THE BELGRAVIA CENTRE HAIR LOSS BLOG

Will a supplement help my hair loss? Well, first of all, supplements are usually a mixture of herbal ‘remedies’. Since no herbal product has been approved as a hair loss treatment, as professional practitioners we have to say simply that no supplement is a solution for hair loss… end of story.

What if it ‘might’ work… isn’t it worth a try? This is central to Belgravia’s approach. We offer hair loss solutions that are proven to work. I know what you’re thinking. “Proven! Pah! That means nothing”. And you’re right. That word, ‘proven’ has been overused by marketing people for years. Here’s another word with bad associations: “science”. Here’s what goes on in many people’s minds if we start talking about scientifically proven therapies: “science… hair loss solutions from the people who brought you the atom bomb”.

There is, not just in our business but generally, a huge problem with trust. No-one believes politicians (even less than they did before). No-one believes advertising and marketing. Almost no-one believes companies have anything other than cynical intent. And no-one really likes science much any more. And we are all stressed out. All of that makes people look favorably upon natural remedies because they appear to hark back to a simpler time and to a universal truth, something deeper than all the noise of politics and science. But you can’t escape to that world of ‘herbs’ you’ve never heard of (Muria Puama) because the marketing people love it, so they got there first. “Fantastic, if that’s what people want, we’ll sell that, the ingredients are cheap, it sells itself, now where did I put that sports car leaflet?”.

So what can you trust? Our position, our ‘brand’, is… you can trust science, you can trust professionalism, and you can trust knowledge. When we started out, as today, our aim was to offer the best hair loss treatments at the lowest price we could. The best hair loss treatments are science based. It’s worth just reviewing what that means.

First of all, it will mean that a significant number of people have undergone a trial of the product along with an equal number of people who thought they were undergoing the same trial but actually were using something useless for their condition. That’s because if we believe something will work, there’s a greater chance that it actually will. That’s the placebo effect. Sugar pills sometimes cure headaches if the person believes they will. It could be mind over body, or maybe the person relaxes thinking their headache will go away. So anything might work.

An Indian friend said rubbing cow pat into the scalp works. Headstands are a common one (maybe you can combine both into a morning routine). So it is with strange-named herbs from the rain forest. If the story is believable enough, the placebo effect can be significant. The trick is to keep finding new remedies as people discover they don’t work. If you didn’t give out a placebo, but gave both groups in your experiment the drug you’re testing, you’d still get two different results just because people are different.

So when you’re done with your drug and your placebo, is the difference in results significant, or could it have happened by chance? If you found a significant difference (ie. a drug that you think does cure something), then you can publish in a scientific journal, but only after a panel of eminent scientists have inspected your work, pulled it to pieces, and judged it to be sound. A key point about science is it has to be repeatable. So once you’re published, someone else will pick up your experiment and try to make the results happen again. If you’ve found a repeatable effect, then you’re on to something. If the other chap’s results were different, then something else is at play. Maybe the drug only works on a Thursday, or on Welsh people. Back to the drawing board.

Then there’s all the testing to do with dosages. Throughout all this, notes are made about side effects because clearly we need to know that the side effects are less significant than the cure we are trying to bring about, and drugs are only licensed for sale when that’s established. So when a drug gets approved for use, first of all, it gets approved for use in a particular way to cure a particular ailment. Where there are possible side effects that require professional oversight, they get approved for prescription use only. That doesn’t mean you might grow another head, it just means perhaps you shouldn’t use a drug if you have a certain condition, or we need to be assured that you understand something about the drug before you use it.

Right now, there are just two drugs that have been approved by the FDA for the treatment of hair loss: Minoxidil and Propecia. Minoxidil in higher strengths is only available on prescription, and Propecia is always prescription-only. Let’s just underline that point. Minoxidil and Propecia are the only proven treatments for hair loss. Everything else is marketing flannel. Let me say it another way. If you want to prevent and reverse your hair loss, Minoxidil and Propecia should always form the basis of any treatment programme you undergo.

So. The Belgravia Centre provides a few things that really deliver the most effective hair loss treatment. Firstly, you’ll be seen by a professional trichologist, a medically trained hair specialist. And second, we have our own pharmacy, so we can provide you with the prescription products – the ones we like to call the ‘primary’ medications because they are the main basis of any treatment course.

During an initial consultation we diagnose your condition and make recommendations about the combination of treatments that we think would be most effective for your condition. We take a scalp photograph so we can see later whether it’s been working or not, and we prescribe and provide your treatment programme.

Belgravia’s treatment programmes generally include one or more of the primary treatments, added boosters that help to maximise results such as Hair Vitalics, HairMax LaserComb, MPG and/or Azelaic Acid, as well as shampoo, conditioner, scalp products if necessary and clinical treatment sessions for those that can visit the London centre.

Later, you’ll come back for progress checks and more scalp photographs. We’ve successfully treated thousands of people with hair loss. Actually, it’s more than that. From your point of view, the hair loss industry is very difficult to trust. We know that. On the one hand there are those practitioners with plush offices and high fees, happy to fleece people with money to spend. And on the other hand, there are marketing people with no real background in hair treatment pushing cheap herbal products with no proven efficacy. And then there’s us.

Based on sound science, being professional and skilled, offering proven treatments for the best price we can. We started out to do that. To offer effective hair loss treatment at an affordable price. Any success we achieve comes from treatments that work and from satisfied clients.