Why do you need Skin Needling?

By Dr Matthias Aust

QUESTION: How did you hear about Skin Needling?

ANSWER: When I used to live in Cape Town as a young medical student and doctor, everybody was talking about Dr. Des Fernandes and his excellent work. I had the luck to meet him once and he told me about needling. It was difficult for me to believe that simple pinpricks can make these changes so I decided to research it and the results impressed me and made me believe even more.

QUESTION: What has been the most satisfying thing for you in being able to offer this procedure to your patients?

ANSWER: It is unique in that the work is done by the human body itself after simple stimulation. For me, as a Plastic Surgeon,
it is about so much more than just ‘looking better’. It is about regenerating healthy skin in a natural way. I don’t know of any other way to make skin or any other tissue grow and repair itself in this way.

QUESTION: What do you believe is the future of CIT?

ANSWER: It seems to me that the plastic surgery of the future will become much less invasive and far more natural. That means any kind of ‘body own help’ like platelet-rich plasma, fat transfer and definitely needling will become more and more important.



QUESTION: Can Skin Needling replace a facelift?

ANSWER: No! Needling will never be able to tighten skin as much as a facelift can. However a facelift can never improve the quality of the skin in the way that needling can. Lifting poor quality skin is unlikely to make a patient as happy as giving them better skin. In such an incidence I would have to judge my patient’s expectations and act accordingly, but I prefer a natural approach where the body does the work by itself, after the stimulation of CIT.

QUESTION: In 2010 you were awarded the European Burn Association prize for your work with needling burn victims. What made you particularly interested in burns?

ANSWER: I am a doctor. It is my wish and my duty to help my patients to enjoy a better quality of life and to be as healthy as possible in every way. Burns are amongst the most disfiguring of all scars and they produce, at the end of the day, far less functional skin. Burn victims become sensitive to the sun, their scars are frequently restrictive in that they are less elastic. Many burn victims find their skin ‘pulls’ their features, feels tight and is uncomfortable. We have seen how much needling improves the condition of healthy skin, and so I asked myself why should it not work to help improve any kind of scar and skin atopy.

QUESTION: Can CIT restore nerve function in ‘dead’ scars?

ANSWER: Many patients tell us that after needling they feel better sensation and less pain in their scar. This is an area for further research, but I think it is a very interesting idea. If needling can encourage the body to repair itself without scars, perhaps it could encourage other types of tissue regeneration too.



Dr Matthias Aust MD, Associate Professor is one of the leading researchers in the field of anti-aging medicine, his experimental and clinical research focuses on skin regeneration, rejuvenation, wrinkle and scar treatment by skin needling and other strategies in anti aging medicine. He is a co-author of ‘Why You Need Skin Needling.’