ROOT CAUSE

Reality Star Mom, 47, Shows Off Her New Hairline

She used a bizarre yet popular treatment to achieve her results.

Bravo personality Melissa Gorga is sharing the strange-yet-successful solution she found for her thinning hair: her own blood.

Six months later, the 47-year-old Real Housewives of New Jersey star appears to be achieving the results she wanted, showing off a fuller-looking hairline with her now-blonde hair pulled back in a video about self-care posted to Instagram.

The mom of three underwent a combination of platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, and exosome treatments in March after noticing thinning around the front of her hair.

“I’ve been noticing thinning around my hairline, and I was ready to fight back,” Gorga wrote on Instagram at the time. “I love pulling my hair back, I am such a ponytail girl!”

Gorga went to Dr. Jeffrey Wise, a facial plastic and hair restoration surgeon based in Wayne, New Jersey, for the treatments.

Wise told the New York Post that he found mild to moderate thinning around Gorga’s hairline, but nothing severe enough to warrant a hair transplant.

“We generally reserve hair transplantation for women who have severe thinning, or for correcting areas that are completely devoid of hair,” he said.

But Gorga “wanted to throw the proverbial kitchen sink at her problem,” according to Wise, so the pair opted for two less invasive treatments.

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HAIR & BACK AGAIN

18 Million People Watched My Hair Grow Back

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The first was PRP, a bloody procedure that starts with drawing a patient’s own blood and spinning it in a centrifuge to separate the platelets and plasma from red blood cells.

The concentrated platelet-rich plasma is then injected directly into areas of the scalp where hair is thinning.

Gorga documented that process for her followers, showing syringes filled with her own blood being injected along her hairline.

“I won’t feel a thing,” she wrote over one clip.

Before the procedure began, however, she admitted she was “a little nervous.”

“I’m excited for the laughing gas,” Gorga said. “They numb you, and it doesn’t hurt that bad, is what everyone’s saying.”

Cleveland Clinic dermatologist Dr. Shilpi Khetarpal said PRP tends to work best when hair loss is relatively new because follicles that have been dormant longer can be harder to stimulate.

“I tell people I can get your hair back to what it was five years ago,” Khetarpal said.

Gorga also received exosome injections along her hairline.

She called them “the magic Exosomes” in her Instagram post and said both treatments were intended “to support natural hair growth in areas that are thinning or lacking density.”

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MODERN MIXOLOGY

What Are Exosomes—and Why Are They Suddenly Everywhere?

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Wise told the Post that exosomes essentially act as a “delivery driver” between cells, transporting biological signals. He said they can be used alone, but that pairing them with PRP can produce “really beautiful results.”

According to Wise, the combination is intended to “wake up” inactive follicles and encourage thicker growth.

The treatments are not an overnight fix.

Wise said patients typically see changes gradually over several weeks as stimulated follicles begin producing thicker hair, with results generally peaking between six months and a year.

That timeline puts Gorga right around the point where her March treatment should be becoming more noticeable.

“So happy I did it!” she wrote after undergoing the procedure. “Love sharing my little tricks with you guys😘”

For Gorga, the goal was always getting enough healthy growth around the front to keep wearing the pulled-back styles she has favored for years.

The American Academy of Dermatology warns that repeatedly wearing tight ponytails or extensions can put enough tension on hair follicles to cause traction alopecia, which often appears around the hairline.

Gorga has previously acknowledged that years of extensions took a toll on her hair. In 2022, she said on her On Display podcast that after “so many years of extensions,” she needed to give her hair a break—but admitted it was hard to give up one of her signature looks.

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Tamilore OshikanluContributor

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