Most aesthetic patients do not manage pain easily and with an ever increasing variety of procedures and devices available that can cause discomfort or pain during treatment, delivering comfort to the patient has become even more critical. In this interview with Aesthetic Insider™ Dr. Cynthia Poulos, a plastic surgeon in Northborough, MA, discusses how she successfully manages patient pain during aesthetic treatments. Dr. Poulos has over 35 years of clinical experience and uses Numb Master from Clinical Resolution Laboratory, a one-of-a-kind breakthrough technology that allows for the most effective penetration of a topical anesthetic, to provide a higher level and more soothing experience for her patients. To learn more about Dr. Poulos, visit www.drpoulos.com. To learn more about Numb Master from Clinical Resolution Lab., Inc., visit www.SkinCareCRL.com
Which aesthetic procedures do you find benefit the most from a numbing cream?
Nearly every patient that comes in for fillers or Botox is treated with Numb Master. We like to ease any potential discomfort a patient may experience in treatments in which multiple needles are needed. Any procedure that is going to involve full face treatment is pre-treated with Numb Master thirty to forty-five minutes ahead of the procedure depending on how aggressive we want to be with the treatment or the patient’s tolerance to those treatments.
Why did you specifically choose Numb Master?
We tried numerous products over the years, and after exploring several products we found Numb Master. We love that it is a single use product and is formulated from lidocaine which means we can control the application and know if a patient is sensitive to lidocaine or not. Another wonderful benefit to the product is it’s a cream based formula, not an oily based formula, which makes the application and removal of the product ultimately easier. Additionally, the penetration of Numb Master is excellent and my staff and I agree it is an effective and profound topical.
Do you have particular protocols for use of this product? 
The protocols for Numb Master truly depend on the procedure. For example, for a Botox treatment, ten minutes is sufficient for a single area. Maximum effect typically takes place around twenty minutes, but with most of our patients we find that ten minutes is enough time to numb when we are not doing extensive work. In regards to more invasive treatments, it could take a half hour to forty-five minutes in numbing time. Patient comfort is incredibly important to us. When a patient is prepared more comfortably for a procedure, they breathe easier, they relax, their blood pressure and pulse is lower, and they typically bruise less because they are more comfortable. The cream itself is not making them bruise less, but all the benefits of their comfort level are.
Does Clinical Resolution Laboratory’s Numb Master work differently on skin types?
For my practice, it has been equally effective on thicker and thinner skin; it is universally used with efficacy across various skin types.
Does Numb Master have less toxicity because it is primarily formulated from lidocaine versus many topical numbing creams which are made with BLT (Benzocaine, Lidocaine and Tetracaine ).
The lidocaine percentage is higher, but because of its formulation, the penetration is as effective as a BLT formulation. I’m all for creating simplicity and if a patient is experiencing sensitivity then we know it is related to that one product, versus having to discern between the triple creams and dissect which product is responsible for the sensitivity because the product I’m using has one active ingredient. This product gives me more control over the process in both the application and potential patient sensitivity, and I have yet to find a patient who is sensitive to it.
Lidocaine is delivered by technology, can you explain that process?
It allows penetration through the skin layers. You want this product to penetrate as much as it can, because the more penetrations to the dermal level, the greater comfort the patient will have. The liposomal aspect of it is what allows the active ingredient to penetrate in depth through the skin surface to the dermal level which is where you want more active numbing. It has to pass through the tough surface of the skin where there is keratin which can be resistant to penetration from a product. Numb Master is truly a unique product because you get more effective penetration of the product and thus a more profound numbing.
Have you ever had any kind of patient experiences where the Numb Master had played a more significant part in helping you manage a challenging case more than you had expected?
With resurfacing types of procedures, we see more significant clinical outcome. When doing a treatment that involves a full face micro-needling with radio frequency and treating the neck and face with multiple passes, we need a reliable product that is effective and functions well for a procedure that may take an hour. It’s the heat that’s delivered that creates that collagen response, the skin tightening, the effacement of wrinkles, lines, and textural improvement. Thus, if we can do a more aggressive treatment because the patient is more comfortable, we are ultimately going to get the desired result.
Is there anything that you do in advance of a treatment such as a laser treatment or any treatment to increase the potential numbing effect of the product?
We pretreat our patients with topical retinoids and vitamin C. Those products help prepare the skin because we are decreasing some of the keratin that’s on the skin surface and are creating exfoliation. Anything that’s allows for pretreatment exfoliation is going to aid in penetration. When you remove all those old dead cells in the pretreatment phase, you’re going to achieve a more effective penetration of product and thus a more effective treatment. We try to pretreat most of our patients to their tolerance with retinoids and vitamin C and several other products to remove thekeratin layer which helps the penetration of the product.
In your practice, do you apply anything over the cream to minimize the evaporation and drying of the product?
We do not within my practice and I know that some practices do. When you are treating body areas, you must be careful with how much of the product you are applying, you don’t want to give too high of a dosage. In our experience, the topical alone works. We found that the longer you keep it on there’s a little bit of a drying effect, but it almost forms a seal. To remove the product when it’s been on longer we use warm moist towels to rehydrate the product prior to the full removal of the product.
Numb Master is made here in the USA and we have extremely high FDA quality guidelines. However, some products do come from overseas, are you concerned about not knowing quite what’s in them?
Well, you want to know that you are getting a quality product. We don’t always know what’s in the products from overseas and you could get an okay product, but how would you know? There is definitely an element of reassurance in quality when the products are made in the USA. You don’t want to get something just because it’s cheaper and you can get it outside of this country. I think we owe it to our patients to use what we know is properly manufactured; that’s extremely important to us and I’m very happy that Numb Master is made in the USA.
How important is patient care and comfort?
Frequently we will examine what we can do to make our presentation and delivery of care better for our patients. We are less concerned with the quantity of appointments we have scheduled in a day and are more concerned with providing exceptional value. It is our top mission to provide the utmost care and quality with each patient that comes through our doors.
To learn more about Dr. Cynthia Poulos visit www.drpoulos.com
To learn more about Clinical Resolution Laboratory and the Numb Master product, listeners can go to www.SkinCareCRL.com.
To listen to Dr. Poulos’s full interview at Aesthetic Insider™ Radio, CLICK HERE!