No surgery, no fillers… just this game-changing peel! (must-see results) [Shannon O'Brien, MD, Portland]

Eva Sheie (00:00):
You're listening to where before meets after.

Dr. O'Brien (00:03):
Hi, I'm Shannon O'Brien. I'm a plastic surgeon in Portland, Oregon at Portland Plastic Surgery Group.

Eva Sheie (00:09):
Would you do it yourself?

Dr. O'Brien (00:11):
I would. I actually asked him specifically, am I ready? And his answer was something to the effect that everyone could be a peel candidate, but obviously there are more specific goals and so I'm not really quite ready for it, but absolutely would have it done. It's very exciting.

Eva Sheie (00:31):
So who would be, quote, unquote, ready? What kind of person is that?

Dr. O'Brien (00:36):
Well, there are a number of things that the peel treats, including sunspots, hyperpigmentation, acne, scarring, wrinkles, which is the most difficult thing to treat. It actually treats wrinkles that are fairly deep. A little bit of skin laxity, which kind of goes with wrinkles, but some people have laxity without really having a lot of lines. It changes pore size. It actually probably erases some superficial sun damage that could even be pre-cancerous, although there's no scientific proof that goes away. We do know that the top layer of the skin, the top layers of the skin are removed, and so it may even treat that adequately for many, certainly improves it.

Eva Sheie (01:23):
The most logical next question anyone would ask is does it really work?

Dr. O'Brien (01:29):
Yes, it works.

Eva Sheie (01:30):
Was this one of your patients?

Dr. O'Brien (01:32):
It's one of my patients, yes.

Eva Sheie (01:33):
All right. Can you tell us her story?

Dr. O'Brien (01:34):
So she lost some weight and also had reached an age where her elasticity in her skin had changed. She has some little sunspots. She just was feeling like she was seeing her lines and wrinkles. And the most difficult area to treat of the skin is the area around the mouth, kind of in between the nasal labial lines, in between the marionettes, we call them the commissures, but the corners of the mouth. That whole area is very difficult to treat with anything else. And we have long used Botox and fillers and lighter resurfacing options to try to in combination correct those areas. And so she was really bothered by that area around her mouth and also starting to see some aging around her eyes, her forehead, her glabella, those lines up there between your eyebrows and was interested in having some resurfacing and trying to get any amount of skin tightening that we could, although that is probably realistically somewhere between 20 and 30% skin tightening. Those were our goals.

Eva Sheie (02:47):
Did she know what she wanted when she came in to see you, or did you steer her toward this peel?

Dr. O'Brien (02:53):
Well, so I do facial surgery including facelifts, and so we discussed surgery versus this peel as two ways to approach some of her concerns. The beauty of a facelift is it gets rid of excess skin and it allows us to reposition structures to support fat pockets and things like that. But a facelift does not address the area around the mouth and it doesn't address crow's feet and other things adequately. And so that area around her mouth being her biggest concern, I felt like if she was going to pick something, this peel was probably going to be her best first option. And then if she decides to come back and do surgery at some point, she can do that. But that was our goal and the reason for sort of leaning toward the peel as a first option for her.

Eva Sheie (03:52):
You didn't do anything else. She did not have surgery.

Dr. O'Brien (03:55):
She had no surgery.

Eva Sheie (03:55):
But she looks like a completely different person.

Dr. O'Brien (03:59):
Very refreshed. She looks very refreshed. Yeah, significant change.

Eva Sheie (04:04):
And so what's her reaction been?

Dr. O'Brien (04:06):
She's very happy. She looks back at pictures and is very pleased with her results. She feels like it was worth it.

Eva Sheie (04:15):
You don't see an after photo where you can tell somebody's happy very often. And it's pretty obvious here that she is.

Dr. O'Brien (04:23):
Yeah, she's a very positive person at baseline, but she is definitely pleased with her results. Yeah.

Eva Sheie (04:31):
Okay. Let's look at her other angles here. What do you see here that we should notice as well?

Dr. O'Brien (04:37):
I will say she's smiling slightly in the second picture, which changes a little bit, but what you can clearly see are the lines around her on her forehead, the shine of her skin. The pigmentation changes are significantly gone. On her chin itself, you can see that the cobbling of the skin on her chin and some of the lines around her nose are significantly improved. There are some lateral lines below the corner of her mouth that even with the smile were present before, even when she animated, that are not present in the after picture. The area around her eyes as well, you can see some tightening of the skin on the eyelids, which I also treat at the time, and a little bit of smoothing to the lower eyelid as well. And then again, with her smile, we see a little bit of lines around the eyes, but when we see her relaxed, those lines are significantly improved if not gone.

(05:35):
I think this is a good angle and it being closer, you can really see the changes of the skin. All the way at the top, you can't quite see her crow's feet area, which is improved, it doesn't fan down onto the cheek as much. But what we can see very well is the area around her mouth, her chin, the lip lines are significantly improved. As you come down the nasal labial fold and marionette lines, way less skin laxity, much more tightness of the skin along the jawline. And then it's extremely obvious how much her skin is refreshed and rejuvenated just in its texture, it's color. There's a nicer, brighter, more vascular complexion to it as far as the shine to it, whereas it had been a bit flatter in its tone and definitely had some more hyperpigmentation in the upper picture before picture.

Eva Sheie (06:33):
If it sounds like a good idea, and I'm listening today and I want to schedule a consultation for this, what should I do?

Dr. O'Brien (06:39):
If you want to schedule an appointment for a Luxe peel, you would call us at Portland Plastic Surgery Group. Our number's 5 0 3 2 9 2 9 2 0 0.

Eva Sheie (06:50):
Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Eva Sheie. Follow the show and submit questions for our experts at wherebeforemeetsafter.com. Where Before Meets After is a production of The Axis.