A sports and musculoskeletal medicine doctor sits between a physiotherapist and an orthopaedic surgeon. They diagnose joint and tendon problems, scan them with ultrasound, decide whether you need rehabilitation, an injection or a surgical opinion, and perform image-guided injections themselves. For most persistent tendon and joint pain that has not settled with physiotherapy, they are the right first specialist to see.

For a company, an annual health screening for senior staff is one of the few benefits that is both valued by the people receiving it and exempt from tax. Under section 320B of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, one employer-provided health screening and one medical check-up per employee per tax year carry no income tax or National Insurance charge. The value of the programme depends almost entirely on what is tested and who interprets it.

There are four main tear trough treatments, and each fixes a different problem. Filler replaces lost volume. PRP and polynucleotides improve thin, crepey skin without adding volume. Lower eyelid surgery addresses fat that has pushed forward and significant loose skin. Most disappointing tear trough results come from choosing a treatment for the wrong problem, so the first decision is what is actually causing your shadow.

Most people start PRP for hair loss with 3 monthly sessions. How many sessions you need, how far apart, when results show month by month, top-ups, and what a course costs in London.

Many people notice more hair falling out in the first few weeks after starting minoxidil, and many stop at exactly the wrong moment. The extra shedding usually means the treatment is working. Minoxidil pushes follicles out of their resting phase and into a new growth phase, and the old resting hairs are shed to make way. It typically appears within the first 2 to 8 weeks and settles within a few weeks. Stopping throws away the start you have just made.

If you have knee osteoarthritis or a wear-related meniscal tear and have been offered an arthroscopy to clean up the joint, it is worth knowing that NICE advises against arthroscopic washout and debridement for osteoarthritis unless the knee is mechanically locking. A sham-controlled trial found partial removal of a degenerative meniscus performed no better than a placebo operation. For most people with degenerative knee pain, there are better first steps.

Low-dose oral minoxidil has become one of the most widely used hair loss treatments of the last five years, particularly for people who cannot tolerate or keep up with the topical version. It is prescribed off-label at a fraction of the blood pressure dose. In a multicentre study of 1,404 patients, the most common side effect was increased body and facial hair in 15.1%, while systemic effects such as lightheadedness and fluid retention each occurred in under 2%.

A trichologist is not a medical doctor and the title is not protected in the UK. What each can do, when hair loss needs a doctor and blood tests, and where PRP fits.

Biotin only helps hair in people who are deficient, which is rare. What the evidence shows, who it might help, and why high-dose biotin can distort thyroid and other blood test results.

Low ferritin is one of the most common treatable causes of hair shedding. What ferritin measures, why a normal result can still be low for hair, how iron is corrected properly and when PRP makes sense.

Seborrhoeic dermatitis does not usually cause permanent hair loss, but it does cause shedding. Inflammation around the follicle and the scratching that goes with an itchy scalp both push hairs out early, so flaking and increased shedding commonly arrive together. Treating the scalp condition usually settles the shedding. The important thing is knowing which scalp symptoms mean something more serious.

The entire claim rests on a single study from 2009 that measured hormones in 20 rugby players and never measured hair at all. It has not been replicated. A 2021 meta-analysis of 12 studies found no significant effect of creatine on testosterone or DHT, and a 2025 randomised controlled trial that did measure hair density and follicle counts found no difference against placebo. On current evidence, creatine is not causing your hair loss.

Finasteride is the most effective single medication for male pattern hair loss and it carries a small but real excess risk of sexual side effects. In the pivotal 1-year trials, sexual adverse events occurred in 3.8% of men taking finasteride against 2.1% on placebo. In 2025 the European Medicines Agency added a warning about suicidal ideation to the label. Both facts are true, and you deserve them stated plainly rather than argued away or amplified.

Hair loss affects around half of men by 50 and a large proportion of women at some point, and the single most useful step is working out which type it is, because the treatments differ completely and most people start treating before anybody has diagnosed them. Several correctable causes sit underneath the visible shedding, and blood tests find them.

Hair shedding in the months after a gastric sleeve, bypass or other bariatric procedure is common, and for most people it is temporary. Two things drive it. The physical stress of surgery and rapid weight loss pushes many hairs into the resting phase at once, and the nutritional changes that follow bariatric surgery can leave the follicle short of protein, iron, zinc and B12. The first resolves with time. The second needs finding and correcting.

Harley Street is shorthand for private medicine in London, and PRP there commonly costs £600 to £850 or more per session for hair and from around £780 to £900 or more per image-guided joint injection. The address itself does not make a treatment better. What those prices should buy is a doctor, a diagnosis, image guidance where relevant, and honest follow-up. Our clinic at 10 Portman Square is a short walk from Harley Street and is built around exactly those things.

Shedding a few months after stopping the combined contraceptive pill is common, and in most women it is temporary. The drop in oestrogen pushes a large group of hairs into the resting phase at once, and they release together 2 to 3 months later. It usually settles within 3 to 6 months. The exception worth knowing about is when the pill was quietly suppressing an underlying androgen-driven thinning, which stopping it then reveals.