Your dermis gives your skin its structure. It is a living layer of the skin, where we find fibroblast cells, blood vessels, nerves, sweat glands, sebaceous glands (oil-secreting glands), hair follicles & pigmentation deposits. Your dermis is the part of your skin that makes it look plump, shiny & strong.
The fibroblast is probably the most important cell in your dermis, particularly when it comes to structure, strength & volume. From the age of 25 our fibroblasts become lazy, producing less collagen & elastin over time so that we actually lose around 1% of our collagen each year. This leads to thinner, weaker skin, that is prone to dryness, wrinkling and textural problems.
A compromised or weak dermis, with decreased fibroblast activity, will display one or more of the following:
- wrinkles
- scarring
- thin skin
- folds
- elastosis
- poikiloderma
- broken capillaries (telangiectasia)
- deep pigmentation
- fine lines
How can you improve your dermis?
Modern science has found that the most simple way to stimulate & thereby improve your dermis, is to simulate an injury to it. Your body perceives the injury, & this sets off a cascade of responses designed to repair it. What we have discovered is that even the tiniest of injuries will stimulate an inflammatory response & will activate your fibroblasts to produce more collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid!
Dermal Microneedling, Radiofrequency & (some) Lasers work similarly in that they all create controlled micro-injuries to the dermis, stimulating the body to remove damaged tissue & replace it with new collagen, elastin & hyaluronic acid. Your doctor or skin therapist will recommend one of these treatments by assessing the problem your dermis has as well as the tone & condition of your skin.
Since the dermis has a blood supply & nerves in it, these treatments can cause a bit of discomfort & bleeding. Due to the “damage” these treatments intentionally create, your skin will be inflamed after these treatments, & you may experience a little bit of downtime after them. (To read more on what a Dermapen treatment feels like, click here)
To make an appointment for a skin assessment please call (021) 6833048 ext 1, or email Sally on sally@capeaesthetics.co.za
[…] that we find varying depths of fat, muscles, and of course bone. While your epidermis and dermis should be kept in optimal health to maintain the visible and functional integrity of your skin, we […]
Hi! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us beneficial information to work on. You have done a wonderful job!
Hello there! I could have sworn I’ve been to this site before but after browsing through a few of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Anyhow, I’m certainly happy I came across it and I’ll be bookmarking it and checking back regularly!
Remarkable issues here. I am very satisfied to look your article. Thank you a lot and I’m having a look forward to touch you. Will you kindly drop me a e-mail?
Having read this I thought it was extremely informative. I appreciate you taking the time and energy to put this article together. I once again find myself personally spending way too much time both reading and posting comments. But so what, it was still worth it!