Microneedling: Yes, We Are Putting Holes in Your Face

Sometimes I look at beauty treatments and I wonder, is making sure a treatment sounds really painful an essential element to creating a therapy? In this case, the answer is yes. It’s almost as important a feature as coming up with a good name - just Google Kim Kardashian Vampire facial (if I could put pictures on the blog …). So, what is microneedling? Microneedling is using small needles to create many tiny punctures in the skin. By causing minor injury, we are triggering the skin’s healing processes and that in turn gets the body to start producing collagen and elastin - those miraculous youth giving substances we stop making efficiently in our 20s.

The goal with microneedling isn’t so much to make you look like a vampire got ahold of you, but to trigger just enough injury to boost those good skin healers, but not so much that you cause permanent injury and scarring. Home microneedling devices that you can purchase over the counter have a very limited depth, and therefore limited results. Professional microneedling devices have an adjustable depth and can be set deeper on areas where the skin is thicker. The result of the controlled microinjury is an improvement in the skin’s texture, a tightening in skin tone that improves the appearance of fine lines ans wrinkles and depending on what else you use, improvement in pigmentation issues such as melasma.

So, when yoiu do microneedling, you shouldn’t do it on dry skin. We have a few options for what to use. We can add growth factors, skin brighteners and antiaging serums. We can also use your own body plasma. Plasma is the “liquid” part of your blood. We obtain it by drawing your blood and centrifuging it for a few minutes. This will push all the solids down and leave the liquid at the top. We draw the liquid off and can then use this as a powerful antiaging ingredient - there are platelet derived growth factors that can be highly stimulating. The best part? Because it comes from you, you can’t have an allergic reaction to it.

What should you do if you want microneedling? Step 1 - call and schedule. Just kidding. - well, not really, please call. There are, however, some things to consider before signing up? Microneedling should be avoided if you have certain conditions - lupus or other autoimmune conditions, severe eczema or psoriasis, have an untreated skin cancer lesion, take blood thinners or have a tendency to keloid (develop large scars from minor injuries like ear piercing. There are also some timing/relative contraindications. If you have a tendency to develop cold sores, you are best off taking prophylaxis 3 days before and after. You should allow at least 2 weekes between fillers and botox and microneedling. During pregnancy, microneedling is best avoided as your body might “overreact” or it might actually trigger melasma.

Lets talk acne. Microneedling is one of the best treatments for helping reduce scarring from acne. However, if you are currently taking accutane, you need at least 12 months between your last treatmetn and starting microneedling. You also should not have microneedling if you have a current acne outbreak (if you have one small zit - as I do twice a month, it can be worked around) over a large area. If you are young and don’t have any wrinkling yet, but struggle with acne scars, this is a great option for improving the texture of the skin and smoothing it out.

What is the procedure? You definitely want some face numbing. We use a topical face numbing cream that is best applied for 30-60 minutes ahead of time. While this is setting, we have time to draw blood for PRP if you like or do an IV therapy session. If not, you should be able to work in at least 2 games of soduku, or whatever your phone helps you spend excess time on. The microneedling itself will only take about 15-20 min. We go all the way down the neck towards the top of the decollatage - no need to have a beautiful face and a leatherneck. You will feel a little something while it’s being done, but it shouldn’t be painful. It feels a bit like someone is running fine grit sandpaper over your face. You will feel like you have a sunburn for the rest of the day, but the redness we see during the exam is gone rather quickly. You will be a bit swollen for 1-2 days (which if you have wrinkles will really help them out for 1-2 days), but the full effects take 4-6 weeks to see.

Microneedling should not be down more frequently than every 6-8 weeks. You will likely need a few sessions to achieve the best results and then you will need maintenance to keep it up over time - unless you are under the age of 25 and in full collagen production mode. There is no benefit to doing the treatment more frequently than every 6-8 weks. The skin needs time to heal from the microinjury and if you get this done too frequently, you won’t get any benefit out of it. Save your money and get some extra tox or filler.

Overall, if you are looking for a minimally invasive way to improve your skin’s tone and texture, microneedling is a good choice. Maybe you have a big event coming up in 4-6 weeks like a wedding or class reunion - this is a great choice. Maybe you are looking for longer term maintenance, then this is also a good choice.