Episode 180 – Facial Aesthetics for Dentists

“It’s kinda cool to use something natural from the patient’s own blood…and you have a real chance at regeneration.” ~Dr. Chad Johnson

If you’re anything like other cutting-edge independent dentists, you’re always on the lookout for the next best thing to improve the lives of your patients.

Our own co-host Dr. Chad Johnson is no different!

Just back from a CE course on PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections, Dr. Chad is really, really excited. To find out why, join us for today’s episode about the most recent cutting-edge techniques that can impact the lives of your patients…and the bottom line in your practice, including:

• The difference between PRP and traditional fillers
• What opportunities dermal fillers have for your patients (and practice)
• How to market and talk to patients about treatment options

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan 0:00
Hi, Dr. Regan Robertson, CCO of Productive Dentist Academy here and I have a question for you. Are you finding it hard to get your team aligned to your vision, but you know, you deserve growth just like everybody else? That’s why we’ve created the PDA productivity workshop. For nearly 20 years PDA workshops have helped dentists just like you align their teams, get control of scheduling, and create productive practices that they love walking into every day. Just imagine how you will feel when you know your schedule is productive, your systems are humming, and your team is aligned to your vision. It’s simple, but it’s not necessarily easy. We can help visit productivedentist.com/workshop that’s productivedentist.com/workshop to secure your seats now.

Dr. Chad Johnson 0:46
I did a dermal filler class. It’s basically it was called something like you know PRP and dermal fillers, PRP, PRF. It’s a Tollygunge blood that’s centrifuged and mixed so that way you can take the plasma and use it as an injectable and so instead of using Juvederm, which is a synthetic, you know that you can use something like PRP to be able to not only make it look as though it’s pumped up, but it regenerates collagen and so I’m super excited about getting started with that with patients.

Regan 1:24
Welcome to the Everyday Practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson and my co-host, Dr. Chad Johnson and I, are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice. If you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are anything but ordinary, buckle up and listen in.

Regan 1:57
Welcome to Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. I am your host, Regan Robertson here with my co-host Dr. Chad Johnson. Dr. Chad, how are you doing today?

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:06
I’m doing well, Regan. How’re you doing co-host?

Regan 2:09
Well, I’m doing fantastic. I spent the weekend getting my own CE on, so we are learning collectively as consultants, how to become better PQ coaches, Positive Intelligence coaches, getting out of our headspace, our own self-saboteurs because everybody has self-saboteurs and how to get into our sage mind, which is the positive light side, how to tackle challenges in a positive way. So we’re, we’re going through that and I just found out two seconds ago that you two were working on your CE really,

Dr. Chad Johnson 2:45
This is kind of a casual podcast, but I wanted to bring up to bridge that one of the books that we are going to be talking about for the listener’s sake is the Arbinger Institute’s book called Leadership and Self-deception. So along the lines of what Regan was talking about, it made me reminisce about “Leadership and Self-deception” the book, so we’ll be doing that one. It’s a casual dialogue between, if I remember right, a guy who is new at the workplace, and in essence, the owner or the higher-up boss, and he kind of Yoda guides him to reflect on himself more about, you know, like how he’s doing and stuff. So, yeah, we’ll talk about that book, but yeah, I was down in Phoenix and I did a dermal filler class. It’s basically it was called something like, you know, PRP and dermal fillers, PRP, PRF. It’s a Tollygunge blood that’s centrifuged and mixed so that way you can take the plasma and use it as an injectable and so instead of using Juvederm, which is a synthetic, you know that you can use something like PRP to be able to not only make it look as though it’s clumped up, but it regenerates collagen and so I’m super excited about getting started with that with patients. I’ve been doing PRP for I don’t know, maybe 10 years, nine or 10 years, I

Regan 4:09
That’s what I thought. I thought this is nothing new to you.

Dr. Chad Johnson 4:14
It’s learning how to cook it and inject it specifically for dermal fillers and now I’ve been doing Juvederm for, oh, four years tops, maybe now, something like that, and it’s just kind of cool to be able to use something natural from the patient’s own blood and be able to inject that. So, a room guard, my buddy down in Miami did remote education the first day regarding that and then,

Regan 4:43
Oh, nice.

Dr. Chad Johnson 4:44
Yeah, and then Dr. Karen Sierra is in Phoenix and she taught the hands-on portion. So it was two days, one was a little bit more you know, one was didactic and then the next day was, the next day was hands-on where we had patients lined up and then some people wanted to do it on each other too. The first day was didactic, but then we also for the phlebotomist, she had her own blood drawn and did the facial stuff. So we did micro-needling with PRP. Um, you’ve heard it called before on what is it? The Kardashians have done vampire facials

Regan 5:23
And that’s what they say for the vampire facials.

Dr. Chad Johnson 5:26
Yep, vampire facials. So that’s what this is and it’s, it’s so cool. I just thought it was so cool to know that this is regenerative in the sense that you’re actually getting the body to heal itself, to regenerate new collagen. So that way, you know whether it’s your lips, or plumper, whether it’s acne scarring that’s filled in more, whether it’s a crease or a wrinkle in your face that you want to get rid of, even the nasal labial folds to soften that appearance and stuff like that. So yeah, pretty cool stuff. Oh, also, there was a patient that they were doing hair regrowth with the PRP And so it doesn’t regrow bald spots, but you can add it into spots that are a little less dense with hair And you can get hair density increased from that as well. So super interesting stuff. Super interesting

Regan 6:20
You said that you did Juvederm before so and you’ve done PRP but not in the aesthetic sense. Was it just for the clinical regenerative properties? You weren’t using it in an aesthetic way?

Dr. Chad Johnson 6:31
No, it’s still aesthetic, but it’s not it that’s only temporary making the appearance as though it’s regenerated but you’re not,

Regan
Like Juvederm

Dr. Chad Johndon
Correct, but with Juvederm, you’re not actually regenerating halogen. So far as I know it, like after six months, 12 months, whatever, maybe 18 months, if you’re lucky, but it’s all going to go away. Now on the contrary, with PRP, you do it a couple a few times and then there’s a possibility that you’ve grown thicker lips and collagen in your lips because you’ve regenerated the collagen into your lips. So it does got

Regan 7:15
That has got to be so attractive as an offer because of you know the the reactions that can occur with synthetics. I was going to ask you, how are you marketing? I see Botox on your website, but how are you marketing Juvederm for people?

Dr. Chad Johnson 7:33
Well, we don’t,

Regan 7:33
How does that even come up in conversation? I’m at the, I would never expect my dentist to say , ” there’s crow’s feet kind of bother you know, I could just,”

Dr. Chad Johnson 7:41
So we don’t bring it up, patients do. We, they’ll see that we have Botox stuff and because I treat Botox, TMD patients with Botox, right?

Regan
Yes, that was my assumption.

Dr. Chad Johnson
Yes, and also, that’s my favorite, one of my favorite things to do, because it really is cool to see the big-time results that patients have with Botox, but TMD patients, I mean, you that are just, you know, historically written off as just, “Oh, they’re just knots and they just need to quit squeezing their teeth, and they just need a night guard and stuff like that,” but man to actually have them come in and be like, “Wow, for three months, I have no headaches, I was a lot better.” So all that stuff, but we don’t advertise Juvederm, but what’s funny is patients will say, “Man, I wish while you were doing the Botox, you could also pump up my lips,” and I’ll go, “Well, we can,” and they’re like, “Are you serious?” We are sure. So or there’s other times, if I’m giving injections, they’re like, “Man, my lip is so numb, I wish I could like, you know, pump my lip up,” and I’m like, “Well, I could put in some Juvederm.” Now, we can go about doing that and the other cool thing is do instead of paying 300, 500 bucks, you know, for a Juvederm box does just the supplies, I can or I can drop some blood and for you know, let’s say 10 bucks of supplies, 15 bucks words worth of supplies, I can do the same cosmetic or regenerative procedure for a fraction of the cost for me, which then one could choose, do you pass that cost savings along to the patient, or is the procedure now just more affordable for you to you know, have a better bottom line? So I split the difference. So no, I don’t have a taste for it. I and I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to advertise for this facial aesthetics course because I think I’m just going to do it internally and but I don’t really want to attract, you know, a bunch of attention to this because, well, I’m busy enough as it is and so I, if I weren’t busy then I would draw attention to that because I I have, you know, steady work otherwise, this is a nice adjunct for me to add for patients and even for my team. You know, Shonda is looking forward to frown line, you know, she’s like, get rid of that thing, you know. So stuff like that.

Regan 10:16
Yeah, it would be an enormous value add. I mean, I have not. I’ve heard of Botox, but I have not heard of using PRP in this way, which is extremely exciting. Can you imagine? I mean, going in, and I know I’m gonna get my teeth clean, and my lips pumped, like sign me up, and maybe my little crow’s feet that so it wouldn’t bother me, I want those gone, gone. I mean, that would be incredible and then nobody has to know, I’m just going to the dentist.

Dr. Chad Johnson 10:43
Is Dr. Gerard was saying, you know, and then I just he’s saying, “I just tell patients, you know that, hey, you know, so far as your spouse is concerned, they see a dental bill and, and it’s quite discreet that yes, you had dentistry done, you know, because we are doctors of the head and neck and supporting structures of the smile.” There it is. So

Regan 11:05
So you can so I guess you have you were at choice. So right now, the way your practice is humming, you’re not itching for patients, like you feel you’re blessed, right? You’ve put in the hard work, so you don’t have to market it. However, as part of the story to that, why, what is your interest behind PRP? Well, I mean enough for you to go down. Let’s, let me paint the scene here and play it and I’m not playing devil’s advocate, but you you traveled specifically to Arizona to take this course I know you love Arun and listeners, I think we have another episode where you interviewed Arun as well, you could probably sit back and listen to that. So we’ve got that,

Dr. Chad Johnson 11:42
I was in Hawaii, actually that I interviewed him. I said, you know, “Come speak, I want you to podcast with me.” He said, “Yeah, sure.”

Regan 11:49
So so. So for you to travel and take this education, there is a reason behind it and you’re not and you’re not might not market it at all. So why does this intrigue you so much?

Dr. Chad Johnson 12:00
Well, I had a patient that was getting headaches, migraines. She’s a doctor and an MD and she said, “Man, the medication that I’m purchasing, this is so much more cost-effective than the medications that I’m taking for this,” and I think she’s doing Maxalt and she was like, man, I don’t know 600 or 800 bucks a month, kind of I don’t know. Yeah and so if we’re doing this, the head-neck stuff for her muscles, then she was like, “I wish around my lips, you could take care of that,” and I said, “You know, I’ve got an email from Dr. Garg about doing a course on that and I said, because, you know, dermal fillers, I’m not quite sure how that would work around your lips and stuff. He said, “Well go take the course,” and I, and Shonda and my hygienist was like, “I wish you could help me to like get rid of that frown mark there on me more too,” and so I thought you know what, this, this is crazy. So for two potential patients, I was like, “You know what, why not?” So Maria is the, I don’t know what her official title is, but you know, as COO of Dr. Guard’s implant seminars and stuff and got a hold of me for his sub-branch called Facial Aesthetics for dentists, Facial Aesthetics with an A statics for dentists and she said, “Hey, do you want to come to this course?” and I was like, “You know what, I actually do.” So funny enough, she asked. So that was a, just a good point to make, because she asked and I was like, “You know what, yeah, sign me up,” and so because I thought Phoenix is a direct flight, I’m kind of curious to how to take what I already know about PRP, and what I already know about dermal fillers and combine them so that way I’ve got more arsenal, that’s kind of what it can and I love Phoenix and I’ll tell you why. Two reasons why I love Phoenix. Number one, this is I told everyone this is casual. Okay, but in Apache Junction, which is east of Mesa, there’s a restaurant called Los Gringos Locos and they have been hand-tastic Chimichangas, fantastic Chimichangas and then also my new find was Little Miss Barbecue in Sunnyslope, right near the Phoenix Mountains, Phoenix Mountains preserved and so north of the airport, maybe 15 minutes or so. Little Miss Barbecue and that was my new find. I just love you know, I’m a foodie and I like going into different restaurants. So some barbecue and Chimichangas, yeah, it’s worth it.

Regan 14:47
These are some good names, to, they”re, they’re cleverly named restaurants.

Dr. Chad Johnson 14:52
Yes. Yes.

Regan 14:53
So, so it’s a bit assumptive on my part. Would you say my assumption is that PRP is drastically more healthier than the synthetic fillers because I’ve heard that fillers can migrate, like in your lips, like they can migrate over time and I, so PRP just seems to be working with your own body. So there’s the, it’s more, what’s your, what is your equipment? What do you, what do you need, a centrifuge?

Dr. Chad Johnson 15:18
A centrifuge, so an equipment that I now need to buy here, the PRP, you siphon off half of it and then you use the other half for liquid. You take one half and you cook it in the in the heater and it’s not that hot of a heater, it’s like 75 degrees, and it cooks for eight minutes and it’s just enough to warm it up to where it’s more like an egg yolk, and then you squish stir it back and forth between two syringes to the liquid, to get the consistency that you want depending on where you’re putting it in the face. So I just need a heater. If you’re new to PRP, you need blood drawing, you know, phlebotomy stuff and a centrifuge and needles, you know, hyper hypodermic and stuff like that to be able to inject it and draw it out of the test tubes and that and I suppose the knowledge of where to park it. Interestingly, too, I had just got done with a CD journal that and I wish I could tell everyone which one it was my apologies, but it had, it was going through the different vasculature anatomy, musculature anatomy, all this stuff like that, for you know where to park Botox, dermal fillers and everything like that. And so this was just when essentially coalescing,

Regan 16:40
It sounds really exciting. So you’ve come back are you excited to start?

Dr. Chad Johnson 16:44
Yes, I am, I, yeah, I actually am if you can’t tell, I’m like, I’m gonna can’t. Yeah, I’m super pumped about this, which is kind of why Regan we chose to talk about this just as an option and if people say I don’t want to do that, well, I’ll tell you what, next time you’re in Phoenix for a continued Ed because there’s a ton in there. Check out first off, first off if you’re in a Mexican checkout the Chimichanga at Los Gringos Locos or the barbecue, 15 minutes north of the airport before you’re heading back, at Little Miss Barbecue Sunnyslope.

Regan 17:13
So, thank you, thank you for sharing your excitement and the benefits and everything, that’s I mean, I’m I’m sure that everyone has other courses coming up. What did you call it Facial, Facial Aesthetics in dentistry?

Dr. Chad Johnson 17:24
Facial Esthetics for Dentists and of course, under his bigger umbrella of implant seminars for sure. Of which I’m a diplomat, so like, you know, I’ve done the, the, the Well, no, hold on, yeah. So you do the fellowship and the Mastership. And then the diplomats and stuff like that, just so that way people know. It seems like a lot of kinda stuff

Regan 17:46
oh, so get your heater there by June. I’ll be there. I’ll fly down in June.

Dr. Chad Johnson 17:50
Yes. Oh, I’m gonna have it. I’m gonna have it by the end of the week. It’s Monday while we’re recording here, just so people know. I’m going to have it by the end of the week.

Regan 17:59
Okay, well, I’ll check in, we’ll, we’ll follow up, we’ll follow up in a few weeks and see how it’s going. Congratulations kind of thing now.

Dr. Chad Johnson 18:06
If anyone’s kind of curious what the heater was called. It was from an Italian company called SilfrADENT, S I L F R A D E N T, Silfradent.com, and I’ve been, you know, planning on going on their website. I don’t know how much that thing cost, but it was somewhere between 1015 100 bucks. And just so people have an idea. I’m gonna look to get it

Regan 18:33
through customs. You have to actually go to Italy though. So you better tell Sarah, you have to go to Italy?

Dr. Chad Johnson 18:39
Well, I mean, if we have to, that’s a good point. I forgot about that, but it’s they have English on here. So I imagine. I don’t know, we’ll see. I’m just super pumped about it, everyone.

Regan 18:57
And that’s a wrap.

Dr. Chad Johnson 18:57
That’s it.

Regan 18:58
Alright, everybody, let us know, email us and tell us if you do things that are a little bit outside of traditional, I would call that outside of traditional dentistry.

Dr. Chad Johnson 19:08
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not it’s not, oh, it’s not witchcraft, like this stuff has a proven track record and so like holistic doesn’t necessarily mean like, listen,

Regan 19:21
Well now, well, now while you’re doing it, your assistant could be pulling tarot deck readings, they could do a tarot card reading, that would be,

Dr. Chad Johnson 19:26
Especially if they’re licensed and I don’t know, you know, it’s

Regan 19:29
It’s palm reading, palm reading, you can a little palm reading thing and, you know.

Dr. Chad Johnson 19:35
If it helps, I’m game to hear it out, you know. Alright, well, listeners, thanks for listening up and Chimichanga is the best in the nation, at Los Gringos Locos. I wanted to make sure to say three times because maybe they’ll sponsor us and if they do sponsor us, you’ll hear at the end of this commercial.

Regan 19:54
Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. Chad and I are here every week, thanks to our community of listeners just like you, and we’d love your help. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share, or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome? Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com, and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts See you next week.