I tried Secret Pro, the non-surgical treatment that changes the scaffolding of the face
After reaching a milestone birthday, Laura George decided to take her skin and its assortment of plights to Professor Caitriona Ryan at the Institute of Dermatologists for the non-surgical treatment providing a revolutionary approach to skin revitalisation – Secret Pro.
I’m a soap, water, SPF and Botox girl at heart. Lazy, in other words. I’ve dabbled as you do with serums and potions, but could never make any skincare routine stick for very long. That’s not to say there haven’t been consequences: Very dark pigmentation spots (some of them the size of cannellini) primarily on the driver’s side where SPF was badly applied; enlarged pores and of course, skin laxity. The latter translates to puffy patches where my cheek fat pads have slipped as well as the inevitable crepey wrinkles under the eyes and saggy bits on the jawline and neck.
With a big birthday recently under my belt (and apparently under my chin and eyes), and a major family occasion on the horizon, I decided it was time to at least explore what steps could be taken to make things better. It took a little while to get my courage up but the new year found me chatting to Professor Caitriona Ryan at the Institute of Dermatologists to see what she’d recommend as a course of action.
It’s so interesting to talk to a professional who’s never met you: they tend to see and prioritise very different concerns. Too often people have a set idea in their heads about what they want, but it might be better served if they listened first. Just like you wouldn’t cling on to your natural birth plan if you needed an emergency C-section, you need to hear what the expert has to say and adjust accordingly.
She immediately called attention to the discolouration under my eyes, which I hadn’t consciously clocked, advising that it could be easily improved with the simple addition of a retinol to my (non-existent) skin routine. Professor Ryan explained that as we age, the skin under the eye becomes thinner, showing the vascular bed beneath, hence the dark circles. She also explained that the whole area could be tightened with a procedure called Secret Pro. It would also tackle all my other concerns. I was all ears. Secret Pro is a non-surgical treatment suitable for all ages that delivers a combination of radio frequency microneedling to stimulate collagen at the deepest levels and CO2 laser resurfacing to tackle the uppermost layers of the skin. The procedure takes about an hour for the entire face and eye area and has 4-5 days of downtime. Within a week, there is usually some improvement in skin quality but the real benefits accrue over time: in 3-6 months, new collagen will make a serious difference to the scaffolding of the face. The results last for 18 months to five years.
The “downtime” has always terrified me because I’ve always associated it with pain. So my next questions were all about that. Professor Ryan said that treating the eye area was uncomfortable but bearable while it was happening and that there wouldn’t be any pain after the procedure. I wanted desperately to believe her but still wondered if I would be the outlier who twisted in agony. I pored over before and afters on the internet and watched Professor Ryan’s video diary of getting the procedure done herself on her Instagram. The more I saw, the more confident I felt about going forward. Finally, the idea of hiding at home for a few days in a mini, self-imposed lockdown actually started to sound like an added bonus rather than a negative.
Professor Ryan cautioned that Secret Pro would best be followed up with a bit of cryotherapy and a subsequent round of IPL to really get rid of the darkest lesions. She also suggested we look at injectables at a later date.
The Institute of Dermatologists’ premises in Ballsbridge looks and feels like somewhere the Kardashians might happily rock up – in the best possible way. The medical rooms are up top, the Cosmetic Suite on the ground level. My husband dropped me off with my prescribed painkillers and antibiotics in hand and I was immediately treated to a generous slathering of numbing cream on every square inch of my face and neck. As soon as it worked its magic, my cheerful nurse and I headed into a treatment suite where she deftly inserted metal shields under my eyelids to protect them from the treatment. Some people are squeamish about this but it took a nanosecond and wasn’t at all sore.
The first pass of microneedling seemed only to take a few minutes and was minimally uncomfortable, even where I was expecting it to hurt the most, such as the eye and neck areas. I began to relax and followed the nurse’s movements closely with the handheld fan she provided but barely grasped the stress ball I’d been given. The CO2 laser wasn’t much worse, except in the eye area, where it was tender. I realised then what the ball was for. In retrospect, if I’d known that was the only pain I’d feel, and then only for mere seconds, I could’ve been much, much braver. It was honestly the only sore bit of the whole five days.
Microneedling only took a few minutes and was minimally uncomfortable.
Day 1 (day of procedure) I laid low, while keeping my head upright as instructed. At first, my skin felt extremely hot deep down – I borrowed the clinic’s fan and trained it to wherever felt the hottest (top tip: bring your own one with you). As the heat waned, certain skin areas began to feel tight and it was delicious to cover them in the Elta MD recovery gel provided.
Day 2 I woke up red and puffy but was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t look worse. Freckles began to blacken (they eventually fell off a few days later) and 24 hours after the procedure, the top layer of skin began to slough off above the lips and at the hairline and jaw. Showering felt like real progress, too.
Day 3 Threw on a hat and sunglasses (and SPF, of course) and took a walk. On close examination, the microneedling scabs appeared more visible and the track marks of the machine made the skin feel sandpapery. Nothing a generous squirt of recovery gel couldn’t address.
Day 4 Some of the scabs and more dead skin came off, revealing a few ultra-smooth patches, which were hard not to caress. The nose was first, then the lower sides of the cheeks. The rest of the sandpaper texture took another couple of days to go but disappeared completely with gentle cleansing by Day 5. It’s safe to wear light make-up at this stage but I opted for nothing but fresh air.
Day 5 Back to normal but skin texture is already visibly improved and the worst skin pigmentation has faded considerably to a point where it vanishes under the lightest tinted moisturiser. My daughter says my pores are smaller and my eyes look brighter and less tired than they looked even when I was fully rested before. Upper cheeks remain a tiny bit puffy but all in all, I’m absolutely delighted with the results so far and the real structural changes haven’t even begun to kick in.
Emboldened by my Secret Pro experience, I’ve been looking at other treatments with the Institute of Dermatologists. Platelet- Rich Plasma (PRP) uses the growth factor from your blood to amp up collagen production wherever it is injected and is really effective around the eye. Philart Next is a new injectable skin booster that combines stabilised hyaluronic acid to hydrate the skin with polynucleotides to promote collagen and elastin production. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be content with what Secret Pro delivers over the next few months… or maybe this is just the beginning.
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of IMAGE.
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