hi this is Dr. Mitch Chasin medical director of reflections and today we're going to answer
some questions about fibroblast or some people call it the plasma pen why are we seeing the
kinds of complications that we are with this device well the device is delivering energy to
the surface of the skin it's actually causing a burn in the very top surface of the skin and
that is supposed to bring about improvement in skin quality and tightening well we're
not seeing those results number one and number two we're seeing complications because this is
essentially creating a burn and a lot of people will heal from a burn with either
excess pigmentation with less pigmentation so in other words they may get dark spots during
the healing phase or light spots and they may even get a scar and we've seen complications
each and every week from this device so it's being touted as the answer to crepey skin and
loose skin on the lower face on the mid face and even in the upper face around the eyelids
and patients are noticing very often that they're having pigmentation that persists way after that
treatment and things that we have to use topical agents and other technologies to reverse they're
also noticing scarring because essentially this device is creating a burn in the surface of the
skin most technologies today in aesthetics are delivering energy deep below the skin surface
and bringing about improvement from the inside out in the days of traumatizing the surface
of the skin like we used to do 20-30 years ago are gone so why is this device here now number
one this is not an FDA cleared device this is the device that was used overseas than it was used in
Canada and slowly came into the u.s. unfortunately it's not a device that has been evaluated by the
FDA it has not been cleared or approved by the FDA and in other countries it's a product that
has been banned because of complications Canada itself within the past year has banned the use
of these devices devices today anesthetics have safety mechanisms built-in they can monitor the
energy that's being delivered they can measure the temperature in the tissues they can monitor
the skins reaction to the energy we deliver with this plasma pen there is none of that
essentially it's just creating a burn in the surface of the skin and it's relying on that
skin to heal from that burn unfortunately a lot of patients don't heal well from these surface
burns they heal with pigmentation issues could it either be dark spots or light spots or they
may even heal with scars and each and every week we're seeing complications from the device these
devices are not in the hands of physicians at this time there are hands of non-medical personnel that
are offering this device as the cure for looseness and skin for crepeiness around the eyes to lift
the brows from many different things that it's just not going to do on the on the basis of what
how it's delivering energy and we're even now seeing these devices sold literally on Amazon
on eBay and patients are doing these things at home so the FDA is there to evaluate these
products these devices to make sure not only that they work but that they're safe so in the future
these devices will hopefully be evaluated by the FDA they'll take a look at what the device is
doing they'll probably add safety mechanisms to prevent complications and really important bill
evaluate whether it's actually doing something and see if the results are there as being promised