Hair Restoration In Fort Lauderdale, FL
Revive 365 Wellness gives Fort Lauderdale patients a non-surgical route for thinning hair: prescription medication plus in-office scalp treatments. The clinic is 18 miles west of downtown Fort Lauderdale by road. Without traffic, the drive on I-595 takes about 27 minutes. The scalp treatments are microneedling and PRF, a concentrate made the same day from your own blood. Surgery isn’t part of what we do. If a transplant would serve your scalp better, we’ll say so during your first visit.
In-person and telehealth appointments available
Find out whether you need surgery first
Start with the biology. Medical treatment needs follicles that still grow hair, even fine hair. A transplant relocates follicles. They’re taken from the donor area on the back of the scalp and placed where the hair is thin. Which one you need depends on what’s left in that thin area.
Revive 365 Wellness works on the medical side. The first visit tells you whether that side can help.
What we check before any plan
A physician assistant goes through your history and examines your scalp. When your history points toward thyroid disease, low iron or another medical cause, labs come first. The visit ends 1 of 3 ways: with a written plan, with a lab order that has to come back before any plan, or with a referral to the specialist who fits your case better.
What goes into a plan
For pattern thinning, the prescriptions we write are finasteride and minoxidil. Finasteride is 1 pill a day. Its prescribing label restricts it to “MEN ONLY,” and it asks for patience: no benefit is generally expected until the pills have been taken daily for 3 months or more. Stop taking it, and the label expects the effect to reverse inside 12 months.
Minoxidil has 2 forms: a liquid or foam for the scalp, and a pill. As a pill, it’s FDA-approved for 1 thing, “hypertension that is symptomatic or associated with target organ damage and is not manageable with maximum therapeutic doses of a diuretic plus two other antihypertensive drugs,” according to its label. Hair growth isn’t on that approved list, and the label opens with a boxed warning. We prescribe it for hair only after an evaluation. Women’s options differ, and our women’s hair loss treatment page lays them out.
Scalp microneedling with PRF is the in-office part. A pen of fine needles makes tiny channels in the scalp. The platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) is made on site: your blood is drawn at the visit, spun down in a centrifuge, and applied while the channels are open. We don’t inject it. That matters for the evidence: every published PRF hair study we’ve reviewed injected PRF, and none of them tested a topical application alongside microneedling. Our PRF hair loss guide goes through what those studies measured.
You can choose exosomes as an extra during microneedling. The FDA’s 2019 public safety notification on exosome products reads: “There are currently no FDA-approved exosome products.” A consumer alert the agency last updated on April 9, 2024 repeats that line word for word.
When we'll point you somewhere else
A thin area that has been smooth and shiny for years usually has no working follicles left for medication to act on. That’s a case for a transplant surgeon, or for a hair system if you’d rather skip surgery.
Round, smooth patches that appear fast, or burning, itching or soreness where the hair thins, go to a dermatologist first. Those signs fit alopecia areata or a scarring form of hair loss.
When a transplant is already booked, medical treatment still has a job. The American Academy of Dermatology’s transplant guidance says: “Medicine can prevent or slow down new hair loss and thinning.” The grafts stay put. The rest of your hair keeps its own timeline. Our hair transplant alternative page compares the 2 paths directly.
If surgery is your answer: the Counted-Graft Rule
If surgery is where the evaluation leads, get the graft number in writing twice: the number planned before surgery, and the number counted in your operative note afterward. That’s the Counted-Graft Rule. A graft number tells you how many units were moved. It doesn’t tell you how much hair came with them, and 2 people with the same number can end up with different results.
What a graft holds
In a modern transplant, each graft is a follicular unit. StatPearls, the medical reference on the NCBI Bookshelf, defines one as “a naturally occurring group of hair dispersed throughout the scalp consisting of 1 to 4 terminal hairs,” plus an oil gland and a tiny muscle. The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) puts the average at “about 2.4 hairs” in its patient glossary, and the same glossary calls 4-hair units rare. A 2007 paper in Hair Transplant Forum International, the society’s official publication, gave 2.25 hairs per unit for a typical Caucasian donor area.
Small gaps grow with the case. The same paper worked an example for a 2,500-graft procedure: a donor area averaging 2.4 hairs per unit gives 1,000 more hairs than one averaging 2.0. That’s why the note after surgery should sort the grafts by how many hairs each one held.
Counted, or estimated?
In strip surgery (FUT), the graft number starts as an estimate. The ISHRS’s 2024 FUT practice guideline describes the method. First, estimate the strip’s length and width to get the area of skin coming out. Then, “by multiplying by average density, the physician will have a good estimation of the total number of FUs that will need to be removed.” After removal, the strip is dissected under magnification into single follicular units, and those can be counted.
In FUE, grafts come out 1 at a time. The ISHRS’s FUE terminology guide keeps 3 totals apart: grafts excised, grafts available for transplant, and grafts unavailable. The last group is the gap between the first 2, and the guide lists what falls into it: “capped, completely transected, and empty grafts.” If the count in your note comes in under the plan, those 3 totals show where the difference went.
Ask for a sample of the operative note format before you schedule surgery. The note you can request afterward should show:
- grafts placed, as a counted number
- how many of those grafts held 1, 2, 3 or 4 hairs
- for FUE, grafts excised, available and unavailable
- the area treated
A note that lists strip size and an assumed density, with no count, gives you back the estimate you started with.
What a count can’t tell you
A count proves what was placed. Growth gets answered later, and it takes most of a year. The AAD’s timeline: “Most patients see results between six and nine months after surgery. For some patients, it takes 12 months.” Keep the note, and judge the result against it at month 12.
Revive 365 Wellness doesn’t perform transplants. Our post on PRF compared with a hair transplant sets out the limits of each.
Splitting the year between Fort Lauderdale and another home
If Fort Lauderdale is home for part of the year, book the in-person steps for the months you’re here, and keep the daily medication going while you’re away.
Start early in your stay. The first visit and each microneedling session happen in Weston, and any labs have to come back before a plan starts. By the finasteride label, a benefit generally needs daily pills for 3 months or longer before it shows, so begin in your first month here. A stay shorter than that can end before any change shows.
Microneedling sessions are spaced weeks apart. Count them against your calendar before session 1. Our post on scalp microneedling session intervals covers the spacing that published trials used.
Medication is the part that travels with you. Both labels tie the result to continued use. For finasteride: “Withdrawal of treatment leads to reversal of effect within 12 months.” A 5% minoxidil scalp solution carries this on its Drug Facts label: “continued use is necessary to increase and keep your hair regrowth, or hair loss will begin again.” Stop for the months you’re away, and by both labels the loss starts again. Settle how refills will reach you before you go.
Real Patient Results
Microneedling + PRF + Exosomes — After 2 Sessions
Results vary by individual and treatment plan
The drive west from Fort Lauderdale
The clinic is 16.1 to 21.5 miles from the 6 Fort Lauderdale starting points we routed, 23 to 33 minutes without traffic. 5 of the 6 leave town on I-595 West. From the executive airport on the north side, the fastest route skips I-595.
The 5 I-595 routes leave the interstate at the exit signed “SR 84 West: Weston Road,” follow State Road 84, turn left on Weston Road, left on South New River Circle and right on SW 160th Ave. From that exit to the clinic is 2.4 miles. You’ll find the clinic on the left, at 1310 SW 160 Ave, Weston, FL 33326.
The executive airport’s Sawgrass route comes up Weston Road from the south instead and turns right on South New River Circle. Its alternative, I-95 to I-595 and the same SR 84 exit, ran 23.7 miles and about 33 minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
I fly into Fort Lauderdale for the season. What’s the drive from the airport?
From the terminals at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, it’s 18.1 miles, about 28 minutes without traffic. The airport sits outside city limits, and its ramps put you straight onto I-595 West. The trip ends like the I-595 routes above: the “SR 84 West: Weston Road” exit, then 2.4 miles to the door.
Can a physician assistant prescribe hair-loss medication in Florida?
Yes. The authority comes from a supervising physician, by delegation. Section 458.347 of the Florida Statutes lets a supervising physician “delegate to a fully licensed physician assistant the authority to prescribe or dispense any medication used in the supervising physician’s practice,” except drugs on a formulary the state keeps for PAs. The same section says a PA “must clearly identify to the patient that he or she is a physician assistant.” Our supervising physician is named in the next section.
A surgeon gave me a graft number. Is that a count?
Not yet. Before surgery, it’s a plan, and in strip surgery it starts from the strip’s size and an average density. The count belongs in your operative note afterward, sorted by how many grafts held 1, 2, 3 or 4 hairs. The Counted-Graft Rule above lists what else that note should show.
Start With An Evaluation In Weston
The first visit decides the next step: our treatment, labs first, or care somewhere else. If you’re in Fort Lauderdale for part of the year, book it early in your stay.
