Monthly Archives: November 2016

#jdgratitudeweek

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you Nina for allowing me to guest blog again to your skinny on skin readers. I am honored to write a blog of gratitude. Every year since Dr. Brad and I opened Johnson Dermatology with a team of 10 in 2006 (5 of our original 10 are still on team JD), we celebrated a month of gratitude during the month of November with our team. We especially thank our patients during the week of Thanksgiving. We hope you will join us this week at Johnson Dermatology as we once again say thank you and show our gratitude to you. Thank you to every single one of you who trust Johnson Dermatology for your skin needs and wants. My heart is overflowing with gratitude.

2016 is a great year for Johnson Dermatology. Just a few of the things I am grateful for this year include:

–Dr Garrett Nelson joining our team (he is such a great Dermatologist and an even better person)
–celebrating 10 years serving our community (I hope all of you joined our anniversary party in August or at least saw our video)
–adding on to our clinic building –the only LEED certified medical clinic in the great state of Arkansas

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–offering a walk in clinic on Thursday mornings
–being recognized as a Top 500 (#347) practice out of more than 37,500 practices by Allergan
–increasing the number of clinical trials we are able to offer our community–we currently are studying acne, warts, psoriasis, eczema, actinic keratosis and hidradenitis suppurativa
–adding body shaping to the services we offer. We now have more than 10 lasers, light devices and machines to make us all more skintastic
–Honey being recognized nationally for her work with psoriasis
–providing a community servant with a free full makeover valued at more than $3500
–being named a Top Core physician by Real Self –being voted again to be the Best of the Best by our community and the Times Record
–increasing our social media presence (hopefully you enjoy the Nina/Bridgett daily show on snapchat, the live Facebook videos, YouTube videos, Instagram before/after photos, Nina’s blog and our website)
–our team members growing their personal families. We celebrated quite a few weddings and births this year
–increasing the number of free skin cancer screenings we provide in our community. Our motto is “specializing in skin cancer, providing comprehensive skin care”
–increasing the number of community organizations and school groups that we partner with, contribute to and support

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Please join us this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during our gratitude week. We will have extended hours Tuesday evening (cosmetic only appointments are available by emailing dani@johnsondermatology.com or bridgett@johnsondermatology.com). Everything cosmetic is 20% off these 3 days only—products, procedures, laser treatments, peels, everything. Once again, thank you. I look forward to what 2017 brings. Thank you to all of you. Thank you Dr Brad for proposing marriage and this wonderful life 20 years ago. Thank you to my children. Thank you to my parents. Thank you to my family. Thank you to my friends. Thank you to my mentors. Thank you to my running group, we solve a lot of the world’s problems (especially mine) at 5 AM. Thank you to every patient. Most importantly, Thank you to God.

As John F Kennedy said: As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.

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Candles Not Wrinkles

I follow quite a few dermatologist and plastic surgeons on social media. I’m sure you do too. Ever heard of Dr. Pimple Popper on youtube, Dr. Miami on Snapchat or Dr. Simon Ourian on instagram (a derm with 1.3 million followers)? They are some of my favorite accounts and I’m sure yours as well. Anyway, this weekend someone (I can’t remember which account, sorry) posted a photo of a birthday cake with the caption “Put candles on your cake, not wrinkles on  your face”. Think about that for a second. It’s saying prevent yourself from getting wrinkles this year. Often times we search for treatments after we have a problem. For example, instead of eating healthy and staying active to prevent high blood pressure we make an appointment to get a pill once we already have high blood pressure. It’s no different with skin, we look for creams to erase brown spots and wrinkles not necessarily to prevent them from occuring.  I always say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and it’s so true in so many aspects of life. It is a lot easier to not go to jail then to get out of jail. It’s easy to get a flu shot but miserable to get the flu. It’s easy to use birth control, it’s hard work to raise a kid. Prevention in most cases of life is just the easy way out and your skin is no different. Truth be told, we actually prevent wrinkles more effectively than we treat wrinkles. Every single day a patient tells me “back in my day no one knew to wear sunscreen, we burned all the time”. Every. Single. Day. Therefore this post is for all my readers to be able to say “someone told me to do that and I didn’t listen” or “Nina told me to start doing this years ago and I’m 29 forever”. Here are my prevention tips to keep your skin feeling fresh forever.

  1. Wear compression stockings. I promise preventing varicose veins is so easy. Once you start wearing compression stockings you won’t want to go without them because your feet feel so much better after long days standing. I wear the tubes that go from ankle to knee available at most drug stores and Academy sports.
  2. Wear sunscreen. Such an easy step to prevent premature photoaging. The texture and color of your skin will be so much more even if you apply sunscreen to your face regularly.
  3. Use Retinol. Retinol reverses any damage you get during the day. Your skin will look dewy, refreshed and new like you were 20 again. If you are 20 and want your skin to stay the way it is start using retinol now. The difference in you and your friends skin in 10 years will be remarkable. I like SkinMedica Retinol.
  4. Start Botox. Botox is for lines in motion which develop into lines at rest. People often tell me I am too young for Botox but the truth is Botox is preventing me from making wrinkles. Starting Botox at the first sign of a line will prevent you from making a deep line at rest that actually will be much harder for us to treat in the future likely requiring laser, filler and topicals.
  5. Don’t smoke. Haven’t you heard? It increases your risk for heart disease, lung cancer, high blood pressure and WRINKLES. Plus it stinks. PLUS it’s not even cool anymore.

Now is the time to start caring for your skin. Now is the time to prevent further premature aging. Aging is a beautiful thing, I’m a different person now than I was 10 or even 5 years ago(a better person in my opinion). My kids get better and better with age. We don’t want to stop putting candles on our cakes but you can slow down the brown spots, uneven texture and uneven tone on your face! Come to Johnson Dermatology and let us educate and teach you how. Free consults with Dani and Bridgett now until Gratitude week(and you get a prize). What’s Gratitude week? Oh no big deal, just our ONLY sale of the entire year where ALL our cosmetic products and procedures are 20% off. It’s a great time to try something new so make a consult with the girls and find out what you should start!

“If you don’t change direction you may end up where you are heading”  -Lao Tzu

Grateful for all my blog readers, stay skintastic, make a skin change, Nina

The NEW Volbella

I am very blessed to be a trusted injector at Johnson Dermatology. Not just because I trained under a dermatologist that slays cosmetic dermatology world wide but because of the tool belt I get to wear every day. I don’t have just one filler or one neurotoxin available to me and my patients. We are able to offer our clients every single filler and neuromodulator that is FDA approved. But we don’t stop there, we also have radiofrequency devices, lasers, the best medical grade skin care, chemical peels and more. I literally work in the candyland of cosmetic dermatology. With that being said we are always researching and testing new products. The newest filler is called Volbella. It became available for purchase October 17th (less than a month ago) and it is steadily growing into one of my favorite tools on the tool belt. Volbella is part of the Juvederm family but it a Vycross technology more like Voluma. Vycross technology refers to the gel in which the hyaluronic acid is delivered when injected. Vycross is more tightly bound which results in longer lasting results and less initial swelling when injected. Volbella is a much thinner filler which allows us to safely inject it more superficially than Voluma. Think of Volbella for those etched in lines such as perioral lines around the mouth. Volbella is a perfect filler for someone who wants the fine lines that make their lipstick run treated but don’t want fuller lips or simply don’t need more structure of the lips. I have really liked pairing it with the other Juvederm product to soften transitional curves of the face and as the icing on the cake. I think of the thicker filler products as my cake (the structure of the skin) and Volbella as the icing on the cake (the softer outer most layer of smoothing).

Sometimes I feel like a broken record when I say one shoe does not fit all. Two people walking in asking for the same thing often actually need two completely different things to achieve optimal, natural, refreshing results. When it comes to our skin, less is not always more. You need Botox to help relax lines in motion and Filler to help volume loss, lasers to help with color and texture of the skin and skin care products to maintain and improve on a daily basis. If you only choose one modality then you may only be treating the upper face and not the lower face or  only focusing on the deep structure of the skin but not the top layer of the skin. If you don’t treat the big picture it’s like wearing flip flops with your wedding dress or a Harry Winston diamond with yoga pants-it doesn’t look right.

The best thing you can do for your skin is to get a cosmetic consult by an experienced expert. Make a plan that’s in your budget and a regimen that you can follow. I would be honored if you trusted Johnson Dermatology but even if you don’t please take into consideration who you let guide and manage your skin. I want the best for all my readers. I dream for fillers and botox to be represented in a positive light.

If you think Volbella might be for you and you want to learn more about my newest tool on my belt then call the clinic and make an appointment for a consult this week. I’m so grateful for all my readers and don’t forget we are showing our gratitude during the week of Thanksgiving with 20% off all things cosmetic at Johnson Dermatology so I hope to see you that week if not sooner!

Stay Skintastic, Nina