For many of us, there comes a day when looking in the mirror yields more surprises than we’d like: Suddenly, wrinkles, lines, and sagging skin take center stage, and the face of our youth seems to be melting into an older — and less welcome — version of our former selves.
The fact is, facial aging affects all of us, and though personal factors like genetics and sun exposure certainly play a role, no amount of moisturizers and serums can erase these changes and turn back the clock on our skin’s appearance.
For a long time, having a surgical facelift was the only real solution to lifting sagging, droopy skin — but today, there’s another option: the V Soft® PDO Thread Lift using injectable sutures.
VSoft PDO thread lifts are an in-office, nonsurgical alternative to a facelift, designed to gently lift and smooth your skin without incisions or prolonged downtime, while still achieving beautifully natural results.
In this post, Michele Meinhart, FNP, explains the basics of thread lift treatment, helping patients at Starkey Medical Esthetics decide if this innovative procedure can help them achieve their aesthetic goals.
To understand how V Soft PDO thread lifts work, you should know a little bit about why wrinkles and sagging happen in the first place. That largely has to do with how much collagen we have in our skin.
Collagen is a special protein that forms strong, supportive networks for skin, helping your complexion look and feel firmer while also playing an important role in tissue healing.
Even though collagen is strong, it isn’t immune to damage — especially from the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. UV radiation damages collagen fibers, causing them to weaken and break over time. Hormonal fluctuations, illness, and other factors can take a toll on these networks, too.
At the same time, age also takes its toll. That’s because as we get older, our skin produces far less collagen, making it harder to form the interlocking networks that support our skin. The result: wrinkles, lines, and sagging that make us look a lot older than we feel (or want).
V Soft thread lifts work in a couple of ways to smooth out wrinkles and lift sagging skin. First, each suture features tiny hooks or barbs that “grab” skin. As the sutures are gently pulled taut, skin tissue is lifted, too, providing instantly smoother, uplifted results.
In addition to those tiny hooks, the suture material plays a role in smoothing and lifting aging skin. These sutures are made of PDO (polydioxanone), the material used in absorbable sutures — the kind that are absorbed by your body over time.
Once injected, the sutures create tiny “microinjuries” that trigger natural healing responses — including ramped-up production of collagen. Over time, new collagen forms new networks that help lift skin naturally long after the sutures themselves have been absorbed.
V Soft PDO thread lifts are performed in our office on an outpatient basis using a local anesthetic to numb the injection sites and keep you comfortable.
The locations and number of threads are determined ahead of time based on your facial anatomy, your goals, and other factors. V Soft sutures are extremely strong, meaning you’ll typically need fewer sutures compared to other thread lift products.
The procedure takes under an hour, and afterward, there’s no downtime. You’ll likely have some minor bruising, swelling, and tenderness around the injection sites, temporary effects that resolve within a couple of days.
We provide you with complete instructions for caring for your face during the initial healing period. In general, you’ll need to cleanse gently and avoid rubbing that could dislodge the sutures.
V Soft thread lift results typically last one to two years, and many people opt to combine them with Botox® or fillers for even longer-lasting results.
To learn more about thread lifts and the role they can play in your skin rejuvenation regimen, request an appointment online or over the phone with the team at Starkey Medical Esthetics in Salem, Virginia, today.
