How nonsurgical face lifts work with PDO threads

• GoodSkin in Los Angeles and New York City offers PDO thread services to help lift and tighten skin.
• Founder Lisa Goodman does a non-scalp fixation with results that can last two to three months.
• Treatments at GoodSkin begin at $1,200, and prices vary depending on the thread count and technique.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Lisa Goodman: PDO thread is a type of dissolvable suture that's actually made even from a sugar, and it dissolves underneath your skin over time, and everywhere where a thread is placed does create a little bit of collagen and a little bit of fibrosis, so that over time, as you do more threads, the tissues can stay more lifted.

So, here today, we're actually gonna be doing PDO threads on our lovely patient Charlene. So, Charlene's concern is -- and her genetics of aging -- is basically jowling and some amount of facial sagging here. So, the style of numbing that we do here is more of a tumescent numbing, where we're putting numbing under the skin, not topical numbing. That's a really big difference that you might want to ask your provider about. And so that will work immediately, it'll be more effective, and last around an hour. So, this was the actual painful part of the procedure. She's feeling a little bit of stinging, and so what we're doing is we're using our kinetic vibration tool so that she's comfortable, and then she also is using nitrous, which is laughing gas, so that she's not in pain.

So, we offer two types of thread techniques, and one is called scalp fixation, and one is non-scalp fixation. The scalp fixation uses a hook and is a thicker thread that will go deeper for more deep attachment. That type will last anywhere from three to six months and longer, depending on how many threads we put and also depending on the quality of your fascia and your age. And then the non-scalp fixation will last anywhere from two to three months, depending on how many threads you use, quality of your scalp skin, and also your age. So, we're making the entry poke to place the thread first.

So, there's different techniques for placing threads. This cannula is a non-threaded cannula. You see, there's nothing in there. That's important because if I want to reposition the cannula so that I have the best position of the thread, I can. If you have cannulas where the thread is already positioned, sometimes you can't reposition the thread. And we're now going to put the thread inside the cannula. We use Mint brand threads, which is an important part of having a good result, because the thread is a molded barbed thread. What that means is that they did not cut the barbs into the thread to make it hook. And so you have a thread that is less likely to break. In terms of the depths of the thread, we actually don't want the threads very deep. They're going to be in a specific layer of the tissue where they're hooking onto the fat, and that's how it allows it to pull up on the skin. If we're in that layer of tissue, that's also how we can avoid bunching and also visibly seeing the thread.

So, someone who's a poor candidate for threads is someone whose skin is too loose, because what'll happen is the thread will go in, it'll look good for a few days, and then the skin will go back to where it was. So what you're seeing today is a really perfect entry-level-threads experience for someone who's in their 20s, I'd say, even to early 40s. Where this might not be a really good entry-level experience, of not using the hook, is if someone is much older and their tissue is much laxer. We would want to just start with using the scalp-fixation hook, so that they actually have a treatment result. So, our next step is we're going to tie the threads together so that they stay anchored. And they're going to basically -- it's going to give her a little bit more support and result.

So, what PDO threads can't do is they can't give you a new face. They're not going to change your natural anatomy to something that's totally different than what you were born with. What they can do, however, is help prevent sagging and help restore your own natural anatomy to where it used to be. So if you were to do threads and do them once and never do them again, your tissues will return to where they were at previously and it won't be visible to your eye because it's only one treatment, but you still will have benefit from that one treatment, because you will form collagen and fibrosis around each thread that was placed.