McKeown Medical
167 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4SQ
Date posted — 5.10.24
As always in medicine, the best treatment is prevention – which means avoiding the sun as much as possible and covering up and protecting the skin with SPF when it’s not possible to avoid sun exposure.
But let’s assume you maybe take care of your skin now, but you weren’t so good in your younger years, and you’ve got some historic sun damage that you want to get rid of.
How do you go about getting rid of that old sun damage on the face and body?
The mainstay of treating sun damage is laser treatment, and there are three main categories of lasers you can use to treat sun damage.
The first category is ablative – which means that it removes tissue from the surface of the skin.
The ablative lasers can then be subdivided into fully ablative lasers – which remove the entire surface of the skin – and fractional ablative lasers, which remove only a fraction of the skin’s surface.
The final category is the non-ablative lasers, which don’t remove any tissue from the skin’s surface.
Let’s start with the non-ablative devices.
My favourite non-ablative way to treat sun-damaged skin anywhere on the body (we most commonly treat it on the face, but we can treat it pretty much anywhere on the body) is broadband light.
Ok, so technically, this is not a laser because it uses more than one wavelength of light. But let’s forget about the physics and think of it as a laser.
Broadband light (BBL) is an excellent technology for shattering pigments in the skin, which gets rid of the brown spots or age spots or areas of hyperpigmentation if we want to use their technical name.
BBL is also excellent for reacting with the red pigment in blood vessels, causing the blood vessels to close down and clear patches of redness.
It is also an excellent stimulator of collagen renewal, improving the organisation of collagen and elastin fibres in the skin, which, over time, improves the texture of the skin’s surface.
BBL is by far and away my favourite treatment to prescribe in the clinic because pretty much anyone over the age of 30 benefits from it. There is usually no downtime at all, and it’s a relatively gentle treatment you can repeat every six months or so to keep your skin in great shape.
If you have more severe changes to the texture of the skin, particularly with fine lines and wrinkles then we need to think about adding in some ablative laser resurfacing.
When the texture changes are more than we can deal with non-ablative laser treatment but not quite severe enough for full resurfacing, then a fractional ablative device is our go-to.
For this, I love the Halo laser from Sciton.
The unique thing about this device is that it combines two different lasers (one ablative and one non-ablative) that fire at the same time, meaning you can target different layers of the skin simultaneously.
We tend to be pretty aggressive in our approach with this, so most patients can expect 5-7 days of downtime, but when your skin is healed, you get the famous ‘Halo Glow’ and continued improvement in the surface of the skin for a few months later.
For the most severe sun-damaged skin with deep lines and wrinkles that are really etched into the surface of the skin, however, we need to get out the big guns – the fully ablative laser.
This removes the entire surface of the skin so that the skin grows back like new again.
It’s an extremely effective treatment that can get rid of even the most stubborn wrinkles, however it is also the most invasive option that most people want to avoid.
For that reason, not many clinics offer this treatment, but for some patients, it’s just the right treatment and the only one that will give them the results they are looking for.
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Jowls are one of the most common complaints that our patients come with - and so many of you want to avoid surgery, for a variety of very personal reasons.
So just what can we do for jowls without surgery? This!!!
Thank you so much to this patient for allowing us to share the results of her volumetric facelift. The volumetric facelift involves restoring volume to areas of the face that have lost volume as part of the ageing process - typically the cheeks, chin and jawline - which can really help to rejuvenate the face, especially reducing the appearance of jowls.
The patient is over the moon with this result. What do you think?
Varicose veins and thread veins might sound similar, but they’re actually quite different. Here`s Dr Alex, our vascular surgeon explaining the difference.
Varicose veins are larger, swollen veins that sit just beneath the surface of the skin. They often appear on the legs or feet and can cause discomfort, pain or a heavy, aching sensation.
Varicose veins and thread veins might sound similar, but they’re actually quite different.
Varicose veins are larger, swollen veins that sit just beneath the surface of the skin. They often appear on the legs or feet and can cause discomfort, pain or a heavy, aching sensation.
Thread veins, sometimes called spider veins, are much smaller. They appear as red, blue or purple web-like lines on the surface of the skin and are usually painless. You’ll often see them on the legs or face.
We can treat both types of veins. If you’re not sure what’s right for you, get in touch and we’ll be happy to talk it through.
Learn more about varicose veins and how we can help at the link in our profile.
Varicose veins and thread veins might sound similar, but they’re actually quite different. Here`s Dr Alex, our vascular surgeon explaining the difference.
Varicose veins are larger, swollen veins that sit just beneath the surface of the skin. They often appear on the legs or feet and can cause discomfort, pain or a heavy, aching sensation.
Thread veins, sometimes called spider veins, are much smaller. They appear as red, blue or purple web-like lines on the surface of the skin and are usually painless. You’ll often see them on the legs or face.
We can treat both types of veins. If you’re not sure what’s right for you, get in touch and we’ll be happy to talk it through.
Heavy periods can be more than just an inconvenience. They can cause anaemia, fatigue and have a real impact on your quality of life.
In this video, Dr Iain Martin @driainmartin martin explains the different treatment options available, from iron supplements and hormone therapy to ultrasound scans to check for fibroids or polyps.
If no clear cause is found and you`re not planning any more pregnancies, we offer treatment with the NovaSure® endometrial ablation device. It is a quick, minimally invasive procedure that can significantly reduce or stop bleeding altogether.
If heavy bleeding is something you’ve been putting up with, it might be time to explore your options.
Find out more about your treatment options at the link in our profile.
Another new exciting development in aesthetic medicine! The blockbuster drug Botox now has a license for treating the ageing neck.
The treatment works by relaxing the muscle in the neck, which improves the jawline and neck. Variations of this treatment have been around for a long time on an ‘off label’ basis. I’ve always been a little underwhelmed by this, but in the trials for approval they used higher doses than we typically used in the past and managed to achieve more consistent results.
The neck is an area that has a lot of anatomical variation, so the best treatment for each individual will vary. This is probably best for people with skinnier necks. If you have a bit of excess fatty tissue, then a treatment like CoolSculpting might be best or if you have loose skin then some Halo laser might be the option.
As always the way to find the best option for your concerns is a consultation with an experienced doctor!
This lovely patient is just three weeks on from her deep plane facelift, neck lift and upper blepharoplasty performed by @bramhallplasticsurgery and she’s been kind enough to share her own selfies to show how things are settling.
She also had full laser resurfacing with Dr Darren three months ago to improve deeper skin creases and texture, helping to enhance the overall result.
It’s still early days in her recovery, but you can already see the impact of combining surgical lifting with skin rejuvenation: a beautifully refreshed look and she`s absolutely delighted!
What do you think?
Find out more about the full facelift at the link in our profile.
Relfydess is the newest toxin on the market and we have been working hard in the clinic to test the claims of the manufacturer. Is it really as good as they claim?
This patient kindly allowed us to test the difference with her: she had Relfydess on the left side of her face and her usual Botox on the right, to compare how the two treatments performed. These photos were taken three weeks after treatment.
The Relfydess kicked in a day or two faster. However, what is really interesting is that on the side we treated with Reflydess she got a good result that didn`t need a top-up, whilst the other side did need a top-up, which you can see in these photos.
I will keep posting more updates as we find them about this new product!
I’ve been treating patients with Relfydess for the past few weeks now, and I was really curious to know how they were getting on. So, we reached out to the first 97 people who had the treatment and asked them how it felt, how quickly it worked, and whether they’d do it again.
In this video, I’m sharing what they told me – and a bit of my own perspective on how it’s shaping up compared to the other wrinkle treatments we have available. It’s still early days, but the feedback so far has been really interesting!
As we approach the summer holidays and get into the middle of wedding season, filler season is well under way! Thank you to this lovely patient for allowing us to share her results following a volumetric facelift, all performed with injections of dermal filler.
Her main concern was the development of jowls and the way it was starting to affect the shape of her lower face. By carefully restoring volume in the right areas, we were able to subtly lift and contour creating a more defined jawline while keeping everything natural and in harmony with the rest of her features.
This is a few weeks post-treatment and she`s absolutely over the moon. What do you think?
Find out more about our volumetric facelift treatment at the link in our profile.
Thank you to our lovely patient for allowing us to share these photos with you.
She came to see us with prominent varicose veins that had been bothering her for years. Just 8 weeks after treatment with VenaSeal™, you can already see a noticeable difference and the results will continue to improve as the treated veins fade further over the months ahead.
VenaSeal™ is a walk-in, walk-out treatment that uses medical adhesive to close the affected veins. No surgery, no compression stockings, and no downtime which made it the ideal option for this patient.
We’re so pleased with how things are progressing already. More to come as her results continue to develop.
Find out more about VenaSeal™ and our other treatment options for varicose veins at the link in our profile.