Polynucleotides

They are short chains of DNA, purified from salmon or trout and processed until no cellular material from the source organism remains. What survives that purification is a gel of nucleotide fragments which the body recognises rather than rejects, and that biological familiarity is the foundation of the safety record the treatment has accumulated across roughly two decades of documented clinical use.

Introduced into the dermis, the fragments behave as a biochemical signal. They stimulate the fibroblasts responsible for producing collagen and elastin, improve the capacity of the tissue to retain water, and moderate the low-grade inflammation underlying diffuse redness and some post-inflammatory pigmentation. Nothing is being filled. The tissue is being encouraged to behave more as it previously did.

This distinction matters considerably when choosing between treatments. A dermal filler alters structural shape on the day it is administered, whereas polynucleotides alter tissue condition progressively across approximately two months. Wanting a hollow filled and wanting skin to appear less fatigued are fundamentally different problems, and they warrant correspondingly different interventions.

The periorbital region is the most frequently searched application of this treatment by a considerable margin, and it is simultaneously the most technically demanding area of the face to treat successfully. The skin there measures roughly half a millimetre in thickness, retains almost no subcutaneous fat beneath it, and anything positioned inaccurately becomes visible immediately and persists for months.

That is precisely the problem polynucleotides are well suited to addressing. They improve the intrinsic quality of the skin without introducing any material capable of sitting as a palpable lump or catching light unpredictably. Crepiness softens progressively, the surface reflects light more evenly, and the characteristic bluish discolouration produced by thin tissue overlying superficial vessels becomes considerably less conspicuous.

They will not fill a hollow. If the tear trough has genuinely lost volume, this treatment on its own will disappoint, and any honest assessment says so before you book rather than after three sessions. Some clinicians combine the two, treating the skin with polynucleotides and the volume with a small amount of filler. That is a decision for a consultation with someone who can see your face.

A session takes 30 to 45 minutes. A topical numbing cream goes on first if you want it, and most people do for the under-eye. The gel is placed with a very fine needle or a blunt cannula, in a series of small deposits across the area rather than as one injection.

You will have small raised bumps afterwards. They are the point rather than a complication: the product needs to sit in the skin to do anything. They settle over 24 to 72 hours. Bruising is possible around the eyes, more so if you bruise easily or have taken anything that thins the blood.

A course is usually three sessions, two to three weeks apart. One session is not a course, and a clinic offering a single appointment as a complete treatment is not describing the evidence accurately.

There is no before-and-after gallery on this site. No patient has consented to have their photograph published here, and borrowing someone else's result or using a stock image would misrepresent what you can expect. What follows is a description instead.

The change is in surface quality, and it is gradual. Around week four, after the second session, most people notice the skin looks less dull and holds makeup differently. By week eight, fine crepey lines are softer and the area reflects light more evenly. Under the eyes, the most common report is that people stop being asked whether they are tired.

It is a subtle result and that is the intention. Nobody should be able to identify that you have had something done. If you are looking for a visible structural change on the day, this is the wrong treatment and a consultation should tell you so.

A completed course generally holds for six to nine months. The range is wide because it is doing something indirect: the injected material itself is gone within days, and what persists is the tissue response it triggered. How long that lasts depends on your age, your skin, whether you smoke, and how much sun the area gets.

Most people who continue return for a single maintenance session every six to nine months rather than repeating the full course. Stopping does not cause a rebound or leave the skin worse than it started. It gradually returns to its own baseline.

Across the full face, the treatment addresses overall skin quality rather than any individual line. It suits dullness, a roughened or irregular surface, early crepiness, and the diffuse erythema underlying certain forms of pigmentation. It is frequently selected by patients who want demonstrable improvement without any intervention that alters their facial proportions.

It is also used on acne-scarred skin, where the aim is texture rather than the removal of a scar. Expectations matter here more than anywhere. Deep, sharply defined scarring needs resurfacing or a procedural approach, and polynucleotides on their own will not level it.

The neck and chest age conspicuously and are habitually neglected, partly because many interventions that perform reliably on the face are unsuitable in that location. The skin is thin, subject to constant movement, and has generally absorbed years of ultraviolet exposure from which the face was comparatively protected.

Polynucleotides are used here for the horizontal creping and the loss of density that make the area look older than the face above it. The improvement is in texture and thickness rather than in the deep horizontal lines, which are set by movement and will not be erased by an injectable.

The common effects are local and short-lived: small bumps for one to three days, redness, tenderness, and bruising, which is most likely around the eyes. Nothing about that list is unusual for an injectable and most people are presentable the next day.

Less common problems are the ones worth asking about. Any injection carries a small infection risk. Lumps can persist if the product is placed too superficially, which is a technique question and therefore a question about who is treating you. Allergic reaction is rare but is documented, and the source material is fish.

You should not have this treatment if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, if you have an active skin infection in the area, or if you have a known fish allergy. Tell whoever assesses you about autoimmune conditions and about anything you take that affects clotting. A practitioner who does not ask about these is not assessing you properly.

Published London prices generally run from a few hundred pounds a session, with a course of three costing more than three single sessions would suggest at some clinics and less at others. This site sets no prices and delivers no treatment, so any single figure quoted here would be invented.

What is worth knowing is how to read a quote. Ask whether it is per session or per course, whether it is per area, and what a follow-up costs. A price for one session of one area is not comparable to a course price, and clinics present both.

Be careful of a number that is far below the rest of the market. The consultation, the practitioner's training and the setting are most of what you are paying for, and they are exactly what gets removed to reach a headline price.

This site is owned by UNTIL and treats nobody. It exists to answer the question properly and then to connect you with a practitioner who can assess you in person, through UNTIL Health Concierge. There is no treatment room behind it and no clinician on its masthead, which is why you will not find a practitioner biography here.

Anyone injecting you should be a doctor, dentist, nurse or pharmacist prescriber with specific training in this treatment, working somewhere that can manage a complication. Ask what their registration is and check it on the public register. That advice holds whether or not you arrive through this site.