NeoGen Recovery Day by Day: What the Studies Recorded

Nitrogen plasma gets described as a low-downtime treatment. The published studies recorded what happens to skin day by day, and every figure in this article comes from them.

Two protocols, two recoveries

NeoGen has no single recovery. The device runs across a wide energy range and the recovery scales with it.

Lower energy, which at our clinic means up to 1.5 joules, comes as a course of sessions three to six weeks apart. Each session is milder and each recovery is shorter. There are more of them.

Higher energy, above 1.5 joules, does more in one visit and asks more of the following week. Your clinician applies topical anaesthetic first.

Which one applies to you is settled at consultation, weighed against what you’ve come in about and how your skin behaves. It changes the price, and it changes the week afterwards.

The day of treatment

Expect warmth and a series of pulses. At lower settings most patients describe this as uncomfortable rather than painful. Higher settings are a different experience: the high-energy acne scarring study treated patients at 3.5 to 4.0 joules with anaesthetic support in place.

Straight afterwards your skin is red, hot and tight, much like sunburn. Some tightening shows on the day as collagen contracts in response to the heat, though that isn’t your final result.

Days one to three

Your skin darkens. Few patients are prepared for this stage, and it’s the most normal thing in this guide. At higher energies the treated area takes on a bronzed, leathery look before anything comes away.

The treated surface is drying out and staying put. That’s the mechanism doing its work, and that dried layer is why nitrogen plasma leaves no open wound. It acts as a natural dressing while new skin forms underneath.

Don’t pick it, and don’t exfoliate it. Strip that layer off early and you expose new skin before it’s ready, which is how patients end up with a pigmentation problem or a mark that outlasts everything the treatment gained them.

Days three to six

The layer starts to flake and separate, usually beginning around the mouth and nose and spreading outward. It’s uneven, and it looks worse to you in the mirror than it does to anybody else.

The published figures for this stage:

• The low-energy study of eight patients given three treatments recorded re-epithelialisation complete at four days, with patients assessing redness as lasting six days on average.
• In that same study, recovery after the first session took nine days, against four and five days for the second and third. Your first session is the longest one.
• The high-energy study recorded re-epithelialisation complete at four to six days.

Plan for most of a week after a first session, and around four to six days after later ones.

Week two onward

New skin is exposed, and it’ll be pink, sensitive and easily irritated. Redness settles over the following days, though it persists longer in some patients. Sun protection isn’t optional at this stage, because newly re-epithelialised skin burns readily and pigments readily.

Your result arrives well after your recovery finishes. Collagen remodelling continues over months. The low-energy study found a band of new collagen at a mean depth of 72.3 microns on biopsy three months after treatment, and the studies that followed patients to six months were still measuring objective improvement at that point.

How to plan around it

• Book a quiet week, particularly for a first session.
• Keep it well clear of any event. Count back from the date and leave more room than you think you need.
• Expect to look like you’ve had something done, around the eyes especially, for the best part of a week.
• Plan the whole course. Sessions sit three to six weeks apart and the manufacturer’s protocol runs to three to six of them, so you’re committing across months.
• Sessions are planned around our Energist trainer’s clinic days. Energist’s head of UK training oversees every NeoGen treatment through the introductory period, and your clinician maps the course out with you at consultation.

What isn’t normal

Redness, dryness, tightness, bronzing and flaking are all expected. Ring the clinic if you have spreading pain, swelling that worsens after the first few days, discharge, or anything that looks like a cold sore developing. If you’re prone to cold sores, do tell us before we book you in.

Frequently asked questions