Over the past fifteen years of my practice, I have found that patients are often looking for a one treatment, one procedure, fix it all type of solution. For certain skin problems there may be a one treatment, one procedure fix it all solution. Very often though, I find that the patient's true concern will need a medley of a few procedures to solve the problems that are contributing to the concern. For example, a patient may come in with complaints of the parantheses (lines around the mouth) or nasolabial folds being too deep. They have read that these lines can be filled with a filler. Yes, perfect. In many cases, just adding a bit of strategic filler directly into the folds will solve the problem. In some cases, however, the volume loss that is contributing to the folds may be closer to the temples, upper cheeks, tear troughs and jawline. Restoring volume via filler to these areas can give a very natural, soft, and more dramatic improvement to the original problem as the filler places the skin back into position. Often accompanying this loss of volume in the face is also the fact that the skin is loosing collagen. Under normal circumstances, we loose about 1% of our collagen content per year. Genetics and lifestyle contribute to various degrees of deterioration over time. The loss of collagen makes the skin less elastic, thinner and weaker. Luckily, we have ways to combat this collagen loss with various procedures which heat the skin and force the skin to make new tightly woven collagen fibers. If we start stimulating the collagen at the earliest signs of loss, it can go a long way in keeping our skin young as we age. So, the patient with the nasolabial fold concern may not be happy with just fillers, but may also need some tightening of the skin to achieve the best, most natural and dramatic results. Procedures such as Skin Tyte, Thermage, Exilis Elite, ThermiRF and Ultherapy can all be used depending on what degree of tightening is required and the patient's budget. Of the tightening procedures, ThermiRF and Ultherapy win. Or the patient may need a skin resurfacing procedure, if along with the loosening of the skin, there is also sun damage and wrinkling involved. Venus Viva (fractional radiofrequency), Profractional, Fraxel laser and Broad Band Light can all be useful tools among others to improve the quality, texture and glow of the skin.
Similarly, for body sculpting procedures, we may wish to combine procedures for the best results. For example, we love what the Vanquish focused radiofrequency technology can do to eliminate 60-80% of fat cells in 4-6 treatments. We love even more what Vanquish combined with Velashape will do to much more dramatically and quickly achieve desired results. Velashape uses infrared, radiofrequency and suction to pull the skin up and massage the released fat from the treatment area towards the lymphatics. The extra heat futher ensures optimal fat killing (also known as apoptosis). We absolutely love it when patients are able to combine two to three procedures such as Vanquish, Liposonix, Sculpsure, Velashape, Vaser Liposuction, Smartlipo, ThermiRF and Exilis Elite to get the best benefits for themselves. This combined approach is sometimes concurrent or it can be spaced out over some time. In certain cases, we insist on a concurrent approach if we know from our experience that this approach will yield a far more dramatic result for the patient.
We welcome you to come into our office. Our website www.cincinnatiskinandlaser.com should hopefully have some very useful information about the available procedures for those who like to do their research. On our website, you can also research by the concern you are wanting to improve...just remember, we may end up suggesting a combination approach. We can fine tune and give our best recommendation during the consultation.
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