#1139

Eshel didn’t say that niacinamide doesn’t work. He said that topical NR or NMN have an advantage over topical niacinamide.

#1140

There is much more research on niacimimide in skin care that has been done over the past decade +. I’m don’t believe there is much on NR or NMN, so I think its too early to say if there are overall advantages to them.

#1141

I see. Dr. Eshel’s statement was based on what sounded like a theoretical consideration. He said something like this: “Niacinamide is recognized as a waste material of NAD usage. If there is too much in the body, it signals the body to recycle less NAD. NMN and NR don’t dampen the skin’s ability to recycle more and more NAD.” Young Goose doesn’t recommend ingesting large doses of niacinamide continuously for long periods either.
I [JamesPaul108] don’t have knowledge about this subject; I’m just reporting what Dr. Eshel said as accurately as I could, given my limited knowledge.

#1142

For red light and eyes, my major concern that if you buy some Chinese-made LED panel/mask on Amazon, do you actually trust that the power rating, energy level or other specifications?

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#1143

Yes, it’s a real problem. I don’t trust their specifications.

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#1144

Absolutely not. I did a tear down and some measurements of a 45W panel. some time ago.

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#1145

This is a very valid concern, and perhaps even more-so with tariffs that will provide an even bigger incentive to the manufacturers to skimp on quality and testing to lower costs so they can get the product into the USA or Europe at a reasonable cost.

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#1146

Never used a roller, but I have been doing microneedling using a pen device (like this: https://www.dr-pen.co.uk/) once per month for the last 10 months.

I do believe it works, quite well actually, especially for minimising deeper expression lines.

My protocol:

  1. Wash face and pat it dry. The device uses disposable, sterile microneedle cartridges.
  2. Depth of 1.75mm for most of the face, 1.0 mm in super painful areas like the temple/hairline
  3. Focus on the deeper expression lines (for me, forehead and crows feet next to eyes)
  4. I give each area multiple passes, using different directions, and rotating the pen - aiming for a large number of punctures per mm^2.
  5. Apply Cetaphil soothing and comforting cream with CICA afterwards

My thoughts:

  1. It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, for most of the face
  2. Face gets super, super red afterwards. Looks and feels like a crazy bad sunburn for at least 24h
  3. Most products you put on afterwards sting like crazy
  4. I’ve am aware there are protocols where people apply actives, vitamin C, peptides etc. To me, I am not sure I want those things actually penetrating. I am using microneedling as a way to simply stimulate a healing response and collagen formation. I wait until the epidermal barrier is repaired, then provide the “ingredients” for repair.
  5. Sometimes there will be peeling 3-4 days afterwards
  6. From day 5, you’ll definitely look good, with a nice skin texture, more even tone etc. I think there’s also some subtle inflammation and improved blood flow, so the expression line tend to “fill out” and be less pronounced.

Keen to hear any feedback or thoughts about that from others.

Other things:

  1. I’ve also been testing on places on my body, using a depth of 3.0 mm to try and break up old scar tissue, which can supposedly work according to some studies. I have a scar on my stomach and I haven’t noticed much improvement with 6x monthly sessions.
  2. I’m also testing on some “age spots” on my arms and hands, but I’ve only done 2x sessions so can’t report much yet.
  3. I’m doing my temples/hairline as a way to supposedly encourage/stimulate hair growth. This might be working, but I also use topical Minoxidil and a red light cap, so it’s hard to say whether it’s the microneedling specifically.
5 Likes
#1147

There is an interesting thought in this. I have been doing experimentation with accelerated healing which I put on my citrate poster
https://citrate.science/2024poster/poster.html

The particularly interesting photo in that (at least I think so) is the one of a vein with two punctures where the more recent one has repaired to a greater extent than the older one.

I think the reason this happens is that there is a short period of time after any damage to the body when there are very high level signals (through transcription factors probably and probably HIF 1-α) for repair, but after that the pressure for repair goes down. Hence if you maximise the ability of the body to do repair exactly when the damage is done you should get a better outcome.

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#1148

That concept definitely exists - for example ischemic pre-conditioning has been known for a few decades. If you give a mouse, rat, dog or pig a mild heart attack by ligating the coronary artery for a short time, let it recover, then give it a big heart attack, the animal does WAY better than one which has only the big heart attack. Amazingly, it also works remotely - for example, inducing leg ischaemia prior to cardiac ischemia is protective. So there is definitely an ability to ramp up the repair response, both at the level of local tissues and at the circulating factor level. Whether that’s inducible by stimuli such as nutrition, chemicals (like citrate) or exercise, I am not sure.

That said, the vein thing is really difficult to judge. I’ve had a blood sample taken from each arm at the same time before, and one bruised horribly while the other healed almost instantly.

#1149
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#1151

Intuitively this does make some sense. Our faces get the hell beat out of them by sun damage and other factors. That could be a stress for our overall bodies.

#1153

Please share more on what you did and how you judge the effectiveness. I’m wondering if full-body Tixel and laser like Bryan Johnson may have done (he liked Tixel, but not sure how much of his body he did it on) is the answer for maintaining youthful skin all over…

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#1155

Microneedling is not a one and done. It requires regular treatment, every 4-6 weeks. It’s also not feasible for the whole body. Just isn’t. I’ve done it to face and neck and it takes a long time, multiple passes in each direction. For the whole body it would take hours and blunted needle tips so multiple cartridges. Pain tolerance varies and I don’t need any numbing cream but if you do, you’d have to apply it to the whole body and that’s dangerous. Too much of it could get absorbed and really mess you up. Besides you can’t reach every spot on your body. And it requires slip so you’d need a full bottle of HA serum slathered everywhere. Also no way you could keep it all sterile after. You’d risk infection after you put your clothes on. The face and neck are easy to keep from touching anything until the channels from microneedling close. So to sum it up, you’ll only realistically do it to face and neck and maybe small specific trouble spots on your body.

And while it’s effective, it’s much more so at the superficial level — pores, fine lines, texture, hyperpigmentation etc. For anything deeper—sagging, folds—it doesn’t help. You’d need something that acts 3-4 cm deep at the level of the deep dermis and SMAS layer. Most lasers have the same limitations. Ditto for Tixel.

Some non ablative lasers like Fotona 4D can be trained very deep. Look up Fotona 4D facelift. Besides that, the deepest acting modalities are Ultherapy / hifu / ultraformer (more or less the same thing: focused ultrasound) and monopolar radiofrequency. Radiofrequency microneedling is more powerful than traditional microneedling but not as deep acting as monopolar. That’s really about it. A great superficial treatment that’s practical for the whole body is cold atmospheric plasma. It’s not painful and has some great results. Can also be used on the scalp for hair growth stimulation. IPL and CO2 lasers (fractional or otherwise) you already know about from BJ and they’re also pretty superficial acting. Q Switched ND: YAG lasers are very good for pigment removal and lip enhancement. My old one from 2017 died so I just ordered me a new one as I’m a big fan and it cost around $300.

At the end it’s about time as well as money. What’s worth doing that you can do repeatedly. I think being able to self inject opens up a whole new world of opportunities. It’s the face that needs the most TLC for people who’ve been careful about their health and weight. The body gets sunscreen from wearing clothes and that protects from most damage. Face, hands, and neck need help.

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#1156

Very curious about your before and afters!

#1157

I am very interested in your before and after pics. Thanks.

#1158

Interesting. How did you deal with sun spots using microneedling?

I also find that I don’t require numbing cream, even using a 3mm depth and full speed on my pen.

Yes, I think based on the literature every 4 weeks seems optimal for anything deeper than 1mm. You can also do lighter “nano” needling, with very limited depth, just to work the surface and increase penetration of any sort of topical treatments.

That said, I can’t imagine why anybody would want to treat their entire body with microneedling?!

#1160

Thanks for sharing that. Very informative. Many people seeking facial surgery are ill-informed about the types of surgery at the cost of results. Example:

#1162

That’s not true. Maybe you should read the studies before making false assertions like that. Many of the studies use red light therapy directly into the eyes without any eye protection at all!

It’s not couple of people. I’m a long time member of several red light groups and have read hundreds of anecdotes on the use of red light devices. I’ve seen several dozen ones reporting on benefits for the eyes, many from people using no eye protection at all. I don’t recall seeing a single report on anyone experiencing negative effects on their eyes, even though many of them are using the panels at more than the recommended exposure levels.

Go ahead. Your attitute is very annoying here anyways. In anyc ase, this is a public forum and I will keep commenting to correct the misinformation that you keep spreading if I wish. If you don’t like that then maybe you should stop spreading misinformation. I don’t do it for you in particular (or else I would have replied privately) but for many of the other members here that value my opinion and trust that maybe I know what I’m talking about given that I’ve probably spent more time researching red/NIR light therapy than almost anyone else on this forum. Note that I’m fine with people wanting to be super careful with their eyes. I understand how precious the eyes are and that many people won’t do anything that has even the slightest chance of being risky for the eyes. I’m just pointing out that it’s not as risky as most people might think, not if you’re using commercially sold panels and not doing anything ridiculous with them.

The main types of damages from red light reported in the literature are an increase in oxidative stress and damage from excessive heating of tissues. But that usually requires very long exposure times with very strong light.

I have never seen any of these effects reported in the literature on red light use on the eyes, nor have I seen any such negative reports among the hundreds of anecdotes I’ve read on red light therapy. That doesn’t mean that red/NIR light exposure couldn’t possibly cause some of these effects, but it suggests that if it were to cause such effects, it would require a lot higher doses than what you get by using commercial devices as indicated. Btw I have seen occational but very rare reports of people experiencing improvements in their prescription strength.

I’ve seen several reports similar to this. What you’re doing is most likely fine.

The minimum intensity that is necessary for the eyes to get benefits is a bit lower than that which is necessary to get benefits for the skin, although the range is wide, meaning that you can use doses similar to what you use for the skin, but you can also get benefits from using several times lower doses than that. As far as looking directly at the panels, I personally look in different directions when using the panels. A little bit directly at it, and a little bit in various directions. I do that to spread the dose around in different parts of the eyes and not concentrate it too much in one spot so as to minimize the chances of getting more than necessary in any particular area.

I get that you’re not convinced but that to me suggests you haven’t researched it enough. I too wasn’t convinced at all initially, but after looking very deeply into the literature, I became very convinced that while we can’t make perfect recommendations, we can make recommendations that have practically no risk of damage while giving decent chances of benefit. A large part of the reason for that is that the dose range that is effective and safe is pretty wide so you don’t have to find some exact perfect dose. It’s enough to be in the ballpark.

I take this personally because I have researched red/NIR light therapy a lot and don’t like seeing incorrect information thrown around and want to correct it for the benefit of the people here. I also don’t like you trying to claim I’m wrong while not providing any good reasoning for that. You keep insisting on red/NIR light therapy not being safe for the eyes, while not providing any good reasoning for thinking that is the case. You’re the one that seems to be reacting emotionally here, because your arguments are not much based on science but on the fear for the eyes, which as I keep repeating, is not so rational. It’s totally understandable since the eyes are so precious that if you have even the slightest doubt that something could damage your vision, then the normal response is usually to avoid it just in case, even if your concerns are unfounded and the evidence suggests you’re more likely to experience benefits. That’s why I don’t blame anyone for being extra careful and avoiding any amount of artificial red/NIR exposure to the eyes. However that doens’t mean I will not make a case for why things are much less of a concern than one might think at first and call out misinformation about effects on the eyes when I see them.

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#1163

The peptide one skin use is also known as decapeptide-52. I’m not keen to spend the $ on oneskin, so I’ve periodically looked for the peptide itself on online chinese marketplaces (no joy yet).

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