Say Goodbye to One-Size-Fits-All Cosmetic Treatment. This Boston Doc Explains What’s Best for Your Features

“My job is to ask patients what their concerns are and what their goals are, and achieve a good understanding between the patient and the care team,” explains Dr. Waleed Ezzat of Boston Center for Facial Plastics. “From there, it’s possible to reverse a lot of the signs of aging.” 

That thorough, personalized approach is the motivator behind every consultation Dr. Ezzat carries out. He uses the image of a ladder to help patients understand how cosmetic procedures can escalate in terms of what they treat and how transformative the results are—and from there, he can make a professional recommendation on where a patient should start their journey with skincare procedures.  

Read on to learn more about each step of Dr. Ezzat’s cosmetic procedure ladder, and to get started determining what’s the best choice for your goals and features. 

Step 1: A Healthy Skincare Regimen 

You can always escalate your treatments as time goes on, Dr. Ezzat says, so a conservative start is sometimes the best choice—and for the first rung of the ladder, a step as simple as practicing a comprehensive skincare routine can be more revitalizing than you might think. 

“If you don’t take care of your skin, any additional treatment you get is going to be less effective,” Dr. Ezzat explains. “It’s never too late to begin a good skincare regimen, and that gives us a basis to determine what other procedures might be best down the line.” 

So, what does a healthy skincare routine look like? According to Dr. Ezzat, there are many products available for people to use, like vitamin C serums to brighten the skin and treat fine lines, but the most critical components are moisturizer and sunscreen.  

“It’s surprising how much UV exposure we get, even when it’s not sunny,” he says. Unregulated UV exposure can not only be dangerous for your skin’s health, it can also accelerate the aging process. That’s why hydrating your skin with moisturizer and protecting it with a daily sunscreen—no matter the season or weather—are the first steps to take when looking to refresh your skin’s appearance. And once you have a consistent skincare routine under your belt, you can consider moving up the ladder. 

Step 2: Laser Skin Resurfacing, Microneedling and More 

Laser treatments are a minimally invasive treatment option to target the more superficial layers of the skin, but still, there’s a hierarchy of laser procedures in terms of how aggressive they are and what issues they address. Where a non-ablative laser treatment, like an intense pulsed light therapy (IPL), mirrors the effect of a chemical peel that rejuvenates and brightens the skin, ablative lasers are more intensive and penetrate deeper layers of the skin to stimulate collagen production and smooth out texture concerns.  

Radiofrequency microneedling, on the other hand, uses small needles to puncture the skin and introduce energy that’s tightening for the face. According to Dr. Ezzat, a microneedling treatment might be best for older skin, because it introduces energy into the deeper layers of the face and that energy stimulates collagen production for a more youthful, softer look. 

“People in their 30s and 40s tend to go for a non-ablative laser like an IPL treatment, which works great for superficial skin imperfections,” Dr. Ezzat says. “And then we can go up the ladder into microneedling and ablative lasers as a patient enters their late 40s and early 50s, when laxity in the face and neck starts to be a concern.” 

Dr. Ezzat makes recommendations according to a patient’s age, skin condition and more, and, he adds, the treatment package can become even more customized. He often “stacks” several laser procedures into one patient’s treatment course and uses them in tandem to build a robust package that optimizes results and targets different concerns at once. 

“For instance, a laser might work best for resurfacing the skin, but microneedling is best for collagen formation, so when we stack them, we’re maximizing treatment and utilizing the best of both worlds,” he says. And even better, there’s no increase in downtime when multiple of these treatments are rolled into one—so you only need a few days before you’re ready to bounce back. 

Step 3: Surgery 

Proper skincare and supplementary treatments can delay facial surgery, and some patients can avoid surgery altogether—which is why, Dr. Ezzat says, he doesn’t recruit surgical intervention until it’s the only treatment option for a patient to achieve their goals. 

“There’s a certain point when aging has progressed far enough where a minimally invasive treatment won’t give a patient a worthwhile result for their time and money,” Dr. Ezzat says.   

When performing surgery, Dr. Ezzat caters to each patient’s unique needs and aims to accentuate their features. To do that, he uses a tailored process that involves repositioning the deeper tissues in the skin that begin to sink with age, so that they’re in a more raised, youthful position. “The idea behind a facelift is not to turn you into someone different, or give you a standardized, windblown face,” Dr. Ezzat notes. “We want to give you back a younger you by repositioning the tissues in your face to the positions they were in 15 or 20 years ago.” 

And while the patient heals from their surgery, undergoing a few laser treatments to mediate sunspots and wrinkling can address the superficial signs of aging on top of the skin—so that a patient comes out with refreshed skin both below and above the surface. 

Determining when to intervene surgically and how to support that surgery with additional treatments to complement results is part of Dr. Ezzat’s responsibility to his patients: He sees his job not only as a physician, but as an educator. Through honest conversations, he prepares patients to have realistic expectations to ensure they are pleased with the outcome of their procedures.  

“Your skin is always going to be remarkably good at regenerating itself,” he says. “That’s the beauty of seeking a provider who has expertise in facial aesthetics and can help you move up and down the ladder to achieve the results best for you.” 

To get started on bringing out the best in your face through subtle and skillful enhancements, request your consultation with Dr. Ezzat at Boston Center for Facial Plastics today. 

 

 

This is a paid partnership between Boston Center for Facial Plastics and Boston Magazine