Microdermabrasion Smooths and Softens Your Skin
As the largest organ in your body, your skin is vulnerable to a lot of abuse. Injuries, acne, sun exposure, and aging all cause damage which builds up over time, causing your skin to look rugged and worn. Your skin also loses important fibers like collagen and elastin as you get older, which causes it to also lose its firmness. These effects all combine to make your skin uneven, scarred, and even discolored.
There are different treatments that can improve the look of your skin, one of which is called microdermabrasion.
How Microdermabrasion Works
Your skin is made up of three distinct layers: the dermis, the epidermis, and the hypodermis. The dermis is the outer most layer that is made up of several layers of skin cells, with the oldest layer on top. The dermis is the most vulnerable to sun damage, contaminants, and injury, so it takes the greatest pounding over the years.
You slough off millions of skin cells from the dermis layer every single day, allowing new skin cells to move up from the dermis layer. The new skin cells help keep your skin looking fresh and healthy. However, as the damage builds up over the years, it can penetrate through several layers of skin cells, even the healthier new cells. This means that basic exfoliation isn’t going to be enough to keep your skin looking its best.
Microdermabrasion helps with this problem by removing multiple layers of skin cells at the dermis layer, much deeper than normal exfoliation techniques. By removing the layers, the treatment also removes the built-up damage. As your new undamaged skin cells move towards the top of the dermis layer, your skin will begin healing itself and erasing that worn appearance.
The Microdermabrasion Procedure
After you meet with our skin care expert, who determines which areas of your face and body will benefit from the treatment, you’ll schedule a microdermabrasion appointment. The technician uses a tool that is similar to a power sander with a surface covered in teeny tiny crystals and moves it over the target area. The crystals will carefully exfoliate your skin and remove skin cells at the top most area of the dermis. The technician will move the tool over your skin in careful, even motions to keep your skin even and avoid doing too much damage. A vacuum attached to the tool will remove any exfoliated skin cells and any crystals that become loose during the procedure.
Sanding the skin off your face sounds like it would be rather painful, but actually microdermabrasion is a fairly gentle procedure. After all, the goal of the treatment is to remove the damage to your skin, not cause even more of it. The tool may feel a little scratchy, but not in a painful way.
Microdermabrasion can be performed once or multiple times, depending on how much damage your skin has sustained. Once your skin has reached its ideal healthy appearance, the procedure should be repeated regularly to maintain the results.
Recovery from Microdermabrasion
Microdermabrasion is non-surgical, so you’ll be able to leave the technician’s office immediately after the procedure. Your skin will be a little tender for a couple days and will take a week or two to fully recover from the procedure. During this time, it is extremely important that you take very good care of your skin. Use gentle cleansers to keep contaminants away from it and apply daily sunscreen to protect it from the sun. Moisturizing will also be important in keeping your skin soft and flexible. Your technician will give you a full set of post-treatment care instructions that need to be followed exactly. Your skin will be vulnerable after the treatment until it heals, so you need to protect it against further damage.
Microdermabrasion Results
Once your skin has recovered from your microdermabrasion treatments, you’ll notice a real difference in your appearance. With the damage removed from the outer layers, your skin will have a healthy and brighter look. It will also feel smoother and softer without the uneven texture. There will also be a noticeable difference in the firmness of your skin, because microdermabrasion boosts the production of collagen and elastin, which help keep your skin tight and smooth.
If you have considerable damage to your skin, it may take some time and multiple microdermabrasion treatments to really get the full results, but getting there is totally worth it.
Schedule a Skin Care Consultation
Here at Shapiro Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, we have a Skin Klinic that offers microdermabrasion and a wide variety of skin care treatment options. We believe that healthy skin is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and we have the tools and the experience to help you achieve this goal. You can schedule a skin care consultation with Dr. Shapiro and our other highly trained skin care professionals by calling the Shapiro Skin Klinic at (480) 421-1701 today.
