When you don't need surgery (yet).
Not everyone who contacts us should have a hair transplant — and this industry's habit of selling nine confusing add-on treatments to everyone else helps nobody. This page grades the non-surgical options by the evidence, plainly.
The honest first question is never “how many grafts” — it's “do you need surgery at all?”
Four people we regularly tell not to book surgery
The early-stage
Norwood 1–2, in your twenties, loss still moving. Medication now protects what surgery can't replace later.
The undiagnosed
Sudden or diffuse loss — especially in women — needs blood work and a cause before anyone offers a plan.
The post-transplant
Your grafts are permanent; your native hair isn't. Protecting it is what keeps the result looking whole at 55.
The not-sure
Thinning, not bald. Sometimes the right plan is eighteen months of treatment and a re-assessment — not a booking.
Every option, graded — including the ones we'd talk you out of
Most clinics sell all of these as equally miraculous. They are not equal, and pretending otherwise is how patients end up paying thousands for treatments with thin evidence.
| Treatment | What it is | Evidence | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finasteride | Daily tablet that blocks the hormone driving pattern loss | Strong | The single most effective way to stop progression in men. Needs a prescription and an honest side-effect conversation — we have both. |
| Minoxidil | Topical solution or foam applied daily | Strong | Genuinely works, particularly for the crown — while you use it. Stop, and the gained hair goes within months. |
| PRP | Your own platelet-rich plasma injected into the scalp | Moderate | A reasonable adjunct, especially around a transplant. Needs a course, not a single session — anyone selling one-off PRP is selling theatre. |
| Low-level laser | Red-light caps and combs used at home | Mixed | Some supportive studies, modest effect sizes, huge variation between devices. Fine as an extra; never the plan. |
| Mesotherapy | Vitamin and drug cocktails micro-injected into the scalp | Limited | Popular, pleasant, poorly evidenced for pattern loss. We'll say so before you pay for ten sessions of it. |
| Exosomes / stem cell | Regenerative injections marketed as cutting-edge | Experimental | Heavily marketed, thinly proven, expensive. Until the evidence matures we don't present these as reliable treatments — whatever the clinic next door says. |
Why we grade our own menu this harshly
We make less money when we tell you mesotherapy is poorly evidenced or that a tablet from your pharmacy outperforms a €2,000 injection course. We tell you anyway — because the patient who hears the truth about small things believes us about the big ones.
Every treatment, on its own page
Each page carries the same honesty devices as the rest of this site: who it suits, who it doesn't, and our plain-language grading of the evidence.
Treatment without a scalpel
- Medical therapy, properly managed — prescription, dosing and side-effect follow-up through the medical team, not a website checkout
- PRP courses — standalone, or supporting a transplant's healing and density
- A monitoring plan — standardised photos every six months, so decisions are made on evidence, not mirror anxiety
- An honest re-assessment — if stabilising first is the right call, we'll say so and see you in eighteen months
The question this page really answers
“Do I need a transplant?” is a medical question with three honest answers: yes, not yet, and no — treat it instead. Send three photos and you'll get one of those three answers, with the reasoning shown.
Get your free assessment