Dr Anthony Youn: Microneedling, IPL, or Botox: What Midlife Women Should Actually Spend Money On

本站添加: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]I want to know what's worth it and what's not when it comes to actual injectable products or the more medical side of skin care. For instance, I will say I totally think for me Botox in my forehead is worth it.

[00:00:18]Other women might not, but there's again a lot of confusion and you do not rush to surgery. So in addition to these two two categories we've talked about, you must have non-surgical methods that are more medical. So what's worth it and what's not? So things to start out with, if let's say you live in an area where you don't have access to a dermatologist or a med spa or plastic surgeon and you want to take care of your skin at home and ideally maybe you're on a budget, that's fine. One thing you may want to consider is red light therapy.

[00:00:50]So there are red light masks that I think are a great option for you to use at home. Typically these masks are about a 15-ish minute treatment. Most people will do it two, three times a week and there are studies that show that after regular use of red light therapy masks that that can help increase the collagen and the elastin in your skin. So that's a first step for somebody who says, "Look, you know, let's say I'm on a budget. I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on laser treatments or something." Then this I think is a great option as well as something that you can easily do at home while you're surfing the internet or meditating. I do it sometimes while I'm meditating. It's a great way to multitask when you're meditating, I GUESS.

[00:01:28]>> AS WELL. Why not? There you go. Um so the first thing I I would recommend would be red light therapy. You know, one of the things that women find especially after menopause is they get issues with hyperpigmentation.

[00:01:38]And so sunspots, age spots, hyperpigmentation, all different names for essentially the same thing and that is clumping up of melanin on the surface of the skin.

[00:01:48]And so IPL is a really good option, intense pulse light for people who let's say are in that menopausal, post-menopausal uh, and they're seeing some of that pigmentation, then definitely you can use a brightening cream. Uh, those are I think are very nice, but they're slow-working. If you really want to target pigmentation and get rid of it quickly, then IPL is really good bang for your buck. So, asking my plastic surgeon to cut off this age spot with a scalpel's probably not the >> [laughter] >> No wonder No wonder they're like Yeah. Yeah, if it's an age spot, the the problem with age spots is they don't go away unless you actively get rid of them. The good thing about age spots is that is pigment on the superficial parts of the skin. You know, it's different than melasma, that's a whole other issue, but if it's pigment that's very superficial, then you can zap it away using IPL or and/or you can help to reduce or get rid of that, uh, by combining a brightening cream with, let's say, a retinol, uh, because then you can you can eventually turn over that skin and exfoliate it away eventually. Uh, but but IPL is a great option if you do have access to a med spa or dermatologist. They're usually not that expensive, but they can be very, very effective in getting rid of spots, which are once again very common, uh, in men in menopause. Yeah. Um, and then you're talking about injectables, you know, I do think Botox is good bang for your buck. Um, if you want to save a little bit, um, there's another one called Dysport. Uh, Dysport is from a different company, it's been around for a long time, a great product. And then another one called Daxxify. Uh, for some people, not everybody, for some people Daxxify seems to last longer for them.

[00:03:25]And so, that would be also be a way to save money where you may not have quite as many treatments. What these do essentially, they're neurotoxins, which sounds scary, but what they do is they temporarily prevent the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles. And muscles create certain wrinkles of our face that we call dynamic wrinkles. And dynamic wrinkles that you focus on in general with, let's say, Botox are three kinds in in most common. The first are the frown lines between the eyebrows, the second are the crow's feet, and then the third are the horizontal wrinkles of the forehead.

[00:03:59]I don't recommend people start with a forehead because those horizontal wrinkles of the forehead are caused by the frontalis muscles, which are the same muscles that elevate your eyebrows up and down. So, if you ever see somebody in Hollywood and they got really funky-looking eyebrows and people blame it on Botox, it's Botox to the forehead that's doing it, not to the glabella or the frown lines, and not to the crow's feet. So, if you're going to start it and you just want to try it, never had it, start with the crow's feet or with the frown lines between the brows. Keep the forehead for later. Once you're used to Botox, you know how it works, then you may want to try the forehead. But But I would start with the other areas first. Typically last about 3 to 4 months.

[00:04:39]Have it done by someone who has actual training, not not your sister's friend who comes to your house just because there are nerves. It There's a nerve right here that if you can drop your whole eyelid. So, buy or be Be careful.

[00:04:52]Go to an expert, right? So, Botox can migrate, and so if you go too close to the eyelid, it can actually migrate into the lid-opening mechanism, essentially, and that's a muscle there called the levator and the levator aponeurosis. And if it actually migrates into that levator muscle, it can cause your eyelid to droop, and that can take 3 to 4 months to go away. There is a drop that can help with that if it happens to you, but it's still no fun to do that.

[00:05:19]>> That's a bummer. Sounds like Sounds like a bummer.

[00:05:20]>> want to go to a reputable place. At least ideally a plastic surgeon or dermatologist's office. That way you're going to have the best chance of getting a reasonable result. The good thing with Botox though is if you don't like it, you know, give it 3 months, in general it wears off. What do you think of I once had, when I was in Atlanta, microneedling? Is that a research-based thing for the skin rejuvenation or Yeah, actually microneedling is great. So, once again, if if we're looking at good bang for your buck, you really can't do a much a whole lot better than micro needling. So, the idea of micro needling started with these dermal rollers where they look like tiny mini rolling pins with little pins on them, and people roll their faces with it. Uh most doctors are not fans of those because you get an uneven uh uh a poking essentially of the skin. And the idea is kind of like the idea of hormesis, uh but hormesis for the skin.

[00:06:11]In which case, what it is is if you have a controlled trauma to the collagen of your skin, uh and it's not so aggressive that you get scarring, but it's a controlled minor trauma to the skin, it causes when the skin heals, it cause that collagen to heal in a tighter fashion. And that's really the idea behind laser treatments and chemical peels, all that. The idea is you have a controlled trauma to the collagen of your skin. When that collagen essentially heals, when your skin heals, it heals in a tighter fashion. So, the way micro needling works is you have an automated handheld device that cause that has little tiny sterile pins on it that those needles go into your skin to a certain depth, uh and that depth is controlled by the actual person doing the procedure. And by creating this controlled trauma, you cause that skin to essentially tighten up. Now, there's a secondary benefit that can't that you can achieve as well. When you're making when you're doing micro needling, you're creating these tiny little trauma, these holes in your skin. These are tiny channels to the deeper layers of the skin that you can take advantage of. And so, people on top of doing micro needling will apply, let's say, growth factor type serums or even your own platelet-rich plasma, where you draw your blood, spin out the platelets filled with growth factors, you can apply that over the skin. It seeps into those tiny micro needling holes, those little channels in the deeper skin to help rejuvenate your skin from the inside out. Uh now, you can get topical ones. Uh your practitioner can get that, so it's not that expensive. Or you can do PRP if you want to go completely natural and regenerative, and that's a great thing to do. Our There are some recent studies showing a 400% increase in collagen in the skin after regular micro-needling treatments. So, it can really make a big impact.

[00:07:52]>> And the good thing with micro-needling, uh like IPL, not super expensive. A micro-needling handpiece can cause us cost us maybe $7,000 uh as a practitioner, uh and then we have a disposable head that costs maybe $50. You compare that to a laser that can cost us 100 to 200,000 dollars. So, micro-needling treatments overhead is less, so you get charged less, yet you can still get a really nice improvement.

[00:08:19]>> Oh, that's amazing. I didn't know all the the actual data behind the micro-needling. I just took [music] my uh plastic surgeon's advice. So, that's kind of amazing.

[00:08:29]>> treatment.

[00:08:29]>> Yeah.