{"id":27765,"date":"2024-05-20T17:04:33","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T00:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/?p=27765"},"modified":"2024-06-13T10:54:14","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T17:54:14","slug":"i-tried-morpheus8-face-neck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/i-tried-morpheus8-face-neck","title":{"rendered":"I Tried Morpheus8\u2014and It Didn\u2019t Hurt at All. Here\u2019s Why."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Featured Expert<\/strong>
Dr. Richard Westreich<\/a>, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in New York City<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

It seems like everyone, everywhere, is talking about Morpheus8<\/a>. It’s one of the rare aesthetic procedures that even aesthetic newbies refer to by the brand name rather than just call it radiofrequency microneedling. It’s also often referred to as a nonsurgical facelift, but if you’ve been on RealSelf for a while, you know there’s really no such thing. However, there are<\/em> procedures that can help stave off surgery if you’re savvy enough to plan ahead. Morpheus8 falls into that category, and so long as you’re seeing a skilled provider for your treatment, the results can be truly impressive. However, we’ve found that when most people talk about their own treatment experience, they often add the caveat “but it’s soo<\/em> painful.”<\/p>

Why I tried Morpheus8 on my face and neck<\/h2>

However, as the French adage goes, one must suffer to be beautiful—and saggy necks run in my family. I’ve tried plenty of uncomfortable aesthetic treatments in my day, and I’d rather subject myself to 20 minutes of physical pain than to the mental torture of writing a huge check for a facelift<\/a> and neck lift<\/a>. So I booked an appointment with Dr. Richard Westreich<\/a>, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in New York City, to get treated from the mid-cheek all the way down the neck with Morpheus8. (In addition to staving off a future lift or two, I was hopeful I could smooth out some of my “tech neck” lines.)<\/p>

While I’d emotionally prepared myself for the potential pain of 24 needles being inserted into my face dozens of times, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of an enormous <\/em>syringe—that apparently was going to be used on me! I thought I was just going to be slathered with numbing cream, but no: Dr. Westreich uses both numbing cream and a nerve block to manage patient pain. “When you see a plastic surgeon for Morpheus8, we treat it like plastic surgery,” he told me. <\/p>

In case you’re unfamiliar, a nerve block is a pain-management technique used by many docs, including plastic surgeons; a numbing medication is injected into a cluster of nerves, which temporarily stops pain signals. In my case, that cluster of nerves was Erb’s point, which is located square in the middle of the large, ropey muscles that run along the sides of the neck (think Frankenstein’s monster’s neck bolts). Blocking those nerves would numb the entirety of my neck, which is said to be one of the most painful areas to treat with microneedling.<\/p>

Any anxiety I had about the microneedling was quickly redirected into the thought of the disturbingly girthy needle of this huge syringe stabbing me in the neck. Twice<\/em>. Before going for it, however, Dr. Westreich pulled out a much smaller syringe and injected me in the same spot. “You’re going to thank me for this,” he quipped. That syringe was filled with a local anesthetic, so I couldn’t feel the nerve block being injected next ( I didn’t). And in just a few minutes, I felt the mix of lidocaine and epinephrine starting to kick in. I was then slathered with a heavy-duty numbing cream that Dr. Westreich referred to as BLT (benzocaine, lidocaine, tetracaine), which was mostly applied at the jawline and up to the midface, as the nerve block would take care of the rest. A piece of plastic wrap was laid on top, to help the cream absorb more deeply.<\/p>

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