The who’s who in PRP treatment options – Written By Dr Marisa Heyns MBChB (UCT), MSc Aesthetic Medicine and Therapeutics.
If you are in the know when it comes to Platelet rejuvenation or PRP treatments (the ‘vampire facial’ for those of you who are Twilight or Kardashian obsessed), you are well aware of the amazing skin and tissue rejuvenating benefits this treatment has to offer.
But have you ever wondered how this process works? How do we know how to separate plasma from blood to liberate the powerful growth factor filled platelets that ultimately kick start the process of transforming a lacklustre, dull and haggard-looking skin into a refreshed, glowing and youthful one.
It might seem as simple as drawing blood and popping it into a centrifuge and then applying it to the skin. However, there are indeed many ways to spin the blood to liberate the magical golden liquid and even more ways to inject it. Here at Dr Nerina Wilkinson Skin, we continuously strive to provide you with the best techniques and methods with up to date and state of the art technology in order to give you back the highest number and quality platelets you have to offer yourself ????.
Our Process:
The process starts with drawing blood and mixing it with a sterile blood-thinning ingredient called sodium citrate. The only way to prevent your blood from clotting before it can be injected back in the skin is to add an anti-clotting agent.
There are many different ingredients that can be used, but unfortunately, a lot of these agents can damage the platelets even before we can use them. We use an FDA approved product called citrate dextrose that is sterile and safe to be mixed with your blood without harming the structure of the platelets. And before you reach for your google spectacles, we do not inject the actual ingredient into your skin or venous system. It is the very same ingredient that our supermen and women at the blood banking service use to store blood products to be used for blood transfusions.
Secondly, we inject your blood into a special double-chambered cartridge (and yes, it is sterile as well). This special cartridge allows us to expertly divide the plasma from the red blood cells once it has been spun down in the centrifuge. Other methods would include using an ordinary blood collecting tube which makes it difficult to extract all of the plasma goodness.
Our device, the Dr PRP system, boasts to extract the maximum concentration of platelets, 5 to 7 times more per microlitre compared to our baseline platelet counts. This fraction is much higher than other devices and systems, some of which can only concentrate 1 to 1.5 times the amount. Part of this reason is that we are able to double spin our plasma once it has been separated, allowing to further jam-pack the goodies to ensure maximal delivery of growth factors into your skin.
So, once we have liberated our liquid gold ( plasma) the second differentiating step ensues:
The delivery method:
We believe in delivering all of the platelet goodness to all parts of the skin. Many doctors would merely apply the plasma to the outermost layer of the skin ( epidermis) and with the use of a micro-needling device, and attempt to infuse the liquid through the tiny channels that are created during the micro-needling process. The problem with this is that you will never be sure whether the plasma actually ends up in the dermis ( the second layer of the skin). This is the place where your growth factors will activate the fibroblasts that will end up making the collagen and hyaluronic acid to revive your skin.
We deliver plasma to all the layers of the skin. First, we inject the platelet-rich plasma into the second and third layer of the skin. We can measure this process by the subsequent redness and itchy feeling that develops as a result of the serotonin and histamine molecules that are released along with your growth factors.
After this very short (and I won’t lie uncomfortable process) procedure, we use the remainder of the plasma and superficially micro-needle it into the epidermal layer of your skin. Plasma also contains epidermal growth factors (no surprise what it does here). So not only are we activating dermal fibroblasts, but we are also delivering growth factors the stem cells that live in the epidermis. You end up with double the goodness and maximised results!
But hang on, we are not done. Once you have endured your mini torture session (it is called the Vampire after all), we then lather your skin with a phospholipid solution ( big word for ultra-moisturizing and nutrient ingredients) by using an iontophoresis mask (big word for forcing active ingredients into the skin). This is really when you fall into a pleasurable semi-conscious state, dreaming about your beautiful glowing #10yearsyoungerskin.
And so, skin dreams really do come true at Dr Nerina Wilkinson Skin. You will be amazed to see the transformation that happens in the next 2-3 weeks and the final result 6 weeks down the line.
So in a nutshell (or a DR PRP cartridge), why should you come to us for your plasma rejuvenation treatment?.
It is simple: we really take care to ensure that we deliver the safest and most effective method in PRP treatments to really give you back your body’s own gold dust to rejuvenate and regenerate the skin you always wanted.
