How Does PDO Thread Lift Work?

Plastic surgery gives you an extremely effective way to roll back the years, giving you tighter, smoother, more youthful-looking skin. But it does come with downtime. If your schedule doesn’t allow for a postoperative recovery period, you’ll be glad to know there’s another skin-lifting treatment you can consider.

What PDO threads are and how they work

PDO threads have been used for decades, although they only recently became a widely used cosmetic treatment. Historically, medical practitioners used these threads as sutures during surgery. That’s because they can be safely absorbed by your body over time.

Unlike the PDO threads used for surgical sutures, Dr. Pastorek primarily uses PDO threads that have directional barbs or twists along them. He places these threads wherever your skin needs a lifting and tightening effect.

He uses a specialized cannula to place the thread in the desired location. Once in place, the barbs or twists anchor the thread, ensuring that it can lift your skin to the desired location.

But that’s not all. The placement of the thread itself triggers your skin to produce collagen, the protein that keeps your skin smooth and tight. As your skin slowly absorbs the thread in the coming months, it’s replaced by a new network of collagen. This means the results from a PDO thread lift can last a year or more.

How Does A PDO Thread Lift Work?

A few different kinds of PDO thread lift are available, but this one is used on your midface region from your chin to your cheeks. It also uses a particular kind of thread. PDO stands for polydioxanone. It is used for its ability to stimulate natural regenerative properties of the body. This is the same kind of thread used for cardiovascular surgeries.

Advantageous though thread lifts are, it's important for patients to maintain realistic expectations for this procedure. While thread lifts certainly produce visible changes, they will generally only lift the face by a few millimeters; as such, they create a more subtle and natural looking end result than facelift surgery. Thread lifts are therefore best suited to patients who are dealing with mild to moderate, rather than severe, signs of skin laxity.