We all want to dazzle our friends and co-workers during our holiday parties and get-togethers. Scheduling a session to have one of the Restylane fillers injected to erase lines or creases on the mid to lower face is one way to do that.

Or you can have your body provide all of the rejuvenation from within. That’s what happens when you come to Dr. Barrera’s for microneedling with platelet-rich plasma (PRP). It’s a great treatment to have to give your skin a healthy, revitalized look. It’s easy to take and doesn’t require any recovery.

What is the idea behind microneedling with PRP?

The body has an amazing capacity to heal wounds in the skin. It does this with the clotting function and growth factors present in blood platelets, and it does this by creating new collagen and elastin to heal the wound and rebuild the skin. What if you could create hundreds of microscopic wounds, which the body responds to with collagen production, and add in the growth factors and healing potential of blood platelets?

That, in a nutshell, is microneedling with PRP at Dr. Alfonso’s.

How does microneedling with PRP work?

At Dr. Alfonso’s, we use the SkinPen from Bellus Medical for our microneedling. It features 14 tiny needles that move up and down as the pen is moved across the treatment areas. These needles penetrate the epidermis to a selected depth of up to 2 mm. This extends down into the top of the dermis layer of the skin, where collagen is produced.

When we move the SkinPen across your skin, it creates hundreds of microscopic punctures/channels down into the dermis. Because the microscopic punctures are surrounded by untouched skin, they begin to heal almost immediately. But the body perceives these as wounds and it initiates the wound-healing process — producing new supplies of collagen, elastin, and new skin cells. These are meant to repair the wounds, but in microneedling the wounds are basically fully healed in just a few hours, so the collagen and elastin simply improves the skin texture and firmness. These are the tenets of younger-looking skin.

To boost the entire process, we add the benefit of platelet-rich plasma after your microneedling to enhance the procedure. This is the optimum time to apply PRP to the skin, as it can penetrate the outer epidermis.

What is platelet-rich plasma?

You’ve probably heard of platelet-rich plasma, even if you don’t follow the aesthetic world. That’s because professional athletes have been using it for over a decade to help speed healing after injury or after surgery.

Platelets in human blood are amazing little healing powerhouses. In addition to their clotting ability, platelets have a series of growth factors in them that help heal wounds and regenerate damaged skin. In platelet-rich plasma (PRP), as the name implies, we concentrate the platelets for maximum healing and skin rejuvenation. Here’s how it works. We take a sample of your blood and place it in a centrifuge. We separate out the red blood cells. This leaves a concentrated mix of plasma, white blood cells, and blood platelets. Making PRP from your small blood sample takes just a few minutes. Then it’s ready to use when your microneedling is complete.

Want to improve your facial skin heading into Houston’s upcoming holiday party season? Call Dr. Barrera at (713) 468-5200 to schedule your session.