Procedures

Skin Tightening

Sun exposure, the normal aging process, and gravity can take a toll on your appearance. But not everyone is eligible for skin-lifting surgery. If you’ve been told that you’re not a good candidate for surgery to correct the sagging in your face, neck, eyebrow, under-chin and decolletage areas, Ultherapy may be the ideal treatment for you.

For those of you who are comfortable with surgical options, we’re proud to introduce J-Plasma, an innovative tool that uses Helium energized with radiofrequency energy to resurface and tighten skin. The J-Plasma can be used almost anywhere on the body to very effectively treat loose or sagging skin with no visible scarring.

The technology can treat sagging skin just about anywhere on the body including the arms, legs, above the knees, tummy, and breasts. In fact, J-Plasma provides such effective tightening that it can be used for patients after major weight loss with most patients seeing a 50% improvement in the amount of sagging skin including areas with stretch marks.

J-Plasma, Skin Tightening

J-Plasma has even given us the ability to offer minimally invasive tummy tucks for patients with good abdominal muscles and a small amount of excess fat, whose main complaint is loose skin. This is a huge breakthrough for patients who have enough loose skin to be a bother but not quite enough to justify the scar from a tummy tuck. By using our VASER® liposuction for fat reduction then delivering Helium plasma energy below the skin using the J-Plasma device, we’re able to immediately offer our patients dramatic skin tightening.

For small areas like the neck or knees, the procedure can be done under local anesthesia and takes less than an hour. For multiple areas, especially if liposuction is also desired, general anesthesia or IV sedation makes more aggressive treatment possible. Best yet, unlike traditional surgery, the initial recovery takes days to weeks, rather than weeks to months.

A combination of topical numbing cream, local anesthetic and even IV sedation or full anesthesia can be used so that you will not have pain during the procedure. Afterwards, depending on whether you have chosen a surface dermal ablation or sub-dermal treatment, expect to be sore. Most patients describe the sub-dermal (under the skin) treatment recovery as “tight” rather than painful. The feeling loses intensity after the first week or two, and many patients are back to full activity at that point.

Downtime depends on which areas are treated and each person’s individual healing, but for most patients, the downtime for the resurfacing procedure is between 10-14 days. For the sub-dermal procedure, recovery is as short as 3-5 days. Many of our patients combine the sub-dermal procedure with liposuction, in which case initial recovery will take a week or two.

Ultherapy

Sun exposure, the normal aging process, and gravity can take a toll on your appearance. But not everyone is eligible for skin-lifting surgery. If you’ve been told that you’re not a good candidate for surgery to correct the sagging in your face, neck, eyebrow, under-chin and decolletage areas, Ultherapy may be the ideal treatment for you.

How Ultherapy Works

Ultherapy is currently the only noninvasive skin lifting treatment that has been cleared by the FDA. Just one Ultherapy treatment can undo years of damage in as little as 30-90 minutes (depending on the area being treated), without any downtime for you. The Ultherapy system uses ultrasound technology to stimulate the natural production of collagen. This is known as neocollagenesis, and the new collagen that is created helps lift your skin and decrease wrinkles to give you a younger, smoother look…