Dr. Shawana Vali

And I was like, are you sleeping?

If you have anxiety, do you suffer from panic attacks?

What's your mood like?

Oh, I used to have depression.

I used to be on an SSRI.

I'm not on one anymore.

I am overthinking.

In the middle of the night, I do check my notifications.

So we're like, let's rewire you first on the inside first.

Let's work on the inflammatory cause of your acne first before we come on the outside and start contouring you unnecessarily.

Right.

So we can generically call it stress, but what stress does is it causes something called oxidative stress, so free radical damage.

It causes breakdown of collagen.

So glycation, breakdown of collagen, turns around and gives you fine lines, wrinkles, open pores, oiliness.

it can inflame your acne, rosacea, pigmentation.

But if we go back to cellular cause, pathophysiologically on a cellular level, you've got the beauty layer of the skin, which is the epidermis.

You've got the medical layer of the skin, which is the reticulodermis.

In the reticulodermis, you've got these great things called building blocks, called fibroblasts.

They produce collagen, elastin, hyaluronic acid, GAGs, all the good stuff stays in the medical layer of the skin.

By the age of 21, this is degradating.