Best Treatments for Sagging Skin

Summary:

• In this video, Dr. O answers the following questions and more! How can I firm up my sagging skin? What causes the skin to start sagging? What are the best treatments for sagging skin?
• What causes sagging skin? As we age, our skin loses collagen, elastin and hydration. The combination of these effects turns into issues with loose or sagging skin and issues like wrinkles, discoloration, and uneven skin texture we all hope to avoid. This can also be compounded by exposure to the sun, cigarette smoking, and genetics.
• To address these issues, we focus on the easy things first. We start preventing and correcting some of these sagging skin issues with correct clinical-grade sunscreens, proper use of skin care products, hydration and balancing hormones.
• After we cover the basics, we then focus on how we can pause the aging clock to improve the quality of the skin. Ultimately we want to look at how we can effectively address these concerns. We look into what’s happening atomically to decide on the correct treatment.
• To be successful in treating sagging skin, we need to address deficiencies in both – the top and middle layers of the skin. Treatments that resurface your skin epidermal area layers such as lasers are going to remove those fine lines and wrinkles, and maybe even some medium wrinkles and discoloration etc. To address issues in deeper layers of skin where the collagen and elastin are rapidly declining as we age, we need to use treatments that reach the middle layer of the skin such as Pixel RF microneedling.
• Pixel RF device will create micro trauma to cause the skin to react by building more collagen. It combines mechanical microneedling with an additional thermal injury that shrinks the dermal issues and causes an even greater release of collagen overtime to firm the deeper layers of tissue.
• We combine that in the same treatment with Erbium laser. Erbium laser targets water in our skin. We use this modality to vaporize the top layer of the skin to remove it so that your body is forced to regenerate a new, fresh layer of skin. This is a great lower downtime, gentle laser treatment.
• Our ReFirme treatment for sagging skin combines these two modalities. When we combine these treatments together, we can have a profound impact on the quality and the tightness of the skin, bringing back youthful firmness, elasticity and glow.
• We repeat this treatment for sagging skin twice, four to six weeks apart for optimal results. This way we achieve excellent results, low downtime and the treatment is very controllable. We tailor each treatment to our patient’s needs.

At RevitalizeMaui, we can create a personalized treatment plan for your sagging skin that works within your aesthetic goals and budget. So if you are ready for smooth skin free from unwanted body hair, schedule your appointment with us!

Related Information:

ReFirme Treatment for Sagging Skin

Skin Tightening Treatments

Erbium YAG Laser Skin Resurfacing

PIXel8 RF Microneedling Treatment

Full Video Transcript:

Hey, everybody, it’s Dr. O here from RevitalizeMaui. Today we’re going to be talking about our ReFirme treatment, which is geared at targeting loose and sagging skin. We’re going to review how it works, who it’s for and what you can expect from getting this treatment. Now, be sure to keep watching because at the end, we’re going to have some great information regarding all those things and maybe even get you a little teaser on how you can save on getting this done.

This is really for anyone who’s got issues with sagging skin, okay? And the reality is, as we age, we lose collagen, elastin and hydration in our skin. The combination of these effects turns into issues with loose or sagging skin. It can also be compounded with exposure to the sun, cigarette smoking and genetics. You can actually have issues where not only is the skin sagging, but you can have deeper wrinkles, you can have moderate to severe wrinkles. You can lose that shine or that glow in your skin. The skin can take on a sort of gray doll appearance.

Now, when I talk to my patients about what we do to correct some of these issues, of course, we focus on the easy things first. Yeah, sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen, some proper use of products, hydration, balancing hormones, things like that. But after we’ve taken care of the basics, really, now we’re thinking about what we can do to turn the clock back to improve the quality of your skin.

Ultimately, we want to think about things we can do to address some of these concerns. And in order to do that, I like to look at what’s happening anatomically to decide on the correct treatment. Let’s just talk about what’s actually happening when you look at the skin. There are several different layers of the epidermis. And what we have to look at is what’s happening at the top layer of skin and what’s happening in the middle layer of skin.

So obviously, things that will resurface your skin’s epidermal area-the epidermal layer, are going to remove those fine wrinkles and maybe even some medium wrinkles. There are many things you can do, such as Laser treatments, chemical peels, IPL, CO2 lasers. However, what we’re really talking about now is what’s happening on the deeper layers of skin where the collagen and elastin are missing.

So what we’ve done with this treatment is combine a really great industry-standard treatment with the Erbium laser for targeting the top layers of skin in combination with something to bring more collagen to the deeper layers of skin. When you combine these two things together, we really have a profound impact on skin quality and the overall tightness of the skin.

So this is why we call this one the ReFirme treatment. Okay, now it’s time to get into how it works. So I think the best place to start is with the deeper layer of the skin. Most of you have heard of microneedling, right?

I used to be a huge fan of micro-needling with PRP, for example. What that’s really doing is using mechanical trauma such as micro-trauma to cause the skin to react by building collagen. That’s the basics really to all of these treatments and how they work. They cause small amounts of trauma to the skin, each at different layers to cause your skin to build more collagen.

Now, what we have here is this is a radio frequency micro-needling platform. On this device, there are gold pins; these deliver energy at different layers as we set into the skin.

So when we are doing, for example, the cheek area, we’re going to use about the specific level of power at 1.2 to 1.5 mm into the skin. It gives a mechanical trauma that you get from micro-needling. However, in addition, it causes a thermal injury that shrinks the dermal tissues and causes an even greater release of collagen over time. By focusing on those deeper layers of tissue. Now, we combine that in the same treatment with one of my favorite treatments for skin resurfacing, the Erbium laser.

The Erbium laser targets water as the chromophore. It uses a wavelength of 29, 40 nm. This is very important because this wavelength does not affect melanin or hemoglobin in the skin. So it’s not really looking for hair pigment, but really focusing on really vaporizing the tissue.

Okay, so when we’re using the Erbium to vaporize a layer of about 100 to 130 microns of tissue. The focus is on the top layer of skin so that you remove that old skin and your body is forced to regenerate a new fresh layer of skin. Now, how we compare this to something like CO2 is this is a much more gentle and lower downtime treatment. You’re not going to be swollen and peeling for three to four weeks like you would in the old days of the deep CO2. This is a gentler way to do this.

Now, because of that, we’re going to do both of these treatments twice, about four to six weeks apart. What we find is when we do it this way, we have excellent results. We have low downtime, and it’s controllable. We’re going to tailor the treatment to what your needs are. If you need more, we’ll start off a little bit higher energy levels, repetition levels, more passes, and we’ll be able to really deliver a fabulous result for you.

The other thing I want to point out with this treatment is, there are actually two parts to it.

What we do first is Erbium treatment using a six-millimeter spot size. And what that means is we are totally removing the skin in little six-millimeter chunks. So it takes a fair amount of work, but we blast off all that skin, revealing really smooth skin below. We then follow that with a fractional lens.

A fractional treatment is one where it’s not removing the full layer of skin; it’s actually targeting deeper into skin layers, small columns of energy, and the benefit there again is lower downtime, but we can actually penetrate a little bit deeper without having significant side effects. We combine those two, so this treatment, you actually do two separate laser treatments and then we follow it with the Pixel8.

Okay, so here we’re doing three different treatments combined in one, and what we find is when we do it this way, there’s a synergistic response between these three different layers and three modalities and the end result is absorbed, resulting in lower downtime and ultimately greater satisfaction.