Micro Needling

The aim of micro needling is to improve the appearance of scars, pigmentation and wrinkles. Blood vessels and blushing have been noted to improve at the same time. The outer layers of the skin (horny epithelium) are known to provide 80% of the resistence to penetration of creams. Micro needles penetrate this layer and create tiny channels through which creams may penetrate These channels will close within 90 minutes restoring the bodies natural defences. Meanwhile the active ingredients from the creams will be acting in and under the skin.

Home rollers with needles of 0.5 mm are able to penetrate this layer without going deep enough to cause bleeding or irritate nerve endings. This is why home rollers can be used without anaesthetics.

Medical rollers have needles 1.0 mm or longer. This allows them to penetrate down to the papillary dermis where they can touch the end of blood vessels and nerves. Anaesthesia is needed and little bleeding points can be seen. This is associated with electrical activity at a cellular level similar to that seen with acupuncture.

Surgical rollers are longer than 1.5 mm and penetrate deep enough to cause obvious bleeding. It is thought that the longer needles have a higher electric potential. It is thought that this change in electrical activity alters glia cells which then trigger a repair process even though there has been no significant injury. New collagen and elastic tissue is formed and regeneration processes are initiated that soften scars and normalize blood vessels and pigmentation.

Some people feel that maximum improvement is obtained if the injury produced is significant enough to produce an injury that will heal with the cascades that are released when platelets are stimulated to release their abundant supply of growth factors. Others would say that the increased injury takes longer to recover and is therefore not justified. It is important for you to discuss with your doctor how much downtime you are willing to have.

Downtime

Home rollers have very little downtime when used vigorously and none in normal use. The main aim of home rollers is to open up the skin and greatly enhance the penetration of any active ingredient applied to the skin.

Medical rollers are associated with a few minor petechae (pin prick spots of bruising). The skin has a mild Erythema (sun burnt look) which may be covered with a mineral foundation and resolves in 1-2 days.

Surgical rollers cause some pin point bleeding and petechae. The Erythema is more pronounced and can last 3-4 days.

How many treatments?

It is recommended that you have treatments from once a week to once a month for a series of six treatments. Deeper problems (acne scars, melasma, etc) need deeper treatments which take longer to heal and need more time between. If you cannot take time off have a more superficial treatment. Improvement still occurs albeit more gradually.

Where can it be used?

Micro needling can be used on any area of the body for most skin conditions and on any colour of skin.

What creams should I use?

Micro needling alone will work (dry needling) but improvement is greatly accelerated by using vitamin A in the lead up to, during and after treatment. The version of vitamin A that you use could be the medical form, Retinoic acid (Tretinoin) or the pre-cursors of retinoic acid, which are retinol, retinyl palmitate/acetate or retinyl aldehyde. Vitamin C is an essential co-factor to be used in addition to vitamin A. Vitamin C itself also stimulates the production of collagen through activity on the DNA. In this way Vit C has a double action to directly stimulate collagen production and to indirectly stimulate collagen via VitA

Chat to our friendly staff and find out more about Micro Needling call our Liverpool clinic
(02)9824 3044.