Health & Beauty Chat February 2022

Featuring Mizuguchi Plastic Surgery’s Bestie Award-winning RN/Aesthetician Audrey May

 

By Sarah Carter Levitch
Photos by Andrea Hutchinson

 

Shortly after Mizuguchi’s opening in 2017, Audrey May joined the staff as an RN/Aesthetician. She spoke with us about the range of services offered at Mizuguchi and how she works with patients to create gradual, subtle changes in appearance.

What treatments do you offer for “tech neck”?

We’re beginning to see more “tech neck,” especially in young patients, because people’s necks are looking down at their phone or laptop. The first thing I recommend is changing your patterns and how you hold yourself. After that, we can move into noninvasive treatments like lotions and creams. Then I’ll graduate patients into a neurotoxin that treats the platysmal bands to lift the skin and tissue. We can also treat it more superficially or subdermally where you’re only injecting it into the necklace lines to help soften them. There are other devices we can use, like microneedling with radio frequency. The last case scenario is to use fillers in that area, which helps stimulate collagen and elastane. 

What are your noninvasive device offerings?

First is fractora, which is a microneedling device with radio frequency. Microneedling will create an injury in the epidermis of the skin. It’s compounded with an injury of heat, which is where the radio frequency comes in. It’s a fractional ablative treatment, so it’s a controlled injury on the skin where we give it just enough to heal itself. Within that healing cascade, we know that it will stimulate collagen further down the line, which helps with fine lines and wrinkles. Fractora’s an excellent treatment for patients with textural issues, like fine lines around the mouth that are very dynamic. It also helps with acne scarring and pore size. 

We also have ultherapy, which is the only FDA-approved device to help lift the skin. It does this through thermal coagulation points deep in the tissue, where we stimulate collagen. In both fractora and ultherapy, it takes time to see results because it takes time to create collagen.

What is prophylactic botox?

Rather than trying to erase the wrinkles from overtime, prophylactic botox is when you start at a young age. Just like you try to stop cardiac disease by eating healthy and exercising, you can slow the process of aging with excellent skincare, starting botox early, or stimulating collagen and elastane. A popular treatment with younger patients is to do the glabella or the 11 lines. 

What skincare products do you offer at Mizuguchi?

We have medical-grade skincare products from Neocutis and Skinbetter Science that we recommend to our patients. Those two lines have lots of studies about the science of why it works. I tell my patients that skincare is a science, and science is ever-changing. If you haven’t changed up your skincare products in a long time, then you don’t have the best science behind your products. 

What are the top anti-aging skincare products?

I recommend four products whether you have young aging skin or mature aging skin. Two are treatments: retinol and human growth factor. The other two are preventatives: sunscreen (always always always!) and an antioxidant. Those four products are insanely beneficial and essential. You can then add other products like a moisturizer, eye cream, cleanser, etc.

Mizuguchi Plastic Surgery
7501 New La Grange Rd.
Louisville, KY 40222
502.200.0600
nanamd.com

 

 

 

 

 

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