Regenerative Cosmetic Treatments: What 4 Procedures Yield the Most Natural Results?

Regenerative Cosmetic Treatments

Regenerative Medicine is a field of medicine which aims to repair and/or replace damaged or diseased tissue to restore healthy function. In Regenerative Aesthetics, our goal is to impact skin and underlying tissues to restore youthful tissue structure and function.

Why Focus on Regenerative Treatments?

In aesthetic medicine, Regenerative Treatments are particularly exciting. They give us a tool to enhance our tissues to truly behave more healthily and youthfully, as opposed to simply “looking” younger. This includes reversing sun damage and decreasing our skin’s risk of developing pre-skin cancers and skin cancers, stimulating our body to produce and stabilize new and existing collagen and fat cells, and even promoting hair growth. Clinically, we can achieve more supple, elastic skin, and a more youthful contour of the facial features. This is a contrast from previous treatment philosophies the industry has relied on, like overfilling or line chasing.

Does This Mean I Should Stop Other Treatments?

The face ages in four layers: bone, fat, muscle, and skin. While we have Regenerative Treatments that target the fat and skin layers, we don’t have aesthetic Regenerative Treatments that fully target the bone or the muscle yet. In order to mimic bony structural loss or bony support that we genetically lack, we still rely on HA fillers to achieve a desirable contour. Similarly, in order to relax muscles that have worked over time to etch in 11 lines and Crows’ Feet, we rely on neuromodulators to help soften these features. Regenerative treatment have their place, but will work best in tandem with other, clinically proven procedures.

What 4 Regenerative Cosmetic Treatments Produce The Best Results?

1. Biostimulators. These are typically injected into target tissue to provide both stimulation and structure to induce tissue regeneration. Calcium hydroxylapatite (Radiesse) and Poly-L-Lactic Acid (Sculptra) can restore skin thickness through collagen regeneration. Sculptra has also been shown to induce adipogenesis, or the production of new fat cells.
2. Non-ablative and ablative lasers. Both types of lasers induce controlled damage to the skin, which wakes our bodies up to go into “healing” mode. The treated area gets flooded with platelets, growth factors, and cell signaling to generate new collagen and skin cells for smoother, more radiant, and more supple skin. These lasers are a gamechanger in restoring youthful skin quality.
3. Injectable Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP). PRP has been in orthopedic medical practice for decades. In aesthetics, PRP has been used as an adjuvant treatment for hair loss, acne scars, wound healing, and facial rejuvenation.
4. Topical exosomes. Currently, exosomes are not FDA-approved to be injected, but are FDA-approved to apply topically to intact skin to enhance hair growth and skin function by decreasing senescence-associated changes.

If you are interested in Regenerative Cosmetic Treatments in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area, contact our office for more information on treatment.