Have you found yourself standing in front of the mirror, with your hands on the sides of your face, stretching your skin up and back just a hair because you’ve noticed that everything seems to have shifted downwards? Have you noticed that your eyebrows seem heavier than they used to be or the skin along your jawline is getting a little flabby no matter how well you take care of yourself? Have you been considering a face lift, but don’t want to deal with the anesthesia and months of recovery that are involved? As you age your skin loses elasticity and begins to sag due to the deterioration of underlying tissue. It tends to be most noticeable along your jawline, neck and around your eyes because of the natural propensity of skin to settle in those areas.
The good news? The aesthetic specialists at Bryn Mawr Dermatology are one of the few practitioners in the state that offer the Eurothread Lift – a novel, non-surgical way to lift, tighten and recontour skin.
The answer is yes, and no. With a thread lift you avoid surgery and down time and get amazing results that take years off your look, but without the ability to actually remove excess skin the changes we can make are limited. Come in for a consultation and we will let you know if you are a good candidate for a Thread Lift.
Dermal fillers are amazing to plump up deflated cheeks, smooth out fine lines and depression in the skin, and augment areas that we find lack symmetry or projection. But what fillers can’t do, without a little help, is provide significant lift. There are limits on how much filler can be used because at a certain point it becomes unnatural looking and starts to change the dynamic features of the individual’s facial structures. In the end we want you to look like you – and a great way to do that is with threads.
EuroThreads are resorbable surgical sutures, almost identical to the ones that surgeons have been using for decades to safely repair internal structures of the body. They are used across many specialties including cardiothoracic surgery, orthopedic surgery, and gastrointestinal surgery due to their superior tensile strength and flexibility. The cosmetic specialists at Bryn Mawr Dermatology use these specially designed “threads” to essentially stretch skin from an anchor point lower on the face to a point higher on the face (much like what you are doing when you pull your skin up and back in front of the mirror), and fix it in that position. A latticework of these threads are inserted in order to lift the skin into the ideal position and provide it with additional integrity. Just like the sutures used in major surgeries, these threads are absorbed by the body over a period of 4 to 6 months. During that time your body is stimulated to create its own structural supports made of newly synthesized collagen in response to the procedure, and in recognition of the foreign bodies beneath the skin. This newly strengthened structure for your skin will hold for 12 to 15 months.
When our providers received hands-on training from Laurie Hall, the Medical Board Director and designer of Eurothreads she showed us how theadlifting could make huge improvements on nearly every portion of the body. She was a model for amazing thread results in her face, neck, decolletage, above her knees and in only one arm which she used as living proof of how functional her product is. The Eurothread Lift technology is applicable almost anywhere your skin has laxity without too much surplus, but we choose to focus on treating finite areas of the face and neck. These areas consist of:
The entire Eurothread lift process, even for multiple areas of the face, chin and neck, takes no longer than an hour. You can anticipate a thorough review of your medical history and discussion of what to expect during the procedure and healing process. Your expert provider will start out by assessing your unique skin laxity and skin quality to design a template of ideal angles and lift required to build you a latticework of threads ideal for your goals. Your physician will then administer local anesthetic to the insertion site for the threads and create a small entry with a sterile needle that will allow the suture material to breach the skin.
Each thread is contained within a small-diameter, flexible, blunt-tipped needle called a cannula. This allows the provider to tunnel through the soft tissue from entry point to anchor point without damaging any vessels, nerves or other cells. The blunt tip of the cannula acts to push these structures out of the way without puncturing them. Once the end of the suture is located at the ideal anchor point it is secured to the surrounding tissue with tiny barbs that stud the length of the suture, and the skin is held static at the perfect tightness. Next the cannula is withdrawn, leaving the suture material in place, securely fastened to neighboring tissue in order to hold it in place. This process is repeated as many times as necessary to ensure a smooth, even result.
The majority of the “heavy” lifting is performed with this 4D barbed-type thread. It allows the entire length of the suture material to embed into the soft tissue ensuring an even distribution of tension from top to bottom. There are; however, multiple other kinds of threads within the Eurothread portfolio. Another that we use are the twisted threads that we can insert under the skin with the sole purpose of filling in superficial creases that have permanently been left in the skin after repetitive folding (like those horizontal neck lines referred to earlier).
Every face is unique and ages a little differently. The experts at Bryn Mawr Dermatology take pride in ensuring that each treatment we provide is tailored to the needs of the specific patient. There is a basic template for each Eurothread lift area that defines approximately how the procedure should be performed, but the quantity of threads and the placement are always modified based on the need of the individual. We avoid cookie-cutter results at all costs to ensure that you still look very much like you after we are finished, just minus a few years.
One of the major differences that sets Dr. Christine Stanko and the team at BMD appart is the demand for thorough and repetitive training on any new device or procedure. As noted, our providers had the opportunity to train with the founder of the Eurothread lift herself and during the multi-day training session that was hosted at Bryn Mawr Dermatology, our aesthetic specialists had the opportunity to learn all the details about the threads themselves and how and why they were applied they way they are. Next they took the time to ask nuanced questions to make sure that they were able to recreate the same quality results as our trainer. Hours of practical training with models ensued in a one-on-one environment to ingrain the fine-tuned movements required to perform the procedures seamlessly and efficiently, all culminating in the best possible patient experience.
We welcome you to learn more about what this popular and effective treatment can do to meet your goals. Call 610.525.7800 to learn more about Eurothread Lift today.
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