How Does Microneedle Technology Work?

Microneedle treatments can tighten up skin and remove fine lines and blemishes; it works by the principal of trauma. In this video, plastic surgeon Anthony Youn, MD, explains how microneedle technology works and what to expect during treatment.

Transcript

00:00

Microneedling is a relatively newer treatment

00:07

that's getting quite popular to decrease the years, to basically tighten up skin, to remove fine lines, and even to remove banishes.

00:15

And basically, this works by the principle of trauma. Our skin is composed of collagen in tightly packed fibers.

00:22

And as we get older, that collagen and starts to denature. It starts to fall apart. And all the laser treatments, radio frequency treatments,

00:30

treatments used to tighten up the skin are used to tighten that collagen back up, using trauma. Well, lasers are very expensive.

00:37

And that is an issue for some patients. You can do chemical peels. But chemical peels have a long down time if you're doing an aggressive one.

00:44

Microneedling is a great way to create trauma to the skin to cause that collagen to tighten back up again, with less downtime and a lot less

00:53

cost. The way microneedling works is it utilizes several tiny little needles, and the needles will penetrate the skin anywhere from a half of a millimeter up

01:01

to two millimeter, sometimes more, to cause a little trauma to the skin to cause the collagen to tighten. Some doctors, afterwards, will place growth factors

01:09

on the skin to get good penetration of those growth factors. Others will actually put your actual growth factors

01:16

from your blood, onto the skin to cause that skin to actually tighten and to look more youthful afterwards.