Microneedling in Boston, MA

Microneedling: Is it Right for You?

Women’s Wellness Center is pleased to offer FDA cleared SkinPen® microneedling skin rejuvenation treatment on behalf of our wellness patients.

Microneedling is a natural and cost effective treatment helping to address skin issues such as natural aging, stretch marks, fine wrinkles, sun damage, neck wrinkles, and acne. Microneedling works by stimulating your body’s inherent collagen production and promotes healthy circulation as well as new cell generation. The result is beautiful glowing skin. The treatment is performed by a qualified and trained practitioner without a need for surgery, chemicals, or injections. Microneedling is generally preferred over other treatment alternatives due to minimal side effects, applicability to multiple skin types, lower cost, and shorter downtime. If your goal is to support the natural improvement of your skin’s color, texture, and tone then microneedling may be ideal for you.

In addition to being a physician and the founder of a women’s wellness practice, I’m among the millions of microneedling patients benefiting from an improvement in the appearance of my skin. I’m not alone in expressing confidence in this non-surgical treatment. In addition to FDA clearance, microneedling has been shown to be an effective in numerous clinical trials, is highly recommended by patients, and has received awards from the beauty industry, including accolades from Cosmopolitan, Dermascope, The Aesthetic Guide, My Face My Body, New Beauty, and The Aesthetic Show.

Why all the confidence and accolades in this aesthetic medical innovation for the treatment of your skin’s appearance? For an answer, let’s begin with a review of the procedure and its efficacy.

How and Why Microneedling Helps Rejuvenate Your Skin

Microneedling is FDA-cleared to improve the appearance of your skin. It’s safe and accepted by the medical community’s leading approval authorities.

How: Your microneedling treatment starts with the application of a topical numbing cream to the area of your skin you wish to enhance. Once your skin feels the effect of the numbing cream, we apply the microneedling handset. By gently pricking your skin with 14 surgical grade needles, the microneedling SkinPen® device creates thousands of tiny holes in your skin. These tiny holes act to stimulate cell renewal and fuel your body’s natural collagen production.

Why: Applying Collagen Induction Therapy (CIT), microneedling taps your body’s natural growth and healing process. By passing the miniature needles over the surface of your skin thousands of micro injuries stimulate your body to respond by boosting your body’s collagen production, forming new tissue and resulting in the tightening and lifting of the skin. The tiny channels created by the microneedling process are also able to stimulate the absorption of applied topical creams, gels, and platelet rich plasma or PRP (more on this below!) through your skins’ top layer.

By using the strength of your body’s own healing process, there’s no need to rely on heat, toxins, or chemical injections. The treatment stimulates your body’s resources to allow you to be the best version of you!
Who May Best Benefit from Microneedling?

As a physician, I work with patients to determine the best way to rejuvenate your unique skin. We’re all different, so together we will determine if microneedling matches your unique needs. Patients facing the below noted challenges are most likely to benefit from microneedling:

• Acne scars (a.k.a. atrophic scarring)
• Fine lines and wrinkles
• Looseness of the skin (a.k.a. skin laxity typically due to aging)
• Moderate wrinkles
• “No glow” skin missing that sense of color, texture, or tone
• Stretch marks
• Sun damage

Born in the Caribbean and educated at Boston University Medical School, I am mindful of the world’s wonderful variety of skin colors, ethnicities, and tones. I understand some skin conditions present differently and may be more susceptible to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation and discoloration in ethnic skin and deeper skin tones. With the varied needs of many ethnic skin tones in mind, Women’s Wellness Center selected a microneedling solution cleared by the FDA to treat all skin tones and types.

We’re all unique, and so are the needs of our skin.

Ways We May Enhance Microneedling with the Addition of Platelet Rich Plasma, also known as a “Vampire Facial”

When combined with microneedling, Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) enables you to leverage and apply your body’s natural ability to heal cells and advance skin tone in a safe and proven manner.

We apply this natural process by taking a small sample of your own blood on the day of your microneedling treatment in our medical office.

We then take this sample and spin it in a medical grade centrifuge for about 15 minutes. The spinning centrifuge acts to separate various elements of your blood according to density. Among these natural elements are platelets. Your body’s platelets contain proteins, including growth factors and cytokines, which stimulate natural tissue repair.

We extract the PRP from the sample and apply it to the area of your skin receiving microneedling. The tiny holes in your skin act to channel PRP into your skin, thereby promoting your body’s natural collagen production and cell reproduction, amplifying the microneedling effects.

At Women’s Wellness Center, we don’t fight nature. We celebrate it and we apply it!

Not Everyone is a Candidate for Microneedling Skin Treatment

While microneedling is safe for most individuals, it’s not for everyone. If you have or are experiencing any of the below issues, I’m afraid microneedling will not match your needs.

• Active skin cancer in the treatment area(s)
• Allergies to anesthetics or stainless steel
• Bleeding (hemorrhagic) disorders
• Eczema, Psoriasis and/or other such conditions in the treatment area
• Fungal infection in the treatment area
• Immunosuppressed
• Irritated skin in the treatment area
• Keloid scarring
• Open injuries or wounds
• Pregnant or nursing
• Scleroderma and/or collagen vascular disease
• Active acne, active herpes, or other open sores in the treatment area
• Currently taking a prescription drug with isotretinoin (such as Accutane)

How Many Treatments and How Often is Microneedling Applied?

The duration of microneedling and quantity of treatments will naturally depend on many factors regarding your skin’s condition and the surface area. In most cases a treatment typically takes anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes. For light wrinkles or modest scarring, two to three treatments every 4-6 weeks will often be plenty. For some patients, a single annual treatment may be sufficient to get your skin glowing!

For those wrestling with challenges such as acne scars, advanced sun stress, deep wrinkles, or stretch marks, you may require a four to six treatments every 4-6 weeks to reach toward your desired outcome.

Women’s Wellness Center is focused on your overall wellbeing. We’ll work with you to determine an ideal regimen matching your unique skin improvement needs.

Microneedling’s Recovery and Modest Downtime

Though generally quite quick, recovery time is unique to each patient as recovery depends on your unique body as well as the number of microneedling passes delivered during your treatment. In general, you’ll find your skin appears bright red right after your microneedling skin treatment. Though in most patients redness dissipates after just one day, I suggest planning for your redness to last up to two days.