Which kit is right for me?

[somnolence]

I'm a 23 year old male looking to get rid of some stretch marks on my back that I managed to acquire after a lot of weightlifting and growing through my teen years. They're white, and have been for years, and run the length of my back on the right side, from my lats, down to my lumbar region. I'm not sure which kit or dermaroller would be ideal for me to try. I'm not even sure anything can be done for these, as they're so old already, but I figure it's not that expensive, and worth a shot.

Thanks in advance.

[SarahVaughter]

The good news is that even very old stretch marks can be improved. Old stretch marks often improve more with rolling and needling than fresh ones. You just need patience and perseverance. Do not expect the stretch marks to disappear. That is unrealistic - unless they are very shallow. Stretch marks are very deep cracks in the skin in most cases. The male skin is thicker than female skin and the skin on the back is very thick. That’s why you need a 2 mm roller kit with the single needles and vit. C and the Infadolan ointment. It will be a bit painful. You can numb with an ice pack or you can use our numbing cream (EMLA).

We have temporarily run out of 2 mm rollers though, but new ones are on their way and expected in a couple of weeks. Check back around that time to see them appear again in our web store.

[somnolence]

Thank you for the reply, Sarah. I'll check back in a few weeks.

[somnolence]

Sarah, I went ahead and ordered a 2mm roller with the ascorbic acid and some infadolan. I had one question regarding rolling - at what speed should one roll? I'm going to be using this for those stretch marks on my back. I know to go horizontal, vertical, and diagonal about eight times each, and I'm going to assume a moderate pressure and speed is appropriate. I just want to check to be sure before I start using it.

Also, should I really wait about six weeks between treatments of the area? I understand these needles are thick, so there will be more healing that needs to occur, but that seems like a HUGE lapse of time between treatments.

Thanks in advance.

[SarahVaughter]

The rolling speed is not relevant. You should not roll extremely fast though, for if a needle would be bent, you would do less damage if you were to roll slower.

Yes, as we write everywhere, in our instuctions, in our articles and here on the forum, six weeks is the absolute maximum when rolling with 2 mm needles. Any more rolling and you can do damage to your skin and you will interfere with proper regeneration. However on thick skin on the back, you can roll once a month with that needle length.

I don't understand what you mean by "these needles are thick".. Perhaps you meant long? They are not thick, they are 0.25 mm thick - the perfect thickness for micro-needling, as explained in a recent forum posting. There is a dermaroller vendor aggressively advertising that every other roller's needles are too thick, but in fact it's a marketing gimmick and by having a roller with thinner needles, they hope to capture a significant chunk of the market. Thinner needles than 0.25 mm simply won't have much of an effect. 0.25 is what the plastic surgeons use, and they pay a small fortune for their rollers, being able to use any roller they like. They like 0.25 mm.

It takes approx. three months for the skin healing process to be fully completed. It is possible and even extremely likely that those people who now say that 0.25 mm needles are "too thick", that they have been following the downright irresponsible advice to roll much more often with a 1.5 mm roller. We get emails nowadays from people that rolled with 1.5 mm every day and their skin is in a state of permanent inflammation. A roller´s needles have a conic shape. The thickest part is 0.25 mm and the tip is the thinnest.   Please follow our advice - it's based on two years of medical literature research. Roll with exactly 0.25 mm thick needles. Not thinner, not thicker. Roll exactly as often as we say you should. Not more, not less :-)

[somnolence]

SarahVaughter;695 wrote: The rolling speed is not relevant. You should not roll extremely fast though, for if a needle would be bent, you would do less damage if you were to roll slower.

Yes, as we write everywhere, in our instuctions, in our articles and here on the forum, six weeks is the absolute maximum when rolling with 2 mm needles. Any more rolling and you can do damage to your skin and you will interfere with proper regeneration. However on thick skin on the back, you can roll once a month with that needle length.

I don't understand what you mean by "these needles are thick".. Perhaps you meant long? They are not thick, they are 0.25 mm thick - the perfect thickness for micro-needling, as explained in a recent forum posting. There is a dermaroller vendor aggressively advertising that every other roller's needles are too thick, but in fact it's a marketing gimmick and by having a roller with thinner needles, they hope to capture a significant chunk of the market. Thinner needles than 0.25 mm simply won't have much of an effect. 0.25 is what the plastic surgeons use, and they pay a small fortune for their rollers, being able to use any roller they like. They like 0.25 mm.

It takes approx. three months for the skin healing process to be fully completed. It is possible and even extremely likely that those people who now say that 0.25 mm needles are "too thick", that they have been following the downright irresponsible advice to roll much more often with a 1.5 mm roller. We get emails nowadays from people that rolled with 1.5 mm every day and their skin is in a state of permanent inflammation. A roller´s needles have a conic shape. The thickest part is 0.25 mm and the tip is the thinnest.   Please follow our advice - it's based on two years of medical literature research. Roll with exactly 0.25 mm thick needles. Not thinner, not thicker. Roll exactly as often as we say you should. Not more, not less :-)

 

Yes, that's right, my mistake. I meant long, not thick.

You mention medical literature the advice is based on - would you mind giving me the references for those? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks again.

[SarahVaughter]

From the patent for the Dermaroller™ we can learn that 0.25 is a suitable diameter, within the limits of what the patent says is "proven suitable":

 

   https://http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0118698.html

     

  "6. Device according to claim 5, wherein the diameter of the needles (5) outside of the point area (6) is between  0.15 and 0.3 mm."

   

  "In the remaining area of the needle, outside of  the point area, diameters between 0.15 and 0.3 mm have proven suitable."

   

"Outside of the point area" means the needle shaft. The patent implies that a needle width of 0.31 mm is unsuitable, and microneedling experts say that this is due to scarring. 0.25 is well below that diameter.

It's generally accepted wisdom amongst micro-needling professionals that 0.25 is the perfect diameter:

https://http://www.scar-reduction.com/needling.html

   

  "In my experience, 0.25mm needle diameter is the maximum that can be used without causing a new scar in the skin. Smaller diameter needle skin rollers can be used but do not maximise the dermal injury and therefore will be slower to produce results."

The medical doctors and dermatologists who opined this on that site have no financial stake in the sales of any commercial roller model - they are purchasers, not sellers of dermarollers.

I want to add that the real inventor of the Dermaroller™ is not Horst Liebl but Dr. Des Fernandes. He is a plastic surgeon and micro-needling expert with a practice in South Africa. He uses 0.25 mm needles. Dr. Fernandes is probaly the world's most experienced plasic surgeon in the field of dermarolling, having treated many patients over many years. I don't have all his PDF's here, neither am I going to search them all for where he mentions that 0.25 is the ideal diameter, but you can of course ask him if you don't believe me :-)

0.3 is just too risky. Lower than 0.25 and there is little effect. 0.25 is the ideal diameter.

The site dermaroller.de (by the patent holders) also mentioned 0.25 mm as the ideal diameter, but they recently removed a lot of technical background - including that statement - because, as they said, competing websites were copying their material. If you want to do some of the research into the ideal needle diameter yourself and are prepared to pay for the published, copyrighted data, you could use citeseer.com to find the actual clinical studies. You can also use the wayback machine to find old pages of websites:

https://http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

[somnolence]

One last question for now, Sarah - I also realize that I've got some stretch marks on my anterior deltoids. They're relatively new, still purple. I just wanted to ask what roller I should use on those. I'm going to assume that the 2mm roller I have for my back is too large for this area, but if it's a possibility, I'm a college student, so I'd prefer to save if I could, but I don't want to do more harm than good.

[SarahVaughter]

The skin on the deltoids is also quite thick, no problem using a 2 mm roller. You can regulate the depth of penetration by controlling the force with which you push the roller head down. The skin is thin on the neck, on the top of the collarbones and in the armpits but deltoids are no problem with 2 mm, especially not on male skin.