What to think about medical blepharoplasty: PLEXR, scam or reality?

What is PLEXR?

Developed by an Italian team, PLEXR stands for Plasma EXEResis. The technique makes it possible to carry out procedures that previously required surgery, with at least anaesthesia and sutures, which can sometimes give rise to complications.

It harnesses the energy of plasma, a kind of unstable gas rich in electrons and ionised particles, which has been used in medicine for 40 years. Plasma therapy delivers an ionising current as the handpiece approaches the skin, which is never touched.

During the procedure, the surgeon performs several PLEXR impact points on the face and eyelids, without exceeding one or two seconds per point.

To form this plasma arc, the practitioner creates a difference in potential between the handpiece and the skin: the gases present in the gap are ionised, and theintense energy released sublimates the epithelial cells, transforming them directly from a solid to a gaseous state.

Is PLEXR a laser technology for medical blepharoplasty?

PLEXR is often mistakenly equated with laser energy, when in fact it is quite the opposite.

Lasers use photon energy on an extremely precise, targeted coherent wave, chosen according to the desired effect: a vascular laser, an abrasive laser and a pigment laser all operate at different wavelengths, down to the nanometre.

That is why laser technology is so precise and has so many surgical indications. It is also why a high-quality medical or surgical laser is much more expensive than a PLEXR device.

PLEXR, by contrast, remains a more basic technology, less well controlled and far less precise: to put it simply, it is an extreme burn of very short duration, produced by an electric arc.

What are the risks of non-surgical blepharoplasty with PLEXR?

Reading some of the articles on medical blepharoplasty, one might think that surgical blepharoplasty, or eyelid plasty, is completely outdated.

In reality, this is not the case. As always in medicine and surgery, you have to weigh the risk/benefit ratio.

The risks of PLEXR technology, however, are numerous and perfectly well identified.

When cells are sublimated, it is easy to imagine that the energy released is very powerful, with obvious risks if it is poorly controlled.

The danger is all the greater because eyelid skin is almost 5 times thinner than the rest of the facial skin, and therefore far more fragile.

Intense inflammatory reaction

The energy generated by the plasma creates considerable inflammation, with redness and often scabbing.

While aesthetic medicine usually allows patients to resume their activities immediately, medical blepharoplasty requires them to stay out of sight, often as long as after a surgical blepharoplasty.

One of the main advantages of an aesthetic medicine treatment is therefore lost.

Complications of medical blepharoplasty are potentially serious

But the great danger of burning the eyelid tissues is that it can lead to serious and irreversible complications.

• Significant inflammation can easily generate a pigmentary reaction, known in medicine as PIH, or post- inflammatory hyperpigmentation: the inflammation triggers an influx of pigment cells, whose melanin deposits considerably darken the eyes, the opposite of the desired effect.
• Micro-burns can also lead to the formation of a succession of micro-scars, which then look like small, particularly unsightly crater-shaped holes, similar in mechanism to acne scars.

Not only are the eyes not rejuvenated, but the eyelids are indelibly marked by these micro-holes.

It is important to be aware that medical blepharoplasty is a long way from the harmlessness usually expected of aesthetic medicine.

What are the results of PLEXR for the eyelids?

Given the high risks associated with plasma energy, practitioners instinctively deliver small amounts. It is hard to blame them, since this is in fact the best way to avoid serious complications.

But it is also the surest way to obtain unsatisfactory aesthetic results. Generally speaking, the results of a medical blepharoplasty are always uncertain and disappointing, far from what we expect when rejuvenating the eyes.

Why choose surgical blepharoplasty?

Conversely surgical blepharoplasty remains a perfectly mastered procedure in the hands of an eye surgeon, with a technical and artistic precision measured in millimetres.

The best results are obtained with addition blepharoplasty, which combines two surgical procedures on the upper eyelids:

• Filling of the lost volumes, by adding small amounts of fat using micro-lipostructure or micro-lipofilling.
• An “eyelid lift”, by resection of the excess skin.

Complications after surgical blepharoplasty are exceptional, which makes it possible to rejuvenate the eyes with virtually a limited risk, for a natural look that enhances the upper face without altering the person’s identity.

The result of eyelid surgery is therefore better and safer than that of non-surgical blepharoplasty with PLEXR.