Starting microneedling next week. Should I incorporate a facial in between treatments? I'm thinking hydrafacial

I recommend following up with a cosmetic dermatologist for after care and skin care recommendations. I always combine microneedling with prp and lasers to get the best outcomes. See an expert. Best, Dr. Emer

Thank you for your question. You didn’t submit a photo, and state you’re going to undergo microneedling and PRP. You’re asking if it’s okay to do other procedures like Hydrafacial in between these treatments.
I can share with you my guidance to my patients in assessing what their needs are, and where these modalities have a role, and how they can be complementary to achieve the desired outcome. A little background: I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon. I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years. The concepts of microneedling and PRP and Hydrafacial are essentially commonplace in our practice as we help a lot of our patients improve their skin. It’s important to define the solution and strategy of implementing the solutions based on the problem.
With microneedling and PRP, there are ways to do these procedures depending on the underlying issue. We can do these procedures to help sun-damaged skin, fine lines and wrinkles, or acne scars. With each of these different problems comes a different type of approach with microneedling. Microneedling can be set to be very superficial, medium depth, or fairly deep into the skin depending on what you want to achieve.
The concept of microneedling essentially is for collagen induction therapy. Microneedling selectively creates little entry points in the skin, and the body regenerates a healing response that can stimulate and improve the quality of the skin, and also tighten the skin. PRP very effectively enhances collagen induction therapy, so they work very well complementing each other. These treatments are often done together, particularly for crow’s feet lines around the eyes.
Hydrafacial has essentially displaced microdermabrasion in our practice. Microdermabrasion is very effective in taking off the top layers of dead skin, and refresh the skin in a very controlled way. It allowed for that same day nice look afterwards done typically by my aesthetician who would do a microdermabrasion, then a hydration mask or other modality to help improve the glow of the skin. Well, Hydrafacial now does that with a combination of water and active ingredients such as glycolic acid to infuse into the skin, and put everything together. I feel that water is a little more gentle, but at the same time effective in exfoliation of the top layers of skin. When we are dealing with issues such as fine lines, superficial discolorations, as well patients with darker skin types, I find Hydrafacial with glycolic acid is very effective.
One temptation is to be aggressive, which can cause a bit of trouble. You don’t want to do these procedures together too close, so you want to allow a certain amount of healing after the microneedling before you do Hydrafacial. Often what I’ll do is alternate the procedure on a monthly basis, so one month of the microneedling with PRP, the next month they’ll do Hydrafacial, then month after that, they’ll do microneedling - it’s all about customization.
To answer your question, yes, it is possible to do Hydrafacial in between microneedling. You need a clear understanding of what the problem is, what the strategy is, and the expected outcome to anticipate. Once you have that under control, all of these procedures can be minimally aggressive to highly aggressive,  depending on what the underlying issue is, and how to strategize to maximize the body’s response. It’s like working out in the gym - you want to train, but you don’t want to overtrain. If you overtrain, you end up losing ground; same thing with skin, you over treat, you can actually lose ground. Ask your doctor these questions, and learn about what strategy will work best for you, and take it from there. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.

Thank you for your question. Yes, I would recommend doing a Hydrafacial about two weeks after your microneedling. This will provide all the nutrients back into the skin and help with dryness that can occur after microneedling. Facials will help with maintaining your skin and results from microneedling. I would advise to see a specialist that can guide you in the right direction for your skin type. I hope this answered your question. Good luck!