Eshel didn’t say that niacinamide doesn’t work. He said that topical NR or NMN have an advantage over topical niacinamide.
There is much more research on niacimimide in skin care that has been done over the past decade +. I’m don’t believe there is much on NR or NMN, so I think its too early to say if there are overall advantages to them.
I see. Dr. Eshel’s statement was based on what sounded like a theoretical consideration. He said something like this: “Niacinamide is recognized as a waste material of NAD usage. If there is too much in the body, it signals the body to recycle less NAD. NMN and NR don’t dampen the skin’s ability to recycle more and more NAD.” Young Goose doesn’t recommend ingesting large doses of niacinamide continuously for long periods either.
I [JamesPaul108] don’t have knowledge about this subject; I’m just reporting what Dr. Eshel said as accurately as I could, given my limited knowledge.
For red light and eyes, my major concern that if you buy some Chinese-made LED panel/mask on Amazon, do you actually trust that the power rating, energy level or other specifications?
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Yes, it’s a real problem. I don’t trust their specifications.
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This is a very valid concern, and perhaps even more-so with tariffs that will provide an even bigger incentive to the manufacturers to skimp on quality and testing to lower costs so they can get the product into the USA or Europe at a reasonable cost.
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Never used a roller, but I have been doing microneedling using a pen device (like this: https://www.dr-pen.co.uk/) once per month for the last 10 months.
I do believe it works, quite well actually, especially for minimising deeper expression lines.
My protocol:
- Wash face and pat it dry. The device uses disposable, sterile microneedle cartridges.
- Depth of 1.75mm for most of the face, 1.0 mm in super painful areas like the temple/hairline
- Focus on the deeper expression lines (for me, forehead and crows feet next to eyes)
- I give each area multiple passes, using different directions, and rotating the pen - aiming for a large number of punctures per mm^2.
- Apply Cetaphil soothing and comforting cream with CICA afterwards
My thoughts:
- It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, for most of the face
- Face gets super, super red afterwards. Looks and feels like a crazy bad sunburn for at least 24h
- Most products you put on afterwards sting like crazy
- I’ve am aware there are protocols where people apply actives, vitamin C, peptides etc. To me, I am not sure I want those things actually penetrating. I am using microneedling as a way to simply stimulate a healing response and collagen formation. I wait until the epidermal barrier is repaired, then provide the “ingredients” for repair.
- Sometimes there will be peeling 3-4 days afterwards
- From day 5, you’ll definitely look good, with a nice skin texture, more even tone etc. I think there’s also some subtle inflammation and improved blood flow, so the expression line tend to “fill out” and be less pronounced.
Keen to hear any feedback or thoughts about that from others.
Other things:
- I’ve also been testing on places on my body, using a depth of 3.0 mm to try and break up old scar tissue, which can supposedly work according to some studies. I have a scar on my stomach and I haven’t noticed much improvement with 6x monthly sessions.
- I’m also testing on some “age spots” on my arms and hands, but I’ve only done 2x sessions so can’t report much yet.
- I’m doing my temples/hairline as a way to supposedly encourage/stimulate hair growth. This might be working, but I also use topical Minoxidil and a red light cap, so it’s hard to say whether it’s the microneedling specifically.
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There is an interesting thought in this. I have been doing experimentation with accelerated healing which I put on my citrate poster
https://citrate.science/2024poster/poster.html
The particularly interesting photo in that (at least I think so) is the one of a vein with two punctures where the more recent one has repaired to a greater extent than the older one.
I think the reason this happens is that there is a short period of time after any damage to the body when there are very high level signals (through transcription factors probably and probably HIF 1-α) for repair, but after that the pressure for repair goes down. Hence if you maximise the ability of the body to do repair exactly when the damage is done you should get a better outcome.
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That concept definitely exists - for example ischemic pre-conditioning has been known for a few decades. If you give a mouse, rat, dog or pig a mild heart attack by ligating the coronary artery for a short time, let it recover, then give it a big heart attack, the animal does WAY better than one which has only the big heart attack. Amazingly, it also works remotely - for example, inducing leg ischaemia prior to cardiac ischemia is protective. So there is definitely an ability to ramp up the repair response, both at the level of local tissues and at the circulating factor level. Whether that’s inducible by stimuli such as nutrition, chemicals (like citrate) or exercise, I am not sure.
That said, the vein thing is really difficult to judge. I’ve had a blood sample taken from each arm at the same time before, and one bruised horribly while the other healed almost instantly.
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Strongly in favor of microneedling.
It is an intense process and does require numbing creme preparation among other things. But I really believe it helps my skin out a lot.
I have entirely eliminated sunspots from both my face and arms, even reduced wrinkle areas to some extent.
My next step is a plan to mix Rapa and hyuralonic acid and use that topically along with my sessions.
Intuitively this does make some sense. Our faces get the hell beat out of them by sun damage and other factors. That could be a stress for our overall bodies.
You are definitely correct about limitations of skin treatments.
That is why I recently got everything tightened up. Hopefully, I can follow Laura’s good example and maintain this fresh start.
Please share more on what you did and how you judge the effectiveness. I’m wondering if full-body Tixel and laser like Bryan Johnson may have done (he liked Tixel, but not sure how much of his body he did it on) is the answer for maintaining youthful skin all over…
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The clinic I went to did excellent work but it was expensive. It cost me a total of about $55,000 for all facial procedures, which included a platismal neck lift (much needed), extended deep plane facelift, upper and lower eyes, fat grafting, stem cell injections, and a couple of side things.
I chose this Korean doctor (Min Hee Ryu) because I was tremendously impressed by his technique and ability. His credentials and experience are incredible. Here is his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@psryuminhee
I like this man because he is a true technician and artist. Other surgeons I talked to were either tied to a surgery factory (of which there are a few in Korea), or spend a lot of time on marketing and sketchy before and afters, and little time talking about technique.
Here is his terrible website. Not great but his results are. https://psryuminhee.com/category/about-dr-ryu/#
The prices for surgical are (I believe) up to date, but the nonsurgical is partially not. The English speaking staff (like Haley) are very helpful and much easier to work with than many other Korean clinics.
One thing I want to draw your attention to is that his technique of extended deep plane face lift is more aggressive then most surgeons. First off, deep plane goes much deeper than just the skin level, so he can literally rearrange a substantial portion of your face. In doing this, he can make much more substantial and lasting changes. Even though this is true, my healing time was MUCH faster than what I researched for similar facelifts. A full two weeks before the swelling is at least presentable is common, with a week in compression bandages (ugh). But with his technique, it was three days of compression bandages and about 7 weeks to be fairly normal. Still, it takes weeks for all the swelling to completely subside.
Regarding the necklift, it had the benefit of greatly alleviating my sleep apnea! Just amazing what it did there. Many patients have commented about this, but here is not study I can find that formally verifies this. But as far as I am concerned, that was worth about half of the cost right there!
Anyone who wants to see before and afters I will send them to you by personal message.
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Microneedling is not a one and done. It requires regular treatment, every 4-6 weeks. It’s also not feasible for the whole body. Just isn’t. I’ve done it to face and neck and it takes a long time, multiple passes in each direction. For the whole body it would take hours and blunted needle tips so multiple cartridges. Pain tolerance varies and I don’t need any numbing cream but if you do, you’d have to apply it to the whole body and that’s dangerous. Too much of it could get absorbed and really mess you up. Besides you can’t reach every spot on your body. And it requires slip so you’d need a full bottle of HA serum slathered everywhere. Also no way you could keep it all sterile after. You’d risk infection after you put your clothes on. The face and neck are easy to keep from touching anything until the channels from microneedling close. So to sum it up, you’ll only realistically do it to face and neck and maybe small specific trouble spots on your body.
And while it’s effective, it’s much more so at the superficial level — pores, fine lines, texture, hyperpigmentation etc. For anything deeper—sagging, folds—it doesn’t help. You’d need something that acts 3-4 cm deep at the level of the deep dermis and SMAS layer. Most lasers have the same limitations. Ditto for Tixel.
Some non ablative lasers like Fotona 4D can be trained very deep. Look up Fotona 4D facelift. Besides that, the deepest acting modalities are Ultherapy / hifu / ultraformer (more or less the same thing: focused ultrasound) and monopolar radiofrequency. Radiofrequency microneedling is more powerful than traditional microneedling but not as deep acting as monopolar. That’s really about it. A great superficial treatment that’s practical for the whole body is cold atmospheric plasma. It’s not painful and has some great results. Can also be used on the scalp for hair growth stimulation. IPL and CO2 lasers (fractional or otherwise) you already know about from BJ and they’re also pretty superficial acting. Q Switched ND: YAG lasers are very good for pigment removal and lip enhancement. My old one from 2017 died so I just ordered me a new one as I’m a big fan and it cost around $300.
At the end it’s about time as well as money. What’s worth doing that you can do repeatedly. I think being able to self inject opens up a whole new world of opportunities. It’s the face that needs the most TLC for people who’ve been careful about their health and weight. The body gets sunscreen from wearing clothes and that protects from most damage. Face, hands, and neck need help.
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Very curious about your before and afters!
I am very interested in your before and after pics. Thanks.
Interesting. How did you deal with sun spots using microneedling?
I also find that I don’t require numbing cream, even using a 3mm depth and full speed on my pen.
Yes, I think based on the literature every 4 weeks seems optimal for anything deeper than 1mm. You can also do lighter “nano” needling, with very limited depth, just to work the surface and increase penetration of any sort of topical treatments.
That said, I can’t imagine why anybody would want to treat their entire body with microneedling?!