Thank you for your question.
You are asking if there would be any impact on your Radiesse injections that you had 2
and half months prior if you were to undergo platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatment with
microneedling.
And you state specifically in your question that you had the Radiesse placed in your cheeks.
Well, I can certainly help you understand what the relationship would be based on your
question essentially.
A little bit of background, I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and a Fellowship-trained
oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
I’ve been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years.
I use Radiesse as well as many of the other very popular types of fillers such as Juvederm
and Restylane and I do a lot of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatments in my practice for
a variety of issues for everything from superficial skin complexion improvement to dark under
eye circles, to scars, acne scars.
It’s wonderful and it’s great that you are considering this.
So, in the context of understanding what Radiesse is, first, Radiesse is a suspension of something
called calcium hydroxyapatite.
It is a filler to add volume and it is generally placed fairly deep.
It is placed deep under the skin and if you are placing it on the cheeks, it is placed
mostly in the deeper fat layers of the cheek so to add, augment and restore volume.
What microneedling is being done for is to help improve the skin quality and the platelet-rich
plasma (PRP) works very well in synergy with microneedling.
We use platelet-rich plasma (PRP) with microneedling very commonly for sun damaged skin, for fine
lines and wrinkles around the eyes and it’s a great combination.
But understand that the depth of the microneedle is not likely to be anywhere close to the
depth of the position of the Radiesse.
The skin is basically about 2 millimeters in thickness and the range that microneedling
procedure can be set in terms of the depth is anywhere from half a millimeter all the
way to 2 and half millimeters.
So depending on how aggressive your doctor wants to be, generally it will be considerably
less than the full depth of the skin.
It just depends a lot on what they’re intending to do and usually if you were doing something
that’s more aggressive, you might be going to what’s called the level of the papillary
dermis and you’ll get a little bit of bleeding.
But essentially, you are still pretty far away from the anatomic position of the Radiesse
and I think this is a very good combination.
In helping someone look their best, restoring volume makes a lot of sense.
We do something in our practice called structural volumizing and we are able to restore the
volume in the cheek bones, the jaw line and the chin and once that’s done, the person
looks great.
And then essentially, to improve the skin quality, options are presented such as microneedling,
platelet-rich plasma (PRP), platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections, light laser resurfacing,
HydraFacials, glycolic peels.
You can imagine, there are a lot of ways to improve skin quality.
And so, discuss this certainly with your doctor but just for your own edification, it is very
safe to do both.
And so, with that, discuss this with your doctor in terms of the plan and the outcome
and you don’t have to worry about anything in terms of interaction or any problem related.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.