Thank you for your question.
You submitted your question without a photo.
However, you state in your question that you had a Vampire Facial® to address some minor
acne scarring and some skin tightness.
And you are pleased with the outcome and you want to know how often do you need to do this
treatment to maintain results.
Well, in the absence of photos and some clinical history, I can give you some general concepts
that we employ in our practice to guide patients like yourself.
A little bit of background, I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial
plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years.
The Vampire Facial®, just for the clarity of definition, is essentially an approach
to helping skin quality through microneedling at different depths, to induce something called
collagen induction therapy.
And the element that enhances that with PRP is a significant element to maximizing the
skin’s response to this stimulation, basically controlled injury resulting in skin tightening
and improvement.
So to answer the question, first we have to look at what is the underlying concerns.
You said that your skin is not as tight as it used to be.
Well, I would suspect that if we are dealing with an element of Facial® aging, then there
is a possibility that you are also dealing with volume loss that is deeper than the skin’s
surface.
As we have become much more aware of facial aging variables, it’s important to recognize
that facial aging is not just loss of fat.
It’s loss of bone, muscle, fat, the soft tissue.
Very often, people with acne scars will see those acne scars appear more obvious and prominent
with facial aging.
One strategy that might be worth employing that we’ve had very good experience with
is actually placement of fillers at the deeper levels of the face such as between the bone
and the muscle and we call that Structural Volumizing.
For example, we’ve treated patients with volume loss who were getting treatment for
acne scars and they had lasers and various injectables but everything limited to the
skin level.
When filler was placed at the deeper level, the volume restoration actually helped smooth
out the acne scars considerably.
Now generally speaking, if you had minor acne scarring, then chances are, you should be
relatively responsive.
Now there are different types of acne scars and that’s outside the scope of this discussion.
However, in terms of timing, with something like microneedling and Vampire Facial® type
of procedure, a lot of times I have to look at my patients in a way where I observe how
their skin is responding and evolving.
A lot of my colleagues like to do my microneedling every two weeks, some like to do it every
month.
What I prefer to do is look at the response and make adjustments accordingly.
There is a wound healing process every time there is injury whether it’s a poke or whether
it is an incision.
And it’s a process that is basically the most important part that is relevant for you
is the proliferative phase and the remodeling phase, so basically it’s two parts.
The proliferative phase is in the first month.
The body is generating collagen, blood supply and all kinds of good things to help repair
this injury.
The remodeling is the rearrangement and settling out of that response.
And so, you can consider based on your skin thickness, your skin type, the rate in which
you heal, I like to see how those variables can optimized so that the timing of the micro
needling and PRP treatments can be done in a way that’s most effective.
So from that perspective, you can certainly go more frequently or you can allow for some
time and give your skin a chance to heal and remodel and plateau and do another treatment.
So it’s about customization.
I think it’s also important to look at other options to maximize your results.
You may consider treatments such as Q-switch laser or fractionated laser to help further
maximize the quality of the skin as well as the use of topical retinoids and other things
to help the skin quality.
So discuss this with your physician and see what would be optimal for you and what is
practically achievable given the usual time constraints and resources that one can actually
allocate for the aesthetic purpose.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.