Home Based Laser Hair Loss Therapy

Buying a hand held laser to use at home is a cost effective option but it may not be as effective in treating your hair loss.

It may be that you are interested in giving laser therapy a try, but are not willing or are able to commit to the time and effort involved, not to mention the cost, of attending a clinic.

Nowadays, there is an alternative in the form of hand held home lasers which may make the therapy available to you and means that you don’t have to commit to any treatment regime.

It does not necessarily mean that you will save much in cost for the treatment, as hand held lasers are by no means cheap, but they would still work out less expensive than going to a clinic.

The advantages of a hand held laser include:

• Much cheaper and more convenient that travelling to a clinic for treatment
• The hand held system is able to part your hair in order to reach your scalp and may therefore allow better penetration to the scalp if you do still have quite a bit of hair.

The disadvantages may include:

• You may become tired of having to carry out the treatments several times a week, or may forget to do it
• It may be difficult to know whether or not the treatment is working or when you need to stop the therapy

Some hand held products emit a low level laser when they are held over the head, and theoretically the use of a comb may be more beneficial in delivering the therapy more directly to the scalp. Other hand held systems deliver the laser through a series of multiple clear plastic tips on the end of the instrument which is in direct contact with the scalp.

With this system there are 15 separate points of laser light which irradiate the scalp. With the floating lasers heads of this instrument it will ensure the laser channels conform with the contours of the head and scalp. This close an direct contact in the main differing feature with this machine and the laser comb.

Two of the most popular hand held combs are the Hair Max Lasercomb, which is designed to promote hair growth in men with certain types of male pattern baldness, and the X-5 hair laser, which conforms to the scalp arch and delivers energy directly at the scalp level after the hair is separated by the prongs within the comb. The manufacturers of these hand held devices recommend using them three times a week, although it is not clear what frequency of use is effective, as there is no evidence which has been presented to show the value of either the frequency or the time required for the application of the laser.

The majority of home lasers will emit a beep to tell you when it is time to move the device to another part of the head, to ensure that you don’t spend too much time on one area. On report into the use of hand held lasers showed that 93% of those who took part - aged between 30 and 60 - showed an increase in the number of terminal (thick) hairs. Within the treatment group, the average number of terminal hairs per square centimeter increased by 19 hairs, and this occurred over a time period of six months.

For the same time period, the number of hairs in the control (placebo) group decreased by 10.6 hairs per square centimeter, meaning that the relative increase with the laser comb was actually 29.4 hairs per square centimeter. For both study groups the base hair count was 125 hairs per square centimeter. In general, the average non-balding person has 220 hairs per square centimeter. An important part of the study showed that none of the participants had any serious reactions or side effects form the use of the laser.

Understanding the potential risks through the use of low level laser treatment

Hand held lasers are considered to be safe devices which can be used for hair application. There do not appear to be any safety issues in regard to their use, and although there are no scientific studies to back up their effectiveness, there does seem to be some proof that they can be effective and beneficial for some people. However, some believe that the long term use of low level laser treatment devices for hair loss have not adequately been studied and that long term side effects could show up in the future.