Skin Care 101 Microdermabrasion

By Kelly E. Sullivan, MSN, CRNP, FNP-BC

Dunkirk Aesthetics

. https://dunkirkaesthetics.com/

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Skin Care 101 Microdermabrasion

The best part of the skin is its ability to repair itself. Why not use that to our advantage?

Several products and procedures are available to help with skin repair and rejuvenation and the basic principal is the same. Irritate it and it will repair!

The most commonly known rejuvenation process is a microdermabrasion. This safe and affordable process is done in a medical office or medical spa by a machine that uses aluminum oxide crystals or a diamond tip wand. It is a controlled exfoliation that microscopically takes away a part of the stratum corneum (the outer most part of the epidermis also known as the dead skin cell layer) more effectively than an at home facial scrub. Doing one treatment will smooth the skin but remember, when rejuvenating, the goal is to make the skin repair itself.

How is this done? By doing a treatment every one to two weeks. With as little as five treatments you will see improvements in fine lines and wrinkles, age spots, scars and superficial blemishes. Increased collagen and fibrin production will improve skin laxity as well. Not to mention that serums and creams will penetrate into the skin better improving their effectiveness.

The basic principal is such that you are irritating the skin as well as thinning out the stratum corneum, bringing increased blood flow, which is where the repair cells are. Just think how red a skin injury becomes as it begins healing. That is because the blood flow is increased bringing repair cells to heal the wound. In stimulating the skin by doing the procedure, you are in essence irritating it, causing the “it will repair itself” phenomena to take place. Lots of other treatment options are on the market and do a great job, but the basic “bang for your buck” remains the microdermabrasion. It can be the most important building block of all other aesthetic procedures as well.

Thinning out the stratum cornuem to a more normalized thickness will allow laser and light treatments to penetrate better. Increasing blood flow will aid in the repair and healing processes associated with a facelift and more aggressive laser treatments.

Just think, didn't your skin heal better when you were a kid and when you were in your 20's and 30's, than in your 40's and 50's? That's because the cellular turnover was more consistent and the dead cell layer was substantially thinner allowing the skin to recognize injuries faster and repair them better.

This is the basic theory of rejuvenation. If you keep the cells turning over more efficiently it will be healthier.