Visit Several Doctors Prior Having the Procedure! - Columbia, MD

My abdomen is just about back to feeling like a regular abdomen. The pictures tell it all. Pants that didn't fit me before fit me now. For my age, I expect to look fairly decent in my bikini for our late January trip. I am thrilled!!!

After 3/12 weeks, the difference is extraordinary. And they say that some do not even experience a difference until at least three weeks. If my abdomen continues to lose fat, I will be SO happy. I am so glad even now that I did this. The cost was about $1,600. There was some discomfort, but nothing like the discomfort associated with surgery. Do it!

I highly recommend that you check out the recommendations of several different doctors/nurses before deciding on the office that will do the procedure.

I went first to the doctor’s office that came up as the most “distinguished” on the CoolSculpting site. I called the California office because I couldn’t figure out how or why certain doctors with apparently greater training showed up as lower on the list. I never got a clear answer but it has to do with how much contact the doctor has with the patent holder in California. I translate that to mean who pays them the most money per use of each applicator. I don’t know if that is right, but their listings surely are not a measurement of how qualified or distinguished the doctor’s office is.

Anyway, in the office that showed up as first on the list, I was seen by a “patient advisor,” who took a quick look at my abdomen, did one quick pinch, and gave me her recommendation to have two procedures, side by side, under my bellybutton.

In the second office, I was seen by both a doctor and a nurse. The doctor indicated one area where CoolSculpting wouldn’t work because there was too much muscle in that area. This office also recommended two procedures but in a location different from the first recommendation.

In the third office, a nurse usually handles the consultation. The first thing the nurse asked was whether I had spine curvature issues because the fat on my abdomen wasn’t uniform. There was more on the top right and lower left than on the top left and lower right. I hadn’t noticed this before but I could immediately see she was right. As a result of this, she called the doctor in to get additional advice. They also recommended two procedures but the placement of the applicators was very different from the recommendations of the other two offices so as to accommodate the irregularity of the placement of the fat.

The nurse in this third office stated during the consultation that there is skill involved in this procedure. This, actually, had been a question in my mind throughout my research and up until my second visit. Until then, I was thinking this wasn’t so difficult – find the fat, freeze it, done. After my second office visit, though, I began to believe that skill was in fact involved in determining where the applicators would work best.

I’m not a doctor or nurse, so I don’t know for sure which of the three offices is right or even if there even is a “right” that makes any significant difference. But I am glad I took the time to visit all three offices because one of the three intuitively feels much better to me.

I’ll report back after I’ve had it done!