicle function by delivering various regenerative signals contained in exosomes to hair follicles. However, it is very important to use products of proven quality and high purity, and it has the disadvantage of being more expensive than other injection treatments.

Conclusion: Injection therapy is the best helper for ‘synergy’

All of the injection treatments introduced are excellent treatments that directly revitalize the weakened scalp and hair follicles. However, it is difficult to completely resolve hair loss with these treatments alone. The true value of injection treatment is revealed when it is combined with basic treatments such as oral and topical medications. When we use a 'two-track' strategy that promotes hair follicle regeneration with basic treatments and injection treatments, we can increase the effectiveness of hair loss treatment and achieve more satisfactory results.