Red Hots Spa in Roslyn has begun offering platelet-rich plasma treatments, intended to cosmetically rejuvenate skin or hair, through a new partnership with a Melville-based medical practice, said spa owner Elaine Bezold.
The procedure, which injects one’s own plasma into a specific part of the body, grew popular in orthopedics in the last decade for those seeking to heal injuries more quickly, and is now emerging in the cosmetic field.
It is being offered at the spa by Long Island Medical PRP.
“I’m so results driven, and I always want to be on the cutting edge of what’s going on,” said Dr. Keith Scheinblum, who owns the medical practice.
Research in recent years has shown promise in platelet-rich plasma procedures for hair regrowth and healing skin wounds, though there is not yet a consensus in scientific and medical circles about its efficacy.
Healthline, a medical information website with doctor-reviewed articles, says that there is not substantive research to prove platelet-rich plasma’s validity as a hair loss solution.
“In my opinion, it’s snake oil until we have good randomized controlled clinical trial to prove efficacy of [platelet-rich plasma] on its own,” Dr. Dima Ali, a dermatologist based in Reston, Virginia, and a scientific adviser for the American Academy of Aesthetic Medicine, wrote in an email this week.
For the procedure, drawn blood is placed in a centrifuge to separate the red blood cells from the platelet-rich plasma. That plasma is then inserted directly into the area the patient seeks to rejuvenate, which in Scheinblum’s practice is typically the face, neck or scalp.
A 2015 study in Stem Cells Translational Medicine evaluating platelet-rich plasma for hair regrowth found there were no significant side effects.
For hair treatments, Scheinblum said he does the procedure four times over the course of four months, with less frequent maintenance visits that follow.
“I know every single patient,” he said. “We really take a lot of pride in staying on top of their treatment. We stay in touch with them.”
Long Island Medical PRP works with salons to get referrals, but its partnership with Red Hots Spa is a first for the practice.
The spa primarily does tanning and massages, but it also offers medical grade facials and likes to “stay on the cusp” of new procedures, Bezold said.
Platelet-rich plasma is an opportunity to treat the skin from the inside, she said, and can appeal to clients who wouldn’t be comfortable with foreign substances in their face, such as botox.
“This is just another avenue for them to have that well-being of the skin without interfering what their beliefs are,” Bezold said.
Scheinblum was originally an ophthalmologist and is nearing a full transition into the platelet-rich plasma practice that he opened last year.
When his son had platelet-rich plasma therapy applied to his knee for a tendon injury, Scheinblum began researching the procedure and learning about cosmetic applications, he said.
He earned a certification for the vampire facelift (the copyrighted name for platelet-rich plasma face procedures), from the Cellular Medicine Association as well as a certification from the National Institute of Medical Aesthetics, he said.
He is familiar with push and pull in the medical community about whether or not the procedure works.
“There’s definitely a need for more peer-reviewed articles and journal articles, but in terms of just anecdotal experience, the results are so strong,” Scheinblum said.
Ali, who runs an aesthetic and anti-aging medicine center, doesn’t frequently perform plasma-rich platelet procedures on patients, and even when she does she said she uses additional techniques to supplement them.
Scheinblum’s patients include men and women of all ages, he said. He is treating both a 16-year-old and his 74-year-old grandmother.
Not many people know about platelet-rich plasma, including his own physician, Scheinblum said.
That’s one reason Scheinblum said he finds it exciting.
“It’s a very underserved population,” he said.
