The Thermage and Cutera Titan lasers have been advertised as being alternatives to a traditional facelift for tightening of the face. Somehow collagen is miraculously made which tightens the skin, rendering it tight, with a minimally invasive no downtime treatment. This is not even close to what actually happens.
We have used radiofrequency treatments and IPL machines in our practice. They give minimal benefits, virtually not observable on before-after pictures taken at 3 months. If the pictures are taken days later, you often see a minor difference, presumably because of the swelling caused by the treatments. They do nothing for significant jowling.
On our website we have pictures of patients who have undergone CO2 laser resurfacing. CO2 laser is the most effective tightening procedure available by far. In patients who who have jowls, even CO2 alone does very little for the jowls. In order to reduce jowls to a minimum, patients should consider a well done facelift.
Many patients were happy with their IPL and radiofrequency treatments, but only because we told them the tightening benefit would be minimal; sun damage could be reduced, but not to expect significant tightening, and they were OK with that. On this website, the satisfaction rate with Titan is 36%, and Thermage is 37%, hardly stellar. The satisfaction rate for a facelift is 82%, despite the much greater cost. Had we promised a $2000 alternative to a facelift to our patients, and had the patients been expecting to have facelift results from a minimally invasive treatment, they would have been very disappointed as well.
