Thank you for the question. You are asking if platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and microneedling
works as well as a facelift and that in your research you found that it improves skin quality
and improves tightening of the skin and you want to go ahead and consider this but you
also don’t want to waste money on something that won’t work.
Well, I can certainly offer you my perspective. I’m a board certified cosmetic surgeon and
a fellowship trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon, practicing in Manhattan
and Long Island for over 20 years and I have been doing facelifts, eyelid rejuvenation
and full body cosmetic surgery throughout this time as well as the full offering of
injectables and lasers and non-surgical options and including platelet-rich plasma (PRP) which
is a very big part of what we do and we’ve even gone so far developing a way to help
people with pattern loss both men and women using platelet-rich plasma (PRP) combined
with Acellular matrix.
To simplify the answer to your question the answer is platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and microneedling
will not in any way will replace the effect of a facelift. I think that unfortunately,
the terminology and a lot of medical treatments not specifically just this promoted very often
to people who averse to having surgery are looking for holy grail of the non-surgical
option that will allow them get surgical result without surgery. There is a reason why surgeons
like me go to work every day in operating rooms doing surgery because you can’t replace
a facelift with a non-surgical option and we, in our practice we actually have the technologies
for both platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and microneedling, non-surgical skin tightening using radio frequency,
non-surgical tightening using lasers, Erbium, ND yag fractional CO2 laser. There is nothing
we really don’t have in our practice to help our patients look their best.
What you have to distinguish is the differentiation between skin quality and skin quantity just
as I would go as far I would say you can’t replace things you can do for the skin with
the facelifts the same goes the other way. Back in the mid 90’s when the original CO2
lasers were introduced people were saying if you tighten the skin well you don’t need
to do facelifts and that didn’t work out as anticipated because you can only tighten
the skin through thermal energy and the reason why I have these modalities in our practice
that even as a surgeon who performs a lot of facelifting surgery I also incorporate
a plan of skin rejuvenation that does include platelet-rich plasma (PRP), that does include
lasers. It is really about like cooking putting the right ingredients in the right way and
you are trying to get the best result so when people often spend tremendous amount of time,
money and resources trying to avoid a procedure when really the best thing to do is to get
the actual procedure. I find this commonly to people who come to me who need help with
the bags under their eyes. It is the same exact story they often will look for something
non-surgical including injectables and they come to me have it undone and then have a
definitive procedure.
The fact that you are asking the question is fantastic. It’s all about creating a
dialogue and reaching out to experts to help you learn about these things and particularly
to people who don’t have a bias as specialist someone who offers all these modalities I
can do anything in my practice and I’m not limited by training or resources so certainly
if you want to improve skin quality that’s fine but the definite feature and I always
try to help my patients understand this people come to me they don’t just come to me for
a procedure they come for guidance on what they should do to maximize their result based
on the priorities so I ask them what is important to you, where does your eye go when you look
at the mirror and in your case I suspect even though you didn’t send any photo you are
probably go to sagging skin and jowls which mean that the right procedure is some type
of facelifting procedure.
I recommend you to meet with qualified experienced cosmetic surgeons and learn about your options.
In our practice we do this procedure under local anesthesia and LITE™ sedation, our
patients recover very quickly and we use platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and Acellular matrix to optimize
wound healing and to get people looking good, we don’t use drains. We do a lot of things
to try to make this as close as non-surgical but is still surgery.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!