A lot of people want to tone and tighten up, maybe losing an extra half inch in their arms, thighs and hips. One of the main problems toning up is the leftover loose skin. There really is no, and I will repeat, no exercise or workout routine that makes skin tighter. And up until recently, the only good option was surgery to remove this loose skin. But now there’s a non-surgical answer.
I have worked with Thermage as far back as being one of their initial investigators, in the early FDA trials before its release for facial skin tightening in 2003, and this treatment has really come a long way. Thermage promotes skin tightening through the effects of radiofrequency microwave energy and collagen rebuilding and tightening. Thermage released a “shallow” energy tip several years after considerable safety evaluation for use around the eyes (the upper and lower eyelids) for skin tightening.
The moderate depth energy tip has been in use for even longer, but improving both in effectiveness and comfort, for noninvasive skin tightening of the face and neck. The deeper tip has evolved from the early trials several years ago, to the newer release of the Thermage NXT treatment tip and platform, with improved cooling and energy profile, as well as improved patient comfort.
Advanced Skin Tightening
Now for the first time we can offer our patients a treatment for tighter tummies, thighs and hips. On the patient trials that we began early in 2009, we’ve tracked results and I would say that a majority of patients are seeing better definition and improved tightening. We can see the results in their before and after photos. This is pretty good for a noninvasive treatment.
For maximum effectiveness in our body treatments, we’ve added a pretreatment with SmoothShapes to target cellulite. The energy of Thermage treatment is matched to each patient. With each patient being different, heavy sedation is simply not encouraged. Instead we are using either ibuprofen or an injection similar to ibuprofen, Toradol. Full activity can be resumed immediately after treatment. Although you can see collagen smoothing and skin tightening results from the beginning, your best results may still be 6 to 9 months away.