Would You Have Vampire Therapy?
As we age, our faces begin to show the effects of gravity, sun exposure and years of facial muscle movement, such as smiling, chewing and squinting. The underlying tissues that keep our skin looking youthful and plumped up begin to break down, often leaving laugh lines, smile lines, crow’s feet or facial creases over the areas where this muscle movement occurs. However this new treatment promises to help rejuvenate skin and regenerate the facial tissue, resulting in a smoother, more youthful-looking appearance – if you can stomach it!
Vampire Therapy or platelet rejuvenation treatment as it is known in the beauty industry, uses the patients own platelets found in the blood to rejuvenate skin and activate their natural collagen production.
“There are a variety of ways to achieve a youthful-looking skin, the most fantastic of which deals with cellular regeneration,” says Dr Roberto Viel who doesn’t just talk about it – he has had the surgery himself! “The younger you are when you start preventing collagen degradation, the more effectively you can maintain your skin’s elasticity, and the fewer treatments you require.
It is primarily used to improve the appearance of the skin’s texture, helping to fill out deep facial wrinkles, creases and furrows, and improve the appearance of sunken cheeks, skin depressions and some types of scars.
Platelets contain growth factors, which are released when platelets are being activated. These growth factors play an important regulating role in renewing facial tissue and rejuvenating skin.
The blood platelets activate the natural stem cells that exist in the facial tissue and stimulate your own skin cells to produce collagen and elastin and therefore rejuvenate the skin.
THE PROCESS
The magic component in blood that signals it is time to clot to heal any wound, are harvested by first drawing a small vial of blood from a patient’s arm.
“The plasma is then extracted from the blood sample in a centrifuge machine in a controlled environment,” Dr Roberto Viel says. “It looks like a straw-colored serum.”
The patient then has a local anaesthetic, which is given 45 minutes to work. The serum is then injected into specific areas that require rejuvenation. Another way of injecting the platelets is to use a device called a derma roller, which has 196 micro needles. This is rolled over the skin, injecting the serum.
“You will look sunburnt for two to three days,” says Dr Roberto Viel. “Due to the imbued tissue rejuvenation, contained within platelet-rich plasma, wound healing is accelerated and fresh new tissue with the elasticity of young skin is produced.”
Dr Roberto Viel says he is fascinated with stem cell therapy, the latest buzz in anti-ageing medicine. Stem cells present in the blood could adapt into any cell, depending on what in the body needed replenishing.
‘I have always been fascinated by aesthetic medicine especially in the area of cell biology,” he says, “but also believe in the simple rejuvenating benefits of being thoroughly pampered for looking good’’
Vampire Therapy starts at £800 and is available from www.lcas.com
