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Written by Rosalie Orrostieta, MSN, APRN, FNP-C
Medically Reviewed for Accuracy and Safety by Rosalie Orrostieta, MSN, APRN, FNP-C
Last Updated: October 31, 2025
Let’s have a little real talk, shall we?
In my years working in health and beauty, and certainly in my own life as a woman, there are few things that bring up vulnerability quite like stretch marks.
I’ve sat across from so many incredible people here at Rose Medical Aesthetics in Sarasota, new moms whose bodies have performed miracles, athletes who built muscle quickly, or just everyday folks whose weight fluctuated and seen the exact same look in their eyes when they show me their stomachs or thighs.
It’s a mix of frustration and resignation. They almost always say the same thing: “Rosalie, I’ve tried every cream. I’ve spent a fortune on oils. Nothing works. am I stuck with these forever?”
Hearing that always tugs at my heartstring because I know how much these “tiger stripes” can affect your confidence. You stop wearing two-piece swimsuits. You turn the lights down low. You feel like your skin isn’t your own anymore.
Here is the honest, medical truth that I tell every single patient: No topical cream sitting on your bathroom counter is going to fix a stretch mark. It just can’t.
We aren’t just hoping for the best with lotions anymore. We are physically repairing the skin. Let’s dive into how we actually tackle stretch marks here at the clinic.
From Morpheus8 to PRP: The Science Behind Skin Repair
Before we talk about the solutions, we need to understand the problem. Why do creams fail?
Think of your skin like a high-quality mattress. The top layer, the part you touch and apply lotion to is the sheets. The layer underneath, the dermis, is the mattress itself, full of supportive springs and foam (collagen and elastin).
A stretch mark happens when your body grows faster than your skin can keep up. The “mattress” underneath actually tears. The supportive springs snap. The top layer of skin sinks into that tear, creating the indentation and texture you see.
Applying cocoa butter to a stretch mark is like trying to fix a broken mattress spring by smoothing out the bedsheets. It feels nice, but it doesn’t address the structural damage underneath.
To truly improve a stretch mark, we have to bypass the surface and get down into the dermis to repair those broken springs. We have to force your body to “knit” the tear back together with fresh, new collagen.
At Rose Medical Aesthetics, we don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. We use a toolbox of advanced treatments, specifically Morpheus8, SkinPen Microneedling, PRP, and lasers to rebuild your skin from the inside out.
The “Heavy Lifter”: Morpheus8 RF Microneedling
If you’ve been researching aesthetic treatments lately, you’ve probably heard the buzz surrounding Morpheus8. It is, hands down, one of my favorite treatments in the clinic right now, especially for stubborn stretch marks on the abdomen, thighs, or hips.
Morpheus8 is a powerhouse because it combines two proven technologies: microneedling and Radiofrequency (RF) energy.
How It Repairs the Mark
Imagine Morpheus8 as a highly sophisticated stamping device. It has tiny, gold-plated needles that penetrate deep into the skin much deeper than traditional microneedling.
As those needles enter the skin, they do two things simultaneously:
- Mechanical Repair: The physical action of the needles breaks up the old, damaged scar tissue that makes up the stretch mark. It creates controlled “micro-injuries” that scream at your body to send healing resources to the area.
- Thermal Remodeling: This is the game-changer. Once the needles are deep in the dermis, they emit a pulse of Radiofrequency heat. This heat does something incredible—it causes existing collagen fibers to contract and tighten (think of it like shrink-wrapping the skin).
Why I Love It for Sarasota Moms
Living here in sunny Florida, swimsuit season is practically year-round. I see so many postpartum moms who are dealing not just with stretch marks, but also with that loose, crepey skin on their bellies that diet and exercise just won’t touch.
Morpheus8 is my go-to for this. Because of that RF heat, it doesn’t just fade the marks; it significantly tightens the lax skin around them.
I remember one patient, Sarah, a mother of two. She had deep, textured stretch marks across her lower abdomen and a bit of a “pooch” from loose skin. After her series of Morpheus8 treatments, not only were the marks barely visible, but the skin snap-back was incredible. She told me she wore her first bikini in five years on a trip to Siesta Key. That confidence shift is why I do what I do.
The “Natural Booster”: SkinPen Microneedling + PRP
As a Nurse Practitioner dedicated to holistic health and beauty, I love offering treatments that harness your body’s own incredible power to heal.
For patients who want a deeply effective treatment that is 100% natural, or for those with smaller, shallower stretch marks, my favorite combination is the SkinPen paired with PRP (Platelet-Rich Plasma).
You might have heard of PRP referred to as “liquid gold” in the aesthetics world. It truly is.
The Treatment Process
SkinPen is the first FDA-cleared microneedling device. It works similarly to the mechanical part of Morpheus8, creating thousands of tiny channels in the skin to stimulate collagen.
But we take it a massive step further with PRP.
Before we start the microneedling, we draw a small vial of your own blood just like a standard lab test. We spin that blood in a centrifuge right here in the office. This process separates the red blood cells from the plasma, concentrating your platelets up to ten times their normal level.
These platelets are packed with growth factors essentially the crucial proteins your body uses to heal wounds.
We apply this “liquid gold” to your skin during the SkinPen treatment. The needles drive your own concentrated growth factors deep into the stretch marks.
Why Choose This Route?
It acts like high-grade fertilizer for your skin cells. The PRP chemically signals your stem cells to rush to the area and repair the torn dermis much faster and more efficiently than microneedling alone.
I often recommend this protocol for my “crunchy” patients who prefer to avoid heat-based energy treatments, or for nursing mothers who need a safe, chemical-free option to start working on their postpartum skin. It’s your body healing your body, just supercharged.
Targeting Color: IPL & Laser Resurfacing
When I do a consultation, one of the first things I look at is the color of the stretch marks. Are they angry and red/purple (Striae Rubra), or are they older, silver, or white (Striae Alba)?
The color tells me exactly what’s happening under the surface and dictates which tool we need to grab.
For Red/Purple Marks: IPL (Intense Pulsed Light)
If your stretch marks are relatively new, they are likely red or purple. This color isn’t actually pigment; it’s inflammation and tiny blood vessels that have flooded the area trying to heal the tear.
For these, we use Intense Pulsed Light, or IPL.
IPL isn’t a laser in the traditional sense; it’s a broad spectrum of light. We use a specific filter that targets the red color of hemoglobin in those blood vessels. The light energy is absorbed by the blood, which gently collapses those unnecessary vessels.
By shutting down that excess blood flow, the angry red color fades out, helping the mark blend into your natural skin tone much faster than waiting years for nature to do it.
For White/Silvery Marks: Laser Resurfacing
Once a stretch mark turns white or silver, the blood vessels have receded. What is left is essentially older scar tissue. These are harder to treat because the body has stopped actively trying to heal them. We need to “wake up” the area.
For these stubborn white marks, we often turn to Laser Skin Resurfacing.
Depending on your skin type and the severity of the texture, we use lasers that create microscopic columns of heat in the skin, vaporizing tiny sections of that old, white scar tissue.
This forces fresh, healthy, normal skin to grow in its place. Over a series of treatments, this blends the white mark back into the surrounding skin tone and smooths out that “dip” in the skin’s texture.
The “Rose Protocol”: Why Combination Therapy Matters
If you walk away with one piece of information from this article, let it be this: There is no single magic wand for stretch marks.
If a clinic tries to sell you one device as the cure-all for every type of stretch mark on every skin type, run the other way.
The reason patients trust us at Rose Medical Aesthetics is that we understand the artistry required to treat something complex like striae. As an APRN, I look at the whole picture—your medical history, your skin type (Fitzpatrick scale), the age of the marks, and your lifestyle.
We rarely use just one tool. We use combination therapy.
A very common protocol here in Sarasota might look like this:
We have a patient come in with stretch marks that are still a bit pink but also have a deep texture. We might start with an IPL session to knock out the redness. A month later, we move on to a series of Morpheus8 treatments to rebuild the deep collagen and tighten the skin. Finally, we might do a SkinPen + PRP session as a final “polish” to improve the surface texture.
Customization is the only way to get real results.
Real Expectations & Timeline
I pride myself on being incredibly transparent with my patients. I will never promise you something I can’t deliver.
So, can we 100% remove stretch marks like they were erased in Photoshop? Usually, no. And any medical provider who tells you otherwise isn’t being honest.
Our medical goal is significant improvement. We aim to take angry, deep, textured marks and turn them into faint, thin, skin-colored lines that you really have to look for to see. My patients are usually thrilled with a 60% to 80% improvement.
The Commitment
You also need to know that this is a journey, not a sprint. Collagen doesn’t grow overnight.
Whether we are using Morpheus8, SkinPen, or lasers, you are almost always looking at a series of treatments—typically anywhere from three to six sessions, spaced about four to six weeks apart.
The Downtime
People often ask me, “Rosalie, how bad is the recovery?” It’s honestly not bad at all, especially compared to surgical options.
With SkinPen, you’ll look like you have a mild sunburn for about 24 hours.
With Morpheus8, because of that deeper heat, you might have redness, minor swelling, and sometimes a little grid-mark texture on the skin for 3 to 5 days. Most of my patients are back to their normal routine (just wearing loose clothing) the next day.
It’s a small temporary trade-off for permanent structural change in the skin.
Ready to Erase Your Marks?
I hope this helped demystify why those creams haven’t worked for you in the past, and gave you some hope for what medical aesthetics can actually do.
You don’t have to live with stretch marks that make you feel self-conscious. Technology has come so far, and we have the best of it right here in Sarasota.
Stop guessing and stop wasting money on surface-level solutions. Come in and see me. Let’s sit down, look at your skin, and build a plan using Morpheus8, PRP, or lasers to get you back to feeling confident in your own skin.
Are you ready to start your skin transformation? Book your personalized consultation at Rose Medical Aesthetics today.
