Most people have heard and know what Collagen is, but do not fully understand the importance of Collagen as it pertains to the aging process and wound healing. Collagen is the building material of our body. It builds skin, muscle, tendons, ligaments, bones, teeth, and much more. Needless to say, Collagen is important for our bodies to optimally function. The problem is that our collagen production begins to decrease once we hit 30 years old. These are just the normal physiologic mechanisms that happen in our body without considering outside environmental factors that can affect collagen, such as smoking and UV damage.
Collagen
As we age, and this collagen production decreases, it leaves our skin losing elasticity and firmness, and in turn, we are left with thinning skin and the formation of wrinkles. Sun-damaged skin loses tension due to the breakdown of collagen and therefore causes thin skin and wrinkles, so you can see why it is so important to care for skin in our younger years because it truly does affect its quality of it and appears to speed up the aging process.
Micro-needling, or Collagen Induction Therapy (CIT) is a procedure that can be done in the office of Pure Youth Wellness & Aesthetics to help stimulate new collagen production. Here is how.
Whenever we sustain an injury or wound to the body, our body initiates a healing cascade, which is a normal physiologic response. During this cascade, the body sends tons of proteins, hormones, growth factors, and healing properties to the area to rebuild collagen and elastin. Remember, collagen is considered a building block. Our body does this because we need that new collagen to rebuild the injured area.
The act of Micro-needling creates injury to the skin, so as we are creating injury to the skin, the body’s natural response kicks in and the healing cascade begins. We are also creating micro-channels when we are micro-needling, so this is an opportunity for us to penetrate those channels with other products, such as platelet-rich plasma or exosomes. Initiating treatment with either one of these products will yield an increase in the amount of growth factor and healing properties to increase the production of collagen.
If you really want to dive in and do some more reading on collagen, here are a couple of articles that you can comb through to have a better understanding of collagen, and how micro-needling can help.
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