Earlier this month sk:n launched their brand new clinic in the heart of Cardiff City Centre –located on Charles street just a stone’s throw away from Queen Street.
We were lucky enough to be able to sit down with the clinics Medical Director and Consultant Dermatologist Dr Harryono Judodihardjo (Dr Harry) to talk about his career and the treatments being offered at sk:n’s Charles Street clinic.
Dr Harry revealed that he had been interested in medicine from a young age as he was an asthma sufferer as a child. This meant that he visited his doctor very regularly and this sparked an interest in him. He said: “When I first started my career, I actually wanted to become a paediatrician because I saw my paediatrician a lot. [However] I went and did a paediatrics rotation for a short while but didn’t quite enjoy it.” Instead, he discovered a passion for dermatology because he found it “quite challenging”. He explained, “there are so many different kinds of skin conditions, many of which present the same symptoms, so how do you differentiate them? That can be challenging.”
After undertaking his undergraduate training at Queen’s University Belfast, he then came to Cardiff to do his post graduate education. After completing his diploma, masters and PhD in Dermatology he lectured at Cardiff University for a while before stepping out to do his own things.
His jump into aesthetic dermatology came after attending several conferences in the US. He said, “when I first started working in dermatology there wasn’t much known about aesthetics in the UK, this was about 20 years ago…so every time I went to a conference in the US that’s what they were talking about all the time, so I wanted to bring that here.” Dr Harry then started his own clinic, the first in South Wales to offer aesthetic dermatology and lasers, and it grew from there.
Dr Harry explained why he thinks dermatology is important, saying “usually a skin disease doesn’t kill people, it has a low mortality, but people who suffer from it can find that it affects their quality of life significantly. Even from simple acne … it affects confidence and social lives.”
sk:n Charles Street offers a range of dermatological options to help treat many skin concerns. Dr Harry told us that the main focus for the clinic is “more on the aesthetic aspect of dermatology. So that is basically to restore skin damage.” This kind of damage is usually caused by the sun’s ultraviolet light which Dr Harry explained “damages the skin’s collagen” which becomes a problem as we age.
Dr Harry talked us through some of the treatments for the signs of ageing. He said, “we still see a lot of patients for Botulinum toxin (Botox®) … we can inject in a lot of places but the most common one is in the upper third of the face, so that would be the forehead, frown lines, and also in what we call the crows feet.” Dr Harry also mentioned how the loss of volume in the face can be treated: “we can replace the volume with some kind of fillers.” He explained that although there are many kinds of fillers “the one [sk:n] tends to use most contains Hyaluronic Acid, which is a type of sugar that we can inject into the skin. Sugar is already present in the skin so it’s very safe with a very low chance of an allergic reaction.”
Dr Harry also expressed how treatments such as Botox® and fillers should always be administered carefully and by a registered professional. He said “sometimes less is more. We want to create the changes but in a very subtle way, so it should just be the patient who knows about it…I think it’s a disaster if people ask my patient ‘who’s your doctor? You’ve had something done?’”
As well as treating the muscle with Botox® and creating volume with filler, the skin itself can also need treatment as we age. Dr Harry told us about the clinic’s best and latest treatment for this: “Tixel is a heating device that will heat up the skin and create a degree of inflammation to generate repair. In addition to causing superficial damage to initiate the repair process, the treatment also dissolves the top layers of the skin, helping to make it look fresh, plump and rejuvenated.”
This top layer of skin is the protective layer so when this is removed products can soak into the skin much more efficiently. Dr Harry explained that due to the size of blood vessels in the skin, when we apply ingredients only a small amount generally reaches lower depths of our skin, meaning the impact is often minimal. “The best way to treat the skin is to apply the medication through the skin and Tixel allows that by removing the top layer.”
Tixel is also great because there is very little recovery time. We were reassured that when used on the most common setting there will be no peeling, and although there may be some marks on the skin they can be covered with makeup immediately and that within a week all marks should be gone.
When asked what skincare products he thinks everyone should be using Dr Harry kept it simple saying: “In the morning you need to use sun protection and some kind of anti-oxidant as well, so I would recommend vitamin C on the skin first and then you put the sun block on top of it. In the evening treatment normally is more to stimulate the skin. So you can use some other vitamins…for stimulating the skin.”
Formerly known as Cellite, sk:n Charles Street offers a large range of dermatology and aesthetic treatments including laser hair removal, anti-ageing injectables, mole, skin tag and wart removal, HydraFacial and acne treatments as well as a range of other procedures such as liposuction and hair transplants.
If you’d like more information on Dr Harry or any of the treatments available at the clinic you can:
Visit the website: https://www.sknclinics.co.uk/clinics/the-midlands/cardiff-charles-street
Or call: 0330 037 1894
