Our team at Vitality Medical Wellness Center emphasizes education in our care, making sure patients have all the tools, knowledge, and resources they need to improve their health and wellness.
In this blog, we’ll focus on your skin health, helping you understand the basics of your skin and how you can improve your largest organ with treatments, healthy habits, and skin care in Belle Meade, TN.
The Basics of Your Skin
Before we help you understand how to care for your skin, you first need to understand how your skin works.
Your skin is the largest organ in (or should we say on) your body. It includes 3 layers: the epidermis, the dermis, and the hypodermis.
Epidermis
The epidermis is the uppermost layer of your skin. Its structure protects your body from germs and bacteria. This layer of the skin is also responsible for producing melanin and generating new skin cells.
Dermis
The dermis is the thickest layer of skin, and it produces collagen and elastin, which are 2 important proteins for skin health. This layer also houses nerve receptors, hair follicles, oil and sweat glands, and blood vessels.
Hypodermis
The hypodermis, the deepest layer of skin, stores subcutaneous fat, which helps cushion bones and muscles from impact. The connective tissue between the muscles and bones also lives here, along with blood vessels that help regulate your body temperature.
What Your Skin Does for You
We provide skin care in Belle Meade, TN, because your skin has many functions to help live well. Some of these functions include:
Sensory Indicator
Because your skin has so many nerve endings, you can touch your surroundings and feel the temperature of your environment. This helps you find an environment that’s not too hot or too cold, and blood vessels in your body allow you to better regulate your internal temperature when you are in colder or warmer environments.
When you are too hot, your body can dilate (open) blood vessels, allowing heat from your blood to distribute more evenly throughout your body. It can also stimulate your sweat glands, which can help you cool down when you start to get too hot.
Then, when you are too cold, your blood vessels will constrict more within your body, ensuring vital organs stay warm enough to maintain function. Constricted blood vessels also stimulate your natural response to shiver, which helps your body generate more heat.
Barrier Function
The skin serves as a barrier between your delicate internal organs and the rest of the world, preventing germs and bacteria from entering, and stopping water from leaving the body. It also protects you from pollutants, environmental and mechanical trauma, and UV damage from the sun.
And if any damage does occur, your skin is responsible for protecting your body while your tissues heal, using platelets to stop wound bleeding so your tissue begins the healing process.
Immunological Defense
Your skin contains antigen cells that help produce increased levels of t-cells when you experience a new infection. This leads to innate immunity, causing your body to produce peptides with antibacterial and antiviral properties.
Your skin also protects you from illness by producing vitamin D. Vitamin D enters your skin as a prohormone, but your skin has the ability to transform it into previtamin D. From there, it can either transform into metabolites that have antioxidant properties and play a large role in bone health and calcium metabolism.
How You Enhance Your Skin Health
Now that you know how your skin helps you, let’s explore how you can help your skin.
1) In-Office Skin Treatments
If you’ve already noticed damage to your skin, there’s no reason to worry! You can find many skin rejuvenation treatments to correct damage and push the “reset” button on your skin’s health. We offer many in-house skin rejuvenation treatments at Vitality Wellness.
IV Therapy
IV therapy administers a unique mixture of vitamins and nutrients directly into your bloodstream, allowing 100% absorption into the surrounding skin and tissue. This gives your body the nutrients you need to live a healthy and happy life.
Peptide Therapy
During peptide therapy, we inject short-chain amino acids called peptides into your body. These peptides help improve certain natural functions, making you feel stronger and healthier. They also help improve functions of your skin to restore your skin’s health and appearance. We also offer peptides in the form of topical creams that you can apply daily to improve the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Ozone Therapy
Ozone therapy delivers increased amounts of oxygen into your system, improving circulation throughout your body. With increased nutrients, your skin will improve both appearance and functionality.
PEMF Therapy
PEMF stimulates cellular function within your skin, muscles, and other tissues using electromagnetic pulses. These electrical signals encourage increased function of your natural healing capabilities, creating improvements in your overall health.
PRP Injections
Patients enjoy PRP injections because they leverage your blood’s natural healing capabilities through platelets. By injecting a concentrated amount of platelets into your body, this can help improve your skin’s health, reduce inflammation, and more.
Exion
Exion is a noninvasive skin rejuvenation treatment that combines targeted ultrasound and radiofrequency energy to stimulate collagen and elastin production. With more collagen and elastin, your body can repair and strengthen your skin’s cellular structure.
Emface
As another noninvasive skin rejuvenation treatment, Emface is popular for restoring volume and improving skin quality. This combines HIFES (high-intensity facial electro-stimulation) and radiofrequency to improve muscle quality and create healthier, younger-looking skin.
RF Microneedling
This treatment works just how it sounds—a combination of radiofrequency and traditional microneedling. RF microneedling greatly increases your body’s natural production of collagen and elastin, which helps make your skin healthier and happier.
LED Light Therapy
Light therapy uses different colors of LED lights to target specific concerns in the skin. Red light improves blood circulation to reduce inflammation and reduce the signs of aging, while blue light kills acne-causing bacteria. You can also purchase LED light wands to use at home as a part of your daily skincare routine.
2) At-Home Skin Care
You can implement many habits to care for your skin at home, including:
- Drinking plenty of water.
- Eating healthy and nutritious foods.
- Exercising regularly.
- Avoiding tobacco/alcohol.
- Using skin care in Belle Meade, TN.
The best way to maintain and enhance your skin health is to prevent damage from injury, UV exposure, or unhealthy habits. Your body is a system, so improving your overall health will also help your skin’s health.
You wouldn’t go to the dentist once every few months and then never brush your teeth at home (at least, we hope not). The same idea applies to caring for your skin—once you’ve hit that “reset” button and corrected past damage to your skin, you’ll need to establish healthy habits and start using skin care in Belle Meade, TN, to maintain and enhance your skin’s health every day.
Drinking Water
Staying hydrated is essential to staying healthy. Your body needs water to maintain basic function, and while water is not an instant solution to skin issues, it will help deliver nutrients, flush out toxins, and enhance your skin’s health in many other ways. Plus, staying hydrated will also boost the effects of your skin care in Belle Meade, TN.
Eating Healthy
Your skin needs lots of vitamins, which can be found in a balanced diet that prioritizes vegetables, fruits, complex carbohydrates, and healthy proteins. If you struggle with vitamin deficiencies despite choosing a balanced diet, our team offers health consultations, diagnostic testing, healthy recipes, and supplements to help you get the nutrients you need.
Stopping Unhealthy Habits
Unhealthy habits like using tobacco products, drinking alcohol, or consuming caffeine regularly can prevent you from maintaining healthy skin. We recommend either limiting or stopping these habits altogether, so your skin has the time to heal.
Using Skin Care
Another way to enhance your skin’s health, especially after undergoing in-office skin treatments, is by using skin care in Belle Meade, TN. With a regular morning and evening skincare routine, you can provide your body with extra nutrients to nourish, hydrate, and protect your skin.
One of the most important products that you need to include in your skincare regimen is sunscreen. Sunscreen protects your skin from the harmful effects of UV rays while still allowing sunlight to deliver vitamin D to your skin. We recommend using a mineral sunscreen with UV protection of SPF 30 or more. You should reapply your sunscreen about every 2 to 3 hours, even on cloudy or rainy days. If there is natural light outside, you need sunscreen.
And while sunscreen is the most important skincare product to include in your regimen, it’s also vital to have cleansers, moisturizers, and condition-specific serums. You can schedule a skincare consultation to learn about what your skin needs, and help you curate a skincare regimen that delivers healthy and glowing skin.
Experience Healthy Skin
The best thing about healing your skin? You improve both your physical appearance and your self-confidence! We can help you with in-office treatments, healthy habits, and skin care in Belle Meade, TN. You can either use our treatment planning tool or request an appointment with one of our expert providers to start exploring your best options for improving your skin’s health.
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