Does the PRP treatment affect Radiesse fillers (which I got 2.5 months ago) ?

Thank you for your question. You ask if platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatment with microneedling would have any impact on your Radiesse injections you had in your cheeks 2 and half months prior.

I can help you understand what the relationship of the two treatments would be. A little background: I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and a Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon. I’ve been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years.  I use Radiesse as well as many of the other popular types of fillers such as Juvederm and Restylane, and I do a lot of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatments in my practice for a variety of issues for everything from: superficial skin complexion improvement, dark under eye circles, scars, and acne scars. I think it’s wonderful and great you are considering this.

To first understand what Radiesse is, it is a suspension of calcium hydroxyapatite. It is a filler used to add volume, and is generally placed fairly deep. If you are placing it on the cheeks, it is placed mostly in the deeper fat layers of the cheek so to add, augment and restore volume.

Microneedling helps improve the skin quality, and the platelet-rich plasma (PRP) works very well in synergy with microneedling. We use platelet-rich plasma with microneedling very commonly for sun damaged skin,  fine lines, and wrinkles around the eyes, which is a great combination. The depth of the microneedle is not likely to be anywhere close to the depth of the position of the Radiesse. The skin is basically about 2 millimeters in thickness, and the depth range a microneedling procedure can be set is anywhere from half a millimeter, all the way to 2 and half millimeters. Depending on how aggressive your doctor wants to be, generally it will be considerably less than the full depth of the skin. It just depends a lot on what they’re intending to do. Usually if you were doing something more aggressive, you might be going to the level of the papillary dermis, where you’ll get a little bleeding. Even then, you are still pretty far away from the anatomic position of the Radiesse, so I think this is a very good combination.

In helping someone look their best, restoring volume makes a lot of sense. We do something in our practice called structural volumizing where we are able to restore the volume in the cheekbones, the jawline, and the chin, and once that’s done, the person looks great. To improve the skin quality, options a such as microneedling with platelet-rich plasma, or platelet-rich plasma injections, light laser resurfacing, HydraFacials, or glycolic peels. You can imagine there are a lot of ways to improve skin quality. Discuss this with your doctor but just for your own edification, it is very safe to do both. Discuss with your doctor  the plan and the outcome, and don’t worry about the interaction between the two treatments. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for your question