Considering a new look? How about an old one? SkinPen microneedling treatments at Aesthetic Surgical Arts/Mia Bella Donna Medspa in Overland, Kansas can help restore loose skin, reduce scarring, and smooth out fine lines. You can even start to see the benefits as soon as one session!
How Often Can You Do Microneedling?
Microneedling is a popular way to treat a lot of different issues. The ones you’re wanting to address will determine how many treatments you need, and how often you should get them.
Since a large part of the benefits from microneedling comes from healing the damage created, it’s important to give your skin time to heal between sessions. Make sure to space out your sessions every four to six weeks.
While at home derma rollers are marketed for frequent, even daily use, these tools have such short needles that their effect is minimal. In the end, you’re likely to do more harm than good, as skin is a delicate part of your body that needs to be treated with care. It’s important to let a licensed professional provide treatment through a SkinPen rather than a derma roller, as these are much gentler.
How Many Treatments Should You Get?
This depends largely on what you’re treating, but expect to start with three sessions. Up to six or even eight sessions may be necessary if you’re trying to address things like deep scarring. This allows your skin the time to heal, but also to go through its natural process of cell turnover. You will likely see superficial results after the first session, but it’s important to stick with the process for more to ensure those results stay around.
When combined with the healing time, you should plan for around four months to complete three sessions. Since this is a treatment that gently works with your body to restore your skin to its previous condition, accept that it will take time and you may want more than three sessions. If you’re using it for deep scarring, it will likely take more than that to fully see the best results.
What Are the Benefits?
The benefits of Microneedling range from tightening skin to regrowing hair. It can reduce scars and clear up acne too. Any benefits you might see are also compounded when using serums, creams, or medications directly after a session because the skin is primed to absorb them. While most people get treatments on their face, you can have it done anywhere on your body, even your scalp.
What Can Microneedling Help?
1. Scars
Nobody likes stretch marks, but did you know they’re really a type of scar? Flat or pitted scars are parts of the skin that didn’t produce enough collagen when healing. This means they don’t have enough support under them to hold up the skin properly. The micro-tears tell the body to make more collagen in that area, giving it the needed support, but also smoothing out the skin to fade the scar’s appearance. It’s also shown to reduce other types of scars as well, like from acne.
2. Fine Lines and Loose Skin
Loose skin, especially on the neck and face, are concerns for many of us as we age. This happens because our bodies produce less collagen over time, taking away our skin’s structure. This is most noticeable in sagging skin, but it’s the reason behind wrinkles and uneven skin texture too. Increasing the collagen just under the surface of the skin smooths it all out again like when you were young.
3. Uneven Skin Tone
The process doesn’t just tell your skin to produce more collagen. It stimulates all new cell growth and cell turnover. Just like collagen production, this is a natural process your body does, but it decreases with age. Unfortunately, this is also when age spots from changing hormones and sun spots start to show up. Hyperpigmentation can occur even when you’re young though, and these treatments can help those cases just as much.
4. Acne
Acne can be the gift that keeps on giving as bacteria spreads from one breakout to another. Just as much of a problem is excess oil. The micro-needles can unclog pores, reducing the oil that causes breakouts, and minimizing your pore size at the same time. It always uses sterile instruments on your clean face, ensuring no bacteria spreads to increase your acne. However, you should never have a session done when you have open sores or active breakouts.
5. Hair Growth
Hair follicles need a strong support system to help them grow. Collagen is what gives them that, and microneedling can help restore it when levels are low, as well as stimulate cell growth and blood flow so new hair will start to grow.
How Exactly Does It Work?
This process is also called derma rolling. Between these two names, you can have a better understanding of what microneedling does. Micro-fine needles are placed all around a roller, which is moved across your skin to make pinprick sized holes.
These holes create a tiny amount of damage to your skin, just enough to tell your body it needs to make collagen to heal it, but not enough for it to do any actual harm. However, your practitioner might use a pen, like the SkinPen, instead of a roller. Unlike a derma roller, the SkinPen causes very little discomfort because there is no pulling at the skin while rolling.
Collagen is important because it’s a building block of our skin. It gives skin its elasticity but also keeps it tight, strong, and smooth. However, our bodies make less of it the older we get, beginning in our 30s. This is why microneedles seem to work such wonders as an anti-aging treatment. It’s literally restoring the skin of our youth.
Not only does it promote collagen production, but it increases blood flow, moving restorative nutrients to the area all while giving you the short-term benefit of a plump, rosy look. This blood flow also helps move other things around better too. This is why it’s beneficial to use acne medication or anti-aging serums directly after treatment since they’re absorbed much faster.
Can I Do This at Home?
While there are derma rollers sold for at-home use, these are not very good options. Bacteria and then infection can occur, as well as damaging the skin because of improper use and a non-sterile environment. The best benefits come from regular sessions performed by licensed professionals. Sometimes additional therapies like radio frequencies through the needles are used, and these can only be performed in an office by a licensed practitioner. Radio frequencies heat up the skin, creating more micro-tears than the needles alone would. This can speed up the process overall.
What Is the Treatment Timeline?
Although you may notice improvements after your first session, it usually requires several to fully treat issues and reap the long-term benefits.
How Long Do Treatments Take?
This will depend entirely on how large of an area you’re having the treatment done on and can range from ten minutes to over an hour. If you only have a small area to treat like your forehead, it may only last 10 to 15 minutes. If the treatment covers your entire face, expect it to take somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes. When you’re addressing a large area of skin like the abdomen, then it could take upwards of an hour or more. What will cut down on time is when a SkinPen is used, meaning no numbing creams are necessary. Otherwise, numbing creams usually take around thirty minutes to soak in completely.
Do I Need to Continue Treatments Long Term?
Just like you wouldn’t exercise for a few weeks or use a new face serum for a couple of months and expect the results to stick around, you shouldn’t expect that from microneedling. That said, results are visible for a lengthy amount of time. Consider getting maintenance treatments two or three times a year as needed.
What Can I Expect From a Session?
If the idea of needles intimidates you, don’t worry. It’s a relatively painless treatment and professionals are trained in the safest processes and newest technology.
1. Painless
Some practitioners will use numbing cream before treatment, but that’s usually for when derma rollers are used. When the SkinPen is used, the treatment is essentially painless.
2. Cleansing
It’s very important to avoid any chance of infection from bacteria since microneedling does create small holes in your skin. Your face will be washed thoroughly beforehand to make sure this doesn’t happen.
3. SkinPen
A licensed aesthetician will use a SkinPen over the treatment area using needles of different sizes depending on the type of treatment and where on the skin it’s being used.
Some redness is normal after the treatment, but nothing that will last more than a couple of days or be very noticeable. In fact, most redness will subside within a few hours, and you will be left with a glowing appearance.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Are the Side Effects?
There are very few side effects shown to occur with this treatment. Short-term there can be a little swelling or redness that should dissipate quickly. Infection is possible, which is why it’s so important to go to a licensed professional for treatment.
Am I a Good Candidate?
Since there are so few side effects, many people are good candidates for receiving treatment. Make sure to check with a professional if you have any concerns. So long as you are over the age of twenty, you are old enough to receive treatment. If you are on blood thinners, have diabetes, are pregnant, or are trying to treat raised scars, then you may want to consider other options.
Are There Other Similar Skin Treatments?
You can use creams or serums to treat things like wrinkles or large pores, and topical medications for acne. However, remember that when the micro-needles create holes in your skin, that’s opening it up to absorb all the great things in topical treatments even more. Consider combining both to increase your results. Fillers, botox, and other surgeries can be great options for you as well. They give more dramatic effects, but also require longer healing and are more invasive methods.
Restore Your Skin
There are so many reasons to get this treatment. Not only does it aid in collagen production, helping to restore skin to its former health, but it can do so much more. It can help if you have hair loss you want to reverse or scarring that you want to reduce. It’s also a great alternative to more invasive treatments or ones that require a lengthy recovery.
We can help you reach your skin goals. Contact Aesthetic Surgical Arts/Mia Bella Donna Medspa in Overland, Kansas today to find out more about microneedling. Our staff is professionally licensed and ready to serve you.
