40 Y/o Hopeful to Tighten the Skin

Exactly as my cosmetic doc. indicated. Said would b of little value, but especially not a home treatment for us. Also no Retin A after damaging skin. Avoid Retin A on neck entirely, unfortunately, highly inflammatory.

I have had great success with micro-needling. I think you got it backwards with respect to the rollers. Never use larger than 1 mm on the face. The skin is very thin and damages easily. The numbing cream when applied according to the instructions works really well and you can push fairly hard. That is why you only use the small needle. Anything less than .5 mm won't penetrate to the layer of skin that encourages collagen growth. Anything larger than 1 mm will damage the skin way too much. On your body, you use the longer needles. On the stomach and buttocks you could get away with 2 mm. On the breasts I wouldn't use anything longer than 1.5 mm. Again, use the numbing cream. I use Emla. Apply it to your skin thickly. Cover the area with plastic wrap and wait at least 1 hour. Your skin will be numb, you won't feel a thing then you can press harder to penetrate the first layer of skin to get to the layer that when damaged encourages collagen growth. Wipe the numbing cream off as you go. Don't put anything on your skin for at least 2 hours as the tiny holes need to close over. Then use a non-comedigenic cream. Your skin will be red for about 2 days and start to peel and feel rough after about 4. Don't scrub your skin! Keep applying cream. After a week you can exfoliate.

Maggie, as others have pointed out, never heard of anyone even attempting to use the method you did. For home dermarolling, best to start out small, like .5mm and work up to 1.0mm. I can't even believe you used retin A afterwards, OMG! My face would be on fire if I tried that. You should use pure hyarolonic acid after rolling--which is mild, and helps build collagen to plump up your skin. A .5mm dermaroller can be used weekly, while you should only use a 1.0mm dermaroller once a month, and should wait for at least a few days, if not a week, before using retin A. It takes at least 2-3 months before improvements are visible. I've been dermarolling for a few months now, and the first couple of days after a roll, my face looks a whole lot worse before it gets better, red, puffy, swollen, and I even broke out in welts on my neck, but after it subsides, improvements became so noticeable, that I went in for a deeper professional roll with prp, to help speed up the progress. I've also been using sheet masks with hyarolonic acid once a week, and the improvement is not just noticeable, but I totally did not expect it to become this soft, and silky smooth to the touch. Everyone's skin is different, and have no idea how mine responded this well. best of luck!