Fill Me In: An Aesthetics Podcast
On Fill Me In: An Aesthetics Podcast, Jon LeSuer NP-C and Nicole Bauer FNP-BC dive deep in the world of aesthetics. As aesthetic nurse practitioners with their own medical practices, Jon and Nicole fill you in on everything in their field.
Fill Me In: An Aesthetics Podcast
PDGF and Regenerative Medicine | Episode 23
Join Jon and Nicole as they delve into the latest trends in aesthetics, and dive deep into the world of PDGF (platelet-derived growth factor). This episode covers the benefits, usage, and comparative advantages of PDGF over PRP and PRF, and includes personal experiences with the treatments. Learn about treatment stacking, the science behind PDGF, and the evolving field of aesthetics and wellness.
On Fill Me In: An Aesthetics Podcast, Jon LeSuer NP-C and Nicole Bauer FNP-BC dive deep in the world of aesthetics. As aesthetic nurse practitioners with their own medical practices, Jon and Nicole fill you in on everything in their field.
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Exhibit Medical Aesthetics website:
https://exhibitmedicalaesthetics.com/
Tox and Pout Aesthetics website:
https://toxandpout.com/
Jonathan LeSuer, MSN, NP-C
Jonathan LeSuer graduated from Le Moyne College with his Bachelor’s in Nursing in 2014 and a Family Nurse Practitioner degree in 2017. He began his career at St. Joseph’s Hospital as a Registered Nurse on a cardiac medical-surgical unit. He transitioned to the Nurse Practitioner role in 2017, working for Hospitalist Medicine, where he became the coordinator for the team’s Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners. In 2020, he started his career as an Aesthetic injector and quickly found out that this was his passion. On March 15th, 2022, he opened Tox & Pout Aesthetics. He is now a Master trained injector & National trainer for Allergan Aesthetics, offering Botox, Dysport, Hyaluronic acid fillers, Kybella, SkinViVe skin booster, and Sculptra. Jonathan is known for his empathy, profound bedside manner, and outgoing/warm personality. He has a deep love for aesthetics, and his patients’ confidence is his main priority.
Nicole Bauer, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC.
Family Nurse Practitioner
Nicole graduated with her Associates in Applied Sciences and began her journey as a registered nurse 10 years ago in 2014. She worked hard to combine her love for beauty with her passion for caring and healing others, attending aesthetics school while working as a hospital night nurse. After graduating as a licensed aesthetician, Nicole left the hospital where she had been for 3.5 years and began working as a registered nurse for a plastic surgeon. An experience of over 6 years that would leave her with so much knowledge and respect for the aesthetic world. It was during those 6 years that she pursued her Master’s Degree and obtained her license as a Family Nurse Practitioner, leading the way for where she is now; owning a state of the art medical aesthetic practice and being a national Allergan Trainer. Nicole takes pride in treating her patients holistically, focusing on facial balancing and enhancing one’s natural beauty. She believes education stands as the cornerstone of aesthetics and is why she is dedicated to both training others while always focusing on expanding her own knowledge as well.
Producer of Fill Me In: Joseph Ginexi
#RegenerativeMedicine #PDGF #Skincare #Microneedling #injector #Aestheticmedicine #aesthetics #aestheticnurse #SkinRejuvenation #botoxcosmetic #filler #PRF #PRP
Welcome back to another episode of the Fill Me In Podcast, where we dive deeper into the world of aesthetics. I'm Injector John
and I'm Aesthetic Nurse Nicole.
And welcome back, everybody. Yes. Hope you guys had a really good week. Um, it's been crazy. This is crazy time for all of us in aesthetics. I feel like people are getting ready for summertime.
So those stacking treatments and all of it are just, it's been so busy.
I know. I laugh when people say like, Oh, there's such a lull. I'm like. We have not slowed down,
not slow down. And I was actually really surprised. Like, you know, people that are listening, I'm anxious to see like what you guys think.
Like January usually is a little bit of a lull because people spend so much during the holidays. They want to save a little bit, um, that month. Um, or there's just a lot of gift cards that are being used in January, but it was nonstop busy this year.
Yeah. I felt like there was more people coming in. After after Christmas and there was before Christmas, which is crazy.
Yeah, I feel it. And there's a lot of new faces too. I don't know about you, Nicole, like new patients coming through. And I think a lot of people just like, you know, new year, new face. Yeah. You like they just want.
Well, and it's almost March. Everyone is getting ready for nicer weather. So
yeah, and all of our brides to be for this summer, this is the time to start seeing your esthetician or your injector to get you ready.
That's right. You need at least six months.
Yes. So today we're going to be talking about regenerative medicine a little bit more because, you know, there's been a lot of excitement and for those of you that are on social media, um, and are active on social media, you guys are seeing a lot of talk about PDGF or re essence.
And there's a lot of a lot of providers, a lot of people that are doing it. They're having great results. Um, so we're going to talk a lot about that. We're actually going to go into, um, reconstituting, um, it, you know, um, pricing and stuff like that. So that way you guys kind of have an outlet. Um, and a resource for it because I'm getting a lot of DMS about it.
Yeah. I was going to say, John has had a lot of hands on work with this product where I have not, I'm still kind of doing my research, still learning. So I'll be asking a lot of the questions and John will be giving us the, uh, the answers, but, um, and the other
cool thing, I mean, We're going to talk about treatment stacking as well.
Yes. Yes. Um, which, you know, Nicole, you do a lot of with your moxie BBL and I do a lot of with IPL erbium, microneedling erbium. So, and we all know that treatment stacking yields better results.
Right. Absolutely. And I think a lot of patients to always ask about PRP and PRF and things of that nature. Um, so I, I think it'd be nice for them to learn what PDGF is and the difference and It's kind of like you're getting even more than what PRF can, can give you, but you're not dealing with the blood draw and all of that too.
And I'm never going to knock PRP or PRF because it's also a great treatment and I just did it the other day in my practice. It's just, you know, it's patient preference and you know, we do our education. We talk about the benefits of both and we go from there.
Right, right. So I guess give us a quick explanation on what PDGF is.
So PDGF is platelet derived growth factor. So basically the scientists took the exact amino acid sequence in human DNA and then replicated it. and cloned it and made it over and over again. So it's synthetically made in a lab like insulin. Um, and it's basically right now. So area since PDGF. So it's owned by Samuel Lynch, Dr.
Lynch, Regent Regenerative Medicine and Ari Essence is basically used in its FDA approved, um, topically over compromised skin on top of microneedling, CO2 skin resurfacing lasers, things like that. And when you get your ARI essence PDGF package, you open it up, you see five little. Syringes filled with pure PDGF bb.
Okay. And then you see a little serum and it's a hyaluronic acid serum and it's uncross linked HA serum that it comes with. And that HA serum is combined with the PDGF BB and it's used topically over RF microneedling. It can be used in conjunction while you're doing skin pen microneedling uses a glide, right?
Because the serum can help to glide that skin pen right over the skin or it can be used over CO2 skin resurfacing and they're finding that PDGF is yielding better and consistent results more than PRP and PRF and the reason why is, is that when it's compared to PRP and PDGF, PRP. Oh my God. Say that 10 times fast.
Oh my God. So when it's compared to PRP and PRF, they're finding that the growth factor concentration is a thousand to 300, 000 times more potent than PRP and PRF. It's insane. Right. So kind of people are like, well, why aren't we using PDGF instead of PRP, you know, but the thing is, is, you know, we've been raised with kind of, you know, PRP and PRF that's we've, it's become our baby over the years.
So this is something new. People are obviously nervous to use it. Um, but. It's going to be yielding better results. It's going to increase your collagen production. It actually targets collagens one, three, and six. Um, there's a 200 to 400 percent increase of those, those different collagens, um, which is incredible.
And the other amazing thing that it does, and I think that it adds to the glow of the skin is that it upticks, um, the hyaluronic acid concentration within the skin by 800%. I mean, it's incredible, right? Um, so it's really, really great. I I've done it. Um, you know, topically after RF microneedling, I am very pale skinned.
I'm, my ethnicity is French. I'm Irish. Yes. You too, Nicole.
Me too. People
like you and I, when we do microneedling, we might have a little bit more downtime than the normal person. Like usually I'm red for like two days, you know, and then finally pink on day three and then back to normal. Um, but with, Uh, PDGF or RSS PDGF topically afterwards, it, I mean, by the next day, it literally looked like I had nothing done and I could just put tinted SPF on.
Yeah. And that was crazy. Cause I know you and I know how red your skin can get. So reactive. When I saw that, I was like, Oh my God,
we'll have to show, we'll have to show like my little reel that I made about it back, I think in December. So it's on my Instagram so you guys can reference that. Um, but it's really, really great.
And it really does yield, um, you know, better results that I've seen with PRP, but it's not to knock PRP. Um, the other really interesting thing about it, and I actually was a part of the webinar that Waseem Garbia and Erica Barry did about two weeks ago that went over everything about RE Essence, PDGF, and then PDGF BB.
What they noted on that, um, that webinar with Waseem and Erica was that, you know, PDGF is actually more sterile than PRF and PRP, which is very interesting because it's manmade in a lab, right? Everything is controlled. Whereas with PRP, it's, it's autologous, right? So we're literally drawing your blood.
We're taking it and putting it in a centrifuge. We're spinning it. Then we have to take it out very, very carefully, right? And then injecting it. So when it's made in the lab, it's more sterile.
So that's
something that I mentioned to my patients.
Right. If you're someone that maybe doesn't have as many growth factors in your, in your blood, like if, if you, you know, Maybe your liquid gold isn't as good as someone else's liquid gold.
That's the other thing. Right. This is a way to streamline that. And you get, you get those growth factors without having to worry about all those variations.
Exactly. You're going to get, you're, you're knowing that you're getting consistent growth factor and that's the thing. And you're getting,
Yeah. And I know that, um, I don't carry PRF.
I don't think you do either, right?
No, just PRP.
Same. Uh, but I, I know from my colleagues that do carry PRF that it is quite the task to make.
Yeah. And PRF easy gel too. Yeah. It's quite the task. Yeah.
Yeah. So it's definitely this, I think would take a lot of time out of that equation. So, so curious to see, but tell us about the drama because we're using it, right.
As a little bit, a little bit more than topical now. Well,
naturally we're like, wow, I mean, this is topically used, right. And you're getting these amazing results, like improvement in skin texture. Um, skin hydration. I mean, it looks like you had a million syringes of skin. We've put it your skin afterwards.
It's just this beautiful glow. And that's honestly the reason why I think I'm glowing so much right now. Um, but basically a lot of us are starting to use it off label, which we, we do a lot of things off label. We just had the FDA approval for platysma. Um, bands for Botox cosmetic, which is incredible. Um, but we've been doing platysma bands for years.
I mean, we're, we're doing master Botox. That's even hasn't had an FDA approval yet. Right. Um, so there's a lot of things, you know,
we're not the only field that does
no
off label, you know, you can exactly, you can use blood pressure medication off label for anxiety. There's so many fields that
Oh yeah.
That you use medications off label.
We all know that Welbutrin helps with depression, um, but it also is used for smoking cessation. Right. Um, we know that lidocaine with epi, like if someone comes in with epistaxis, which is a bad nosebleed in the hospital, the epinephrine that's in it, off label, it helps to vasoconstrict and stop a nosebleed.
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different things that we do off label. Um, so basically we're thinking, wow, this is great. If this is used wonderfully topically, why not try injecting it under the skin more specifically the under eye because it's platelet derived growth factor. And we've been using it using platelet rich plasma, right.
To stimulate collagen and improve hollowness, darkness, crepiness under the eyes. So we are now using it under eye. For under eye injections off label as well as in the scalp to stimulate hair growth, which I got as well. So I've had my scalp injected. I've had my under eyes injected. I've actually had off label as well.
Mixed with skin V as well. Skin booster. Um, and I've had Alicia, my R. N. injector injected in my skin as well. Um, so this has been a really fun time. Um, in aesthetics, just especially in the regenerative medicine standpoint, just
And I do feel like you just look filtered, like in the best way, and I know we hate using that term as injectors, but
yeah, it's
like skin beef. I always explain it to patients as like icing on the cake. It's going to catch some of those, like, finer lines at the surface or little spots that we might miss with deeper filler, but it gives you that very smooth, very luminous appearance.
So I can only imagine with the PDGF in it.
Well, it's crazy because it's, it's regenerating, it's regenerating everything but nerves. So skin, fat pads, you know, all of it and is being regenerated, which is wonderful. Yeah, it's amazing. And The whole process. A lot of people want to know the process of how it's stimulating collagen.
Yeah. So basically it's promoting cell proliferation, which is the formation of new skin cells, fibroblast activity. Um, it's improving blood supply through angiogenesis, which is the formation of new blood cells. are new blood vessels from existing blood vessels. It's kind of like when you have a cut on your leg, right?
It stimulates the whole healing cascade and it forms new blood vessels to basically rescue and send platelets there to stop the bleeding and then heal, right? It's very similar what it does when it's injected under the skin. And then also topically, when it's going through those little micro channels after microneedling, right, to promote the whole healing cascade.
And I think too, we can put maybe your series of photos, but the, as you're going through that as the patient, you definitely do notice. that redness, almost like a purpley redness appearance.
Um, and I will tell you though, so I did that. So what we're learning with a PDGF under eye, um, is that it's supposed to be injected deeper in the tear trough.
So it's a deeper injection. Um, so And I use a combination of cannula and then also needle. Um, but with the cannula, kind of like, um, infraorbital hollows, right? With vulvela. Um, I'm basically making a little poke with the needle and then I'm using a cannula and I go right to bone and I'm gliding that cannula right on bone into the deeper tear trough.
Tent that cannula up, like in the tear trough area. I don't wanna see the outline of the cannula. Mm-hmm . So I wanna be deeper. And the reason why is, is that kind of like in, you'll see like in the pictures, um, that we show you. So I had some angiogenesis, which is redness. Okay. And some people may freak out, but it's the normal.
I knew it was normal. I knew it was gonna go away. And that's something that if you know. Patients are injected a little bit more superficially. We educate and say you're going to have a little redness. It might last up to 21 days. Um, and then it will go away. Um, so we're noting to, um, inject deeper into the tear trough and the under eye area to lessen you having some of that redness.
Um, that's there. Um, the other thing that can happen is some swelling too. If it's injected a little bit more superficially, you can still have a little swelling if it's injected deeper, um, just because it's an area of lymphatics too, right? Um, Um, but just know it's, it's, it's working, it's, it's all a part of that healing cascade and the angiogenesis and the cell proliferation and it's a beautiful thing.
Right. If there was no reaction, we may not get as much of a result, you know, that we expect something to happen. And we'd be
concerned. Yes. We'd be like.
Yeah. Is it doing anything? What's going on in there? Yeah.
And a quick backstory too, and it's very short about PDGF, it's, um, it has, it's FDA approved, um, to treat, um, diabetic foot ulcers, to regenerate skin tissue with diabetic foot ulcers.
Um, it's also been used to augment bone by orthopedic doctors, um, which is really, really cool. It's, um, FDA approves for injection into, I think, knees. Um, spine as well. So it's being used elsewhere, um, to, um, promote stem cell activity and regenerate, um, new skin, new cells.
Well, I'm like so excited to see where this future takes us of like regenerative medicine because like a lot of the aging in our face.
does happen from bone loss too. So if these things can be placed very deeply or onto the bone, right? If there's a chance that it can help regenerate some of that too in the future, I mean, that's incredible.
And I think doing this like earlier rather than later, we always say it's easier to. prevent than it is to correct, right?
So if you're starting these things in your mid to late thirties, early forties, it's so much better and it can help to, you know, maybe augment bone or regenerate skin tissue and things like that. It's wonderful.
Right. How many sessions do people typically have to go through for?
Yeah, so for under eye injections, um, what we do is it's a little bit different than PRP and PRF.
Usually with PRP and PRF, you bring them back in 4 to 6 weeks. Um, it requires 3 sessions based out 4 to 6 weeks apart. Uh, with PDGF, we're doing injections 8 weeks apart. So, a little bit further because you're having the peak of that collagen production is up to that six week mark. So if you start injecting it a little bit too soon, right at that, especially if you bring it back to that four to six week mark, they're going to have more swelling, they're going to have more angiogenesis.
So it's better to wait. Eight weeks. So that way they're completely healed. And then you can then obviously see how much hollowing, how much darkness and things like that they have, and then treat accordingly.
Right. So kinda let them get back to a baseline Yes. Of mm-hmm . Close to a baseline and then treat from there.
How I'm wording it with my patients is basically, you know, we do say if you have severe hollowing, we do it. Once I bring you back, you're definitely gonna need a second treatment. Mm-hmm . But then I wanna bring them back two months later. Reassess them. I want to see if they're happy. I want to see if I'm happy.
If they're happy with it, we leave it alone. If they need a third treatment, we do it again. Um, so I think it's very patient specific. Um, and yeah,
I'm curious to like acne scarring as I feel like I get a lot of patients for acne scarring. Yes. Yeah. Like
I think it's wonderful.
Yeah. So it, you can almost kind of break up that tissue and do a little bit of that through there to help kind of regenerate that tissue too.
Yep. I
feel like acne scarring is one of those most debilitating things and there's not much you can do for it. Skin vive has been like major thing now, but
yeah. And like I said, I've injected, I had Alicia, my art injector, um, inject me with a skin vive and mix with PDGF BB. All right. Um, and again, We are not and this is the whole I think confusion and this is what I want to talk about when we are injecting PDGF BB.
Okay. Which is comes in that area since package. Okay. We are using the PDGF BB, and we're mixing it with back to your static saline. We are only using the serum, the uncrossed serum it comes with in combination with PDGF topically. Okay. Okay. Over, over RF microneedling, over microneedling or CO2 skin resurfacing.
Um, so that HA serum it comes with is only mixed with PDGF when we're using it topically. Okay. Got it. So when we're injecting it under the eye or in the scalp, or there's some injectors that are injecting it into the neck to improve the neck lines and things like that, or even in the smile lines, we're mixing it with bacteriostatic saline.
Mm hmm. Yeah, because, and we have to dilute it with bacteriostatic saline because it's so potent. Like, you know, that it's, you think it's such a little syringe it comes in, but it's so potent. There's a thousand to 300, 000 times more growth factor concentration than PRP. Right.
Right. So you're not wanting to put too much of that in one spot.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when you dilute it, how much would you say? Like ML wise? Yeah. Do you have,
and so usually what I do is I, um, draw up 1.5 ccs of bacteria, static saline, and then the P dg FB has 0.5 ccs Okay. In it. Okay. So I mix 1.5 ccs of bacteria static saline and mix it with one syringe of PDGF bb and it yields two ccs of product.
Okay. And
then I do one cc. Of that mixture per eye. Um, and lately what I've been doing is doing 0.5 with cannula to this part, the medial tear trough. Mm-hmm . And then keeping the last 0.5 and then going to that lateral orbital rim and doing needle to periosteum injections. Yeah.
Um, I don't know if you're going to know the answer to this one, but are we worried about include occlusions of any sort?
No.
Okay. We are not. And that's per and I, like I said, I just watched the was seem and Erica Barry, um, webinar two weeks ago and it makes sense. I mean, it's, it's. It's, you're mixing it with bacteriostatic saline and PDGFBB is not filler.
It's
literally like water. So it's a
very different consistency than filler.
Yes. Okay. Yes, exactly. Yep. It's like, it's like water, right? It's like more water soluble. There's
nothing really to clog.
No, no. So you don't have to worry about a BO, a vascular occlusion.
So that's great. Which is
wonderful. Yeah. And other people, I mean, Wasim is injecting it and he's already posted about it, um, into the forehead, um, just to kind of.
You know, as we get older, we get that little dip here in that area of the frontalis, um, and then people start getting those little creases above their, their eyebrows that we've talked about before.
Right.
You know, other areas then like the under eye and the scalp that, you know, people are injecting it is in is the neck.
Um, and then also the forehead as well, um, just to kind of, as we get older, we get that little dip, like I said, um, and injecting the PDGFBB into that helps to stimulate your skin tissue and lessen that dip and make the forehead look more youthful as well.
It's incredible. And it's like, that's great because I feel like to the forehead is an area that we for so long have had nothing we can do.
I mean, my gosh, I
know
there's plenty of injectors that are willing to do filler there, but I'm not one of them.
So me too. I don't either because of the worry about vascular occlusion. There's so many
little vessels up there and like, what's Why worry about the dent in your forehead when you could go blind
That's just how I think about it. But this is exciting, right? This is an exciting, it's exciting. It's very exciting. Yeah. Like we're making a lot of advancements in this field and it's, it's very exciting.
We really are. And also what I'm doing with my patients, and I know other providers are too, is they're treatment stacking.
So I'm, you know, bringing someone in, we're doing, you know, they're complaining of crep skin. Right. Dry, crappy skin, fine lines under the eye, um, and hollowing, right? So I'm doing PDGF under eye, um, and then a week later, bringing them back. And then I'm doing RF microneedling or an erbium skin resurfacing laser, focusing on the under eye and then putting the PDGF, um, the area since PDGF, right?
So PDGF mixed with the HA serum it comes with. Topically over it. Yes. So it's a treatment stack, right? So you're targeting underneath and then on top, and it's incredible.
You're getting every layer . Yep.
That's wonderful.
You know, that's amazing. Mm-hmm . I, I honestly can't wait to see where we are in a few months with this and before and afters and all that, but just seeing your progress with it.
I mean, it's been crazy.
It's been really cool. And you have to trust the process and, you know, and one thing I want to point out when you know, when you see my pictures, um, you'll note my angiogenesis, the redness was there and it's because I actually treated myself while Alicia injected it more superficially.
Cause I wanted to see that. Um, and I did have the angiogenesis that lasted up to, I would say like 10 to 14 days, but by the 21 day mark, the redness was gone. Um, I only had swelling like day six, day seven or so. And then it quickly resolved. It was kind of crazy.
Yeah.
Um, cause I
do think people might not be quite used to that because they're used to PRP or they're used to filler where,
and it's more superficial, right?
You're not going to have subcutaneous redness and you're not going to have that, you know, Uh, prolonged redness and swelling where with filler maybe, but with, especially with PRP you won't. So I feel like that's a little bit of, of something you have to make sure you educate to your patients. Uh, but again, it's not, it's for a reason where we're getting a response and it's, it's causing the tissue response and the cell response.
So we almost need that to happen in order to see the change.
And I'm, and I'm doing this like, you know, I had a patient the other day that came in and, you know, she had hollowness that extended into her anterior medial cheek. So I did, you know, I did juvenile voluma. We did a syringe here. We did a syringe on the other cheek, which obviously helped to support the underlying ligaments of the under eye.
And then I did, PDGF. After that. That's going to
be my next question. Do you ever do them together?
Yep. Yep. And I did that for a patient and so far so good. Everything's great. Um, but you have to, like, if you're that hollow, you have to treat the cheek. Right. Right. Cause it has to blend right into the cheek.
Exactly. Yep. Yeah. And that's again, Another really hard place to treat because with filler, you can end up looking very puffy or you're too superficial and it just, you can get lines and all that. So, so this is again, exciting advancements.
It's exciting. And, you know, obviously, you know, I still do under eye filler.
Like, I know you have to obviously be the right candidate, but I feel like maybe 15 to 20 percent of the patients that come in wanting under eye filler. I actually treat. Um, what's so great about this too, is though, is you can have puffiness already. Like in an allergies and PDGF is great for you. Yeah.
PRP is great for you. Right. That's more of a better option for those people.
Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. That definitely still, I guess, how would you determine? if you want to do PRP versus PDGF on someone?
So I, again, I think it's patient preference and all how you educate the patient. If they're, um, leaning towards wanting their own growth factor in some cells, right.
More organic method. Then I think we'll, we'll go the more PRP route. They'll come back every four to six weeks. They're definitely going to need at minimum three treatments. They might need three more because I do feel like, right. Like, I mean, three is great, but sometimes they need three more after that, whereas the PDGF, it's, it's got a thousand to 300, 000 times more growth factor in it, right?
So it's going to be a little bit more consistent. So I just tell patients like it's one or the other, PDGF might act quicker. You might see your result that you want quicker. You just have to be more patient with PRP or PRF.
Do you have to worry at all with like thin, thin skin? Because I know like if I'm doing, I think it's
great for thin skin.
So
it's, it's not anything like, you know, when you're worried about like under eye filler and you're like, Oh, this person has way too much thin skin, like there's no way it's going to look good.
No, I think it's really good for those people. I think PDGF is more for severe anti aging, like those patients that come in and they're just super crappy, very wrinkled sun damage.
It's really good for them. Yeah. Well, I guess if
you think about it too, with those patients, we may opt for something like
Yeah.
And at the end of the day, this is. It's similar.
One thing I wanted to bring up, and it was really cool in this webinar, we were, we were able to, there were so many people on this webinar with Wasim and Erica, and we will, we were able to, um, ask questions and one person asked, like, what about mixing sculpture with PDGF?
Mm hmm.
And here's my thing, like with that, like, it would almost be like stimulating too much
proliferation
and there'd be almost too much inflammation going on because sculpture already causes,
you
know, things like that, like, you know, by causing, you know what I'm saying? Yeah,
it would be, it would be overkill.
Yeah. Overkill. And I think I
would worry by mixing PDGFBB with Sculptra. It might cause more nodules or more issues. Yeah. Right. You know? Yep. Um, and I could be wrong, but that's just my opinion, so I don't think I would mix it. No, I agree. My,
my thought process would be the same way. Yeah. Yeah. Like you just don't want to risk that.
Mm hmm. So let's talk about treatment stacking.
Yes.
Yeah. And, you know, Nicole, we always say that, you know, treatment stacking, Yields better results. Mm-hmm . Than just doing one method like an IPL.
Yep.
A microneedling. Right. So what do you do in your practice that is treatment stacking? Well, it's
so funny 'cause everyone always asks me, well, which laser should I do?
I'm like, well, mm-hmm . If you can, you should do bbl L with moxie, you know? Mm-hmm . Doing the two together, you're gonna get the best result because. BBL is helping heat the skin, generate that collagen. It's getting rid of the pigment. And then moxie is more of that topical. So textural, it's still going to help with pigment to an extent, but they work together to give the best result.
So definitely, I mean, we do a ton of treatment stacking, obviously filler and Botox with all of our skincare procedures. Um, but I like to always say like, and I think we talked about this with Olivia on, One of the podcasts, but microneedling in the summer, your lasers in the winter, like, you know, there's always something you can be doing.
And I think you have to have to have to be stacking a laser or microneedling on top of your Botox and your, and your filler, if you're not, there's just, there's no reason to be doing it.
And there's more downtime and we get that. Right. Um, but yeah, summer safe. Um, options are moxie right? And microneedling.
Those are safe to do. Absolutely. Even if you're tan.
Yeah. You're not worried about pigment or anything like that. Yep.
Yeah. Yep. And I know we do IPL with erbium. We don't have moxie BBL yet, maybe down the road. Um, and then microneedling with erbium. We've been doing a lot of that. Oh my God. Patients are seeing such great results.
And now that we have area since PDGF, oh my God.
Yeah.
That on top of it, it's just, Incredible.
Because we stack with the PRP now.
Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can also do that and we offer that to our patients as well.
Right. It's just another option. But, but yeah, I'm excited to keep seeing the PDGF differences and hopefully bring that on in the future.
Yeah. I love it too. And I think what's so exciting about this field is it's just ever changing and it's just so exciting. You know, it really is. It really
is. Cause it's going to be 2025 is definitely the year of regenerative medicine and it's just also the year of wellness. We're not just worried about weight loss anymore.
We're worried about hormones. Now we're worried about the aging from the inside, like NAD plus and all of these things that we can be doing to help ourselves and not just cells that relate to beauty, but cells that relate to overall aging. So it is exciting where our field is going.
I totally agree. Um, the one thing I do want to mention about, um, PDGFBV, if you are injecting it, um, off label and you're mixing it with a bacteriostatic saline, I, I, I would highly advise against injecting it like superficially, like superficial blobs under the eye and things like that, just because I think because of the uptick in hyaluronic acid concentration of 800%, you're going to end up with little bumps, things like that.
And also like proliferate self proliferation too superficial.
I'm glad you mentioned that. Cause I just saw a viral tick tock of a lady. Injecting herself and she didn't say what she was injecting, but it looked similar to something like maybe either salmon sperm. I think it was like the PDRN like those like that.
Yeah, but like So, um, still, yeah, you don't want to just take a video that you saw on TikTok and roll with it.
That's it. You're like, Ooh, we can do that with salmon sperm. Let's do that with PDGF. But you have to know the science behind these, these, um, these products. And the one thing I've found out is that PDGF, I mean, it actually has more published studies So, um, yeah.
Wow. Which is kind of crazy. That is
crazy.
Yeah. And, you know, the Ari Essence reps are wonderful. I mean, the minute I asked for more research, they sent me published studies and it was just so great. They've had, it was great support. And I think for those listening that love regenerative medicine that want to learn more about it, some of the leaders in it, um, I think Shino Bay.
He's wonderful. Um, Leslie Fletcher as well. And then also Julie Kaplan. She's always been wonderful. I'm, I know I'm missing more people. Nicole, do you have any other people that you know?
No, I would say Julie Kaplan is the one that I've seen the most on, um, you know, especially this topic really showing her before and afters and explaining the product.
And
she's definitely one I would look into.
And then Don Segrillo.
Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think she
does as well. Yeah. I know she's doing PDGF in her practice. And I feel like Shinobe
is always, he's always doing something. So I follow him like,
yeah, he's, he just makes things so exciting, you know, so inspiring,
but no, I think it's great that you've been, you know, not only doing it on your patients, but you took the time to try it on yourself first and really learn and research the product and know how it reacts and see the changes that, you know, sometimes you bring these products on, you don't want to just throw it in a patient.
Hope for the best, you know, like you, you really try it out first and again, ask for the research and see the studies and all that.
These treatments should be done on us too. So that way we know, you know, the whole healing process, what to expect and we can better educate our patients.
Absolutely. I would say I would never
offer a treatment that I wouldn't try.
Yep. No, it's so true. You got it. You got to be the guinea pig first.
Yes, 100%. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, this was so fun. Yes. Yeah. Thank you for hopping on.
Yes. And if you guys have any questions, like, please, like, shoot us a DM on the Fill Me In pod, Instagram, or shoot us a DM privately as well. Um, but this was great.
And I can't wait for, All of the comments on the reels like, you know, about this, because I think that'll stimulate a lot of conversation. Yes, which is great. We can all learn from each other. This is a positive environment. Right? Um, so, yeah,
that's right. We were learning every day. We, yes, we want the questions.
We want the answers. We want everything. The call coming, coming away,
coming away. Thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of the Fill Me In Podcast, where we talked about regenerative medicine, stacking treatments, and PDGF.
The very exciting
PDGF. I'm Injector John.
And I'm Aesthetic Nurse Nicole.
Until next time, love you
guys. Bye guys. All I want, all I
want, me and you.