The Intricacies of PDO Threads: Proper Training, Materials, and Industry Insights

All threads come in different sizes. They come in different  USP sizes, which is the size of the thread. Now, the average person, they see the gauge of the cannula, and they see an 18 gauge cannula. They think, the thread inside is an 18 or a little bit smaller, maybe a 19 gauge to fit that cannula.

 Not all companies are the same and that is not always the case. Anytime you have a molded thread with bigger, barbs or little arrowhead pieces on them you have a thicker product. It is designed to be used differently. The thicker the product, the longer it's going to last.

 Now, if you insert a molded thread incorrectly, it's going to take a long time for that to dissolve, and that's undesirable, but if you're using a lifting thread, you want that thread to last a long time. That is a desirable outcome. So it's important to know what's actually in your cannula and which thread to pick for which job that you're doing. 

 Common Misconceptions and Training Issues

 You've, worked with quite a few thread companies, have you heard any type of,  narrative that  you see as actually hurting our clients, hurting our practitioners from even, liking threads in general, or even liking PDO or getting the confusion between, Oh, well I've used threads before.

 It was just a terrible experience. I never want to use threads again and they just assume it's PDO or they just assume  it was the same thread.  Well, yes, but most of the time it is from poor training as opposed to the actual product that they're putting in someone's face because we hope that all of the people we're working with are using FDA approved products.

 Les Encres is FDA approved. If it's FDA approved, the one thing you know is that if it's a PDO thread, it's a PDO material in the cannula, which is a safe product to use because it dissolves in the skin in four to six months. So, the biggest thing I see that really causes people not to get good results or not to want to use threads is because they were not trained properly.

 Proper Techniques and Planes for Thread Insertion

 They're not in the correct, plane of skin. the correct plane is the dermal layer, Where collagen and fibrin is built.  If you're not in that plane, if you go too superficial, you're going to see the thread. If you go too deep, basically you're just not doing any good because it's gone too deep.

 It's in the fat layer. It's not actually pulling and lifting. It's dissolving. There's no collagen being built because it's not in the right plane.  

 Pain Management and Thread Migration

 They will actually put lidocaine to the end of a cannula and shoot lidocaine into the track as they're laying down the thread and I don't ever do this because two reasons the biggest reason is If you're not in the dermal layer and you go too superficial, it's going to hurt.

 The client is going to know because there's more nerve endings towards the epidermis of the skin. That tells you adjust your, trajectory and move smoothly. If you go too deep, you're getting into the nerve bed and it's going to hurt. If you numb that whole track, you have no way to know if you're staying in the plane.

 if you, uh, flood it and use too much liquid, then the barbs will not  connect into the tissue, so it's going to float around in there and that will cause you to have a thread that migrates. It will also cause you not to get pull with a thread. So if you're inserting correctly, then you know that it's not going to hurt

 and if you are an advanced injector and have had the training on Sculptra, Radiesse, and some of the other products that use cannula, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's the same principle with threads.  I see that a lot where they're saying, Hey, my thread is migrating.  

 One of the things that I do lik