Archive for category: Aesthetics

Some people think of their scars as battle wounds — and they are nothing to be ashamed of, but caring for fresh wounds can help prevent them from leaving scars. 

Follow these tips from to do just that.

Keep the Wound Clean

Broken skin from a wound increases the risk of infection from germs. It will heal in stages, and dermatologists recommend keeping the wound clean throughout the entire process.

Immediately after a wound occurs, it should be kept clean. Your first instinct may be to grab a bottle of hydrogen peroxide or other antiseptic, but this could actually make scarring worse. 

Antiseptics like rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide can kill skin tissue and shouldn’t be used to clean wounds. Soap and water are the way to go, adding that you should wash and dry your hands first.

Don’t Wait Too Long to Get Stitches

Medical intervention isn’t always necessary for wounds to heal, but depending on the severity of your wound, you might benefit from getting stitches. Scars form after the wound is healed, and getting stitches can help close and heal the wound quicker. They may also help minimize the appearance of scarring.

Keep the Wound Moist

After cleaning the wound, keep it moist to prevent scars.

Keeping wounds moist results in reduced scar formation, compared with treatment in dry environments. Plenty of research has been done on wet, moist, and dry healing for scar formation, and wet or moist healing has been shown to achieve the fastest healing and least amount of scarring.

Don’t Pick at the Wound

In general, dermatologists recommend against picking at your skin under any circumstances. Whether it’s an active breakout or fresh wound, picking at it seems to make matters worse. It can worsen acne and scarring.

In addition to picking, refrain from scratching or manipulating wounds or newly formed scabs. Picking at wounds during the healing process leads to increased inflammation and scarring. It can also increase the risk of infection from bacteria on your hands.

So, let your skin recover naturally. You should only touch wounds with clean hands and only when you need to clean and moisturize them or change their dressings.

Use a Wound Dressing

A wound dressing comes into direct contact with the wound. It helps protect the wound, keep it moist, and prevent it from exposure to the surrounding environment. Dressings like bandages and gauze help keep the wound clean and should be changed often. Some dressings remove wound drainage and dead tissue when changed.

Don’t Skip Sun Protection

Ideally, everyone should wear sunscreen on a daily basis. It protects against skin cancer and sun damage. If you’re dealing with a recent wound and want to reduce the potential scarring, dermatologists say to take sun protection even more seriously.

Essentially, shielding your scar from the sun can help it fade faster. If you’ve ever gotten a tan, you’re familiar with the process of sunlight making skin appear darker, and scars are no exception to this phenomenon.

Don’t Overexert the Area

If you have a new scar, try not to move the area too much. When a scar moves, it alters its formation and turns it into a thicker or wider scar. Do your best to allow the wound to heal by not overexerting the area.

Getting Treatment for Scars 

Preventing wounds is the best way to prevent scarring, but caring for active wounds is the next best thing. Keep your wound clean and moist by washing it with warm, soapy water and using wound dressings like gauze. Once the broken skin has healed, swap out dressings for silicone gel scar sheets, which are the gold standard for minimizing fresh scars. With consistent use, you can expect to see improvements within a couple of months.

With time, scars naturally fade on their own. Yet keloid scars don’t go away. Depending on the type of scar, treatments at a dermatologist’s office may help.

Here are some treatments for scars:

• Lasers
• Dermabrasion
• Chemical peels
• Collagen or steroid injections
• Surgical revision
• Cryosurgery
• Skin grafts

Talk to our dermatologist to determine the right scar treatment for you.

Call our Patient Care Lines: (+632) 7-368 5238 l (+63) 917 862 7454 l (+63) 921 217 0517 for inquiries, questions, and appointments or talk to our consultants via LiveChat at https://shinagawa.ph so we can address and answer them for you.

Are you feeling stressed these days? You are not alone in that. The post-pandemic world seems full of bad news, and the economic climate is less than ideal, so most of us are under pressure, and that can cause undue stress. You know that stress can impact your mental health and your body, but have you ever considered what it can do to your skin?

The Acne, Eczema, and Psoriasis Connection: How Stress Affects Skin Conditions

Here, we look at symptoms of stressed skin, offering tips for managing your stress so you don’t break out, increase signs of aging, and suffer from other skin issues.

Interestingly, even as your stress can affect your skin, your skin, along with your hair follicles, can produce stress-inducing signals, creating a stress loop that can be hard to break. Both acute and chronic stress can reduce the overall health of your skin, as well as exacerbate various skin conditions, like psoriasis, eczema, acne, and hair loss. Your skin might respond to a temporarily stressful situation with flushing or sweating, but repeated exposure to stressors can have much more far-reaching consequences.

Mind-Body Wellness: Your Tools for Taming Stress and Transforming Your Skin

It might be helpful to think of the brain and skin as being a bidirectional pathway that carries stress signals back and forth. Stress triggers the production of pro-inflammatory factors like cortisol and fight-or-flight hormones, and these can send immune cells from the blood to the skin or stimulate pro-inflammatory skin cells, including mast cells, immune cells, and keratinocytes. Mast cells respond to cortisol by signaling skin receptors, and contribute to conditions like itch. Because the skin is the organ most exposed to the outside world, it is under constant attack by stressors like UV light and temperature fluctuations, as well as pollutants and other environmental stressors. What’s more, sometimes our response to skin inflammation, like scratching an itch, can cause further stress to the skin, contributing to the breakdown of the skin barrier.

Diet, Exercise, and MBTs: The Stress-Busting Trio for Happy Skin

Psychological stress can also cause skin issues, disrupting the top layer of skin and slowing its ability to repair itself. When this layer is disrupted, the skin can become irritated or wounded, chronic skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis can flare up, and acne breakouts can occur. These conditions can then cause psychosocial stress, creating a vicious cycle.

So, how can you disrupt this cycle and alleviate stress so that your skin can heal? Resolve to make this the year of reduced stress. Reducing your stress will improve your overall health, and while you might not see improvement in your skin immediately, studies have shown that stress management techniques can be beneficial to the healing of skin conditions like psoriasis. How can you manage stress? Start with a healthier lifestyle. A well-balanced diet and regular exercise can go a long way towards improving the health of virtually every system in your body. Aim for 30 minutes of exercise, at least five days a week, and load your diet with nutrient dense foods like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains.

From Meditation to Yoga: Your Guide to Unwinding and Reclaiming Your Radiance

Incorporate some mind-body therapies (MBTs) into your routine. MBTs are therapies focused on the connection between the mind and body, working to encourage the mind to influence physical function and improve health. Research indicates that these therapies can reduce some of the physiologic changes that have occurred because of stress, as well as improving your state of mind, particularly when used as part of a holistic wellness plan.

Mind-body therapies include:

 

• Meditation: Defined as “intentional attention training,” meditation tactics include focusing on a particular object, image, or word, or being mindful of the present moment, with awareness but without judgement. This practice has been shown to reduce blood pressure, anxiety, and depression, as well as improving certain skin conditions.

• Acupuncture: A component of traditional Chinese medicine, this practice involves inserting thin needles into the skin and then activating them, using either electricity or the practitioner’s hand movements. Studies by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) indicate that acupuncture can be an effective treatment for nausea, dental pain after surgery, addiction, headaches, myofascial pain, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and more. It can also reduce the levels of cortisol and other stress hormones in the body, easing anxiety and stress.

• Biofeedback: A practitioner of biofeedback takes measurements of the body’s functions and uses feedback from these measurements to formulate strategies to improve the patient’s well-being. The goal is to teach patients how to control certain bodily functions, and in so doing improve their health.

• Visualization: This practice involves controlling breathing and picturing images, ideas, and symbols or using positive thinking to achieve a desired result. It is similar to daydreaming, and by using the imagination to experience feelings like peacefulness, confidence, or motivation, it can help reduce anxiety and nervousness.

• Behavioral and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: These therapies can help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, and help reduce habits that can be damaging to the skin, like scratching or pulling out hair.

• Breathwork: By using breathing exercises to control the breath, patients can calm the body and mind. This technique can help slow racing thoughts, reducing stress and anxiety.

• Tai chi or Qigong: These martial arts practices combine slow, deliberate movements, controlled breathing, and meditation to improve circulation, balance, and alignment. They have also been shown to alleviate stress and anxiety.

• Yoga: This mind and body practice combines breathing techniques, meditation, relaxation, and physical postures. Like other types of exercise, yoga lowers stress hormone levels, increases endorphin production, and increasing blood flow to the brain. Yoga has the added benefit of elevating brain chemicals associated with lowered anxiety and improved mood.

In addition to a healthy lifestyle and mind-body practices, regular visits to a dermatologist can help improve stressed skin. When you need expert advice and help caring for your skin, reach Shinagawa Aesthetics.

Call our Patient Care Lines: (+632) 7-368 5238 l (+63) 917 862 7454 l (+63) 921 217 0517 for inquiries, questions, and appointments or talk to our consultants via LiveChat at https://shinagawa.ph so we can address and answer them for you.