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Expensive and Ineffective, Bad Side Effects

First things first, my first appointment was actually January 4th, 2020, but RealSelf won’t let me input that. I had a follow up appointment a month later on February 7th, 2020 for additional cycles.

I got cool sculpting done on my upper arms, bra line, and stomach alongside my partner. We’d been reading up on different non-invasive, less expensive fat reduction procedures, and the literature for CoolSculpting makes it look amazing and easy.

When they tell you you’ll have some discomfort and then it’ll go numb and you’ll be fine, know that your mileage may vary. A lot. My partner had no problem, but for me, it was incredibly painful on my arms and I had a panic attack. It feels like cold little needles being stabbed into your skin, and when that subsides and you go numb, you can still feel the pressure and suction and tension on your skin.

At first, it looked like I was going to have really good results, at least on my bra line and stomach. However, I went into pretty extreme systemic inflammation afterwards and actually put on about 12 pounds just in fluid retention from my body’s reaction to the procedure. It started to subside, but then I went in for my second round of cycles, so I spent the first several months of 2020 as a puffy, inflamed mess.

All of the spots I had treated have reverted back to how the were before I had coolsculpting, but in the case of my braline and arms, I’m actually bigger now than I was. It’s not paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, but there’s more fat there than when I started.

All of the “success” photos you get shown are people that get a really high number of cycles done, which isn’t communicated clearly. Regardless, it wasn’t worth the side effects for me, especially for no results.

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