Armed with years of experience, a caring and highly-trained staff and a passion for improving the lives of others, Kristin Cadavos, owner of Aiken Medical Aesthetics, is helping her clients invest in themselves by investing in their skincare. In the aesthetics world, med spas started as a quick stop for botox but have evolved into so much more, ensuring patients receive what they need whether just a medical grade serum or cleanser or one of the many rejuvenating procedures like light therapy or microneedling. And there’s no time like the new year to focus on healthy skincare.
Cadavos, who began her Physician Assistant career with general medicine in the ER and then in dermatology and plastics, opened Aiken Medical Aesthetics in April of 2023 after seeing a need in the Aiken community. She was working in Augusta and many of her patients were driving over from Aiken. Since then, in less than two years, her med spa has grown exponentially. She has added a physician, an esthetician and a nurse practitioner and will be adding another nurse practitioner in January. The growth shows that skin care protocols and practices are not just trends but important parts of our medical health, and Cadavos adds, “I would like to see aesthetics become more normalized and I think that it slowly is. It’s becoming more mainstream.”
In the new year, Cadavos plans to focus on skin health and skin quality by not only continuing to offer all current treatments such as facials, fillers and neurotoxin injections but also concentrating on procedures that allow the skin to rebuild and maintain itself.
The first of these is Sculptra, one of Cadavos’ favorites, which is a more natural-looking filler used to stimulate the rebuilding of the skin’s own collagen in order to lift, tone and plump, reduce wrinkles and fine lines and increase firmness. BBL HEROic is another treatment. It uses ILP (Intense Pulsed Light) to help with skin tone and texture, acne, pigmentation and discoloration, enlarged pores and even improve elasticity. Microneedling, the use of tiny needles on the skin, is also a procedure where Cadavos has seen so much improvement with hair loss, acne scars, collagen production and dermal repair. All of these treatments are designed to work by stimulating the skin to do what it is naturally made to do.
Another avenue that Cadavos has taken at Aiken Medical Aesthetics is adding a medical weight loss program to the menu of services, and she has seen huge success with hundreds of patients. The program uses vitamin and semaglutide injections but with the full body composition scanner she uses, Cadavos feels confident that her patients are losing unhealthy weight in the safest way. The scanner not only measures a person’s weight but muscle mass, fat, water weight and visceral fat around the organs. Cadavos’ patients are required to have monthly scans to track progress, and all of this information gives her the bigger picture of each person’s body and allows her to “objectively measure what’s changing”. The body composition monitoring along with programs to help with diet and exercise makes the weight loss sustainable because of progress through small victories and making sure her patients don’t feel miserable or deprived.
In talking with Cadavos, it’s clear that she is passionate about helping people gain confidence, whether it’s a cancer patient who was able to regrow her hair or someone who has been battling acne scars or unhealthy weight they just couldn’t lose. Working with Cadavos and her staff is “not a one-and-done thing; it’s about relationships and the process we get to go through with our patients.” Seeing changes in her patients’ self-confidence and self-perception is most rewarding and is why Cadavos feels so strongly about skin health.
If some are feeling intimidated by starting a skincare journey with Aiken Medical Aesthetics, Cadavos wants them to know that they will be in good hands and well taken care of. Her motto is to “go low, go slow” so that patients are totally comfortable and receive better outcomes. She and her staff adapt their plans and adjust to the patient’s pace. It’s also good to know that Cadavos and staff are also all on their own skin journeys and facing skin issues themselves. Going through the processes together builds trust and allows for support. It’s time to invest in your skin, and Aiken Medical Aesthetics is a great place to start in 2025!
“Skin and hair affects your self-perception. Beauty is personal and subjective. I’ve had so many patients tell me they feel like themselves again or feel like they’ve gotten their lives back."