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I did 4 sessions of Coolsculpting for stubborn...
I did 4 sessions of Coolsculpting for stubborn lower abdominal fat after child-birth. I didn't want to have surgery, and thought this might be the answer. I just wanted to lose a little in that area so that I could do crunches and sit-ups again, exercise with greater mobility, and look and feel better in clothing.
The procedure itself was manageable. The toughest part was having your skin and fat sucked into the high-power suction vacuum device. That really hurt. But then once the freezing starts, everything goes numb and it's comfortable, you don't feel anything. When they take the device off, your skin and fat look like a block of butter - it feels just like frozen fat and is molded to the shape of the device. After a little while (I can't remember how many minutes, maybe 10 or 20?), it goes back to normal. The first time I did it, I had some bruising on my skin afterwards, but for sessions 2-4, I had no side effects. Some people also get a sharp pins and needles reaction afterwards as well, for which my doctor had prescribed and sent me home with medicine just in case. I didn't end up needing it, thankfully.
A couple of weeks after the first two session, I did notice a slight reduction. Not hugely significant, but maybe half a centimeter in each of the different areas. In the third and fourth session (different areas), I hardly noticed any change. Due to that, I stopped going (I had a 4 session promo, and didn't renew it). While I was overall happy with the results, it was not super significant, and for $3,000 it was a lot of money for not much change.
However, a month or so later, I woke up one day and noticed a huge bulge in the area I had done Coolsculpting. It seemed like it came out of nowhere. Worse yet, due to its size and shape, it dropped down - like a big fold of fat covering my lower abdomen. It was worse than before I had Coolsculpting. It also had a weird "compacted spongy fat" texture (not on the outside, just when you felt it). I had no other changes - no weight changes, I hadn't been doing anything differently, I hadn't gained or lost any weight.
I didn't know what to think, but was too depressed to confront my Coolsculpting provider about it (a local dermatologist, she was intimidating, not very kind or nice, a cold personality). Eventually, I went to see a plastic surgeon about it. I told her my story, but she wasn't familiar with Coolsculpting yet. She felt the blob, and agreed that it felt strange. She theorized that perhaps healthy tissue was damaged in the process, not just the fat.
I decided not to pursue surgery just yet, and tried to lose weight, hoping that if I got rid of some of the deeper fat, then the bulge would be less noticeable. It didn't work very well, and folding in my fat into pants was super depressing. I couldn't wear bathing suits anymore; it was a deformity.
After that, I decided to go forward with surgery. I had a wonderful plastic surgeon who removed the whole bulge, and she said the tissue was dead and looked strange, it was definitely not normal tissue. I was glad to have had it removed. I now have a large major scar from hip to hip (my skin scars very badly, I knew this going into it, and I knew this was a risk). Even so, I'm glad to have gotten rid of that dead-tissue bulge. The surgery cost me another $10,000.
I wish I had never done Coolsculpting. It damaged or killed a lot of healthy tissue, and I think it shouldn't be on the market - or it should be more highly regulated, if there's a possibility that service providers are using it incorrectly. As a result, I had to have corrective plastic surgery and now have a life-long scar.
BEWARE COOLSCULPTING. It's not as "non-invasive" as the marketing would have you believe.
The procedure itself was manageable. The toughest part was having your skin and fat sucked into the high-power suction vacuum device. That really hurt. But then once the freezing starts, everything goes numb and it's comfortable, you don't feel anything. When they take the device off, your skin and fat look like a block of butter - it feels just like frozen fat and is molded to the shape of the device. After a little while (I can't remember how many minutes, maybe 10 or 20?), it goes back to normal. The first time I did it, I had some bruising on my skin afterwards, but for sessions 2-4, I had no side effects. Some people also get a sharp pins and needles reaction afterwards as well, for which my doctor had prescribed and sent me home with medicine just in case. I didn't end up needing it, thankfully.
A couple of weeks after the first two session, I did notice a slight reduction. Not hugely significant, but maybe half a centimeter in each of the different areas. In the third and fourth session (different areas), I hardly noticed any change. Due to that, I stopped going (I had a 4 session promo, and didn't renew it). While I was overall happy with the results, it was not super significant, and for $3,000 it was a lot of money for not much change.
However, a month or so later, I woke up one day and noticed a huge bulge in the area I had done Coolsculpting. It seemed like it came out of nowhere. Worse yet, due to its size and shape, it dropped down - like a big fold of fat covering my lower abdomen. It was worse than before I had Coolsculpting. It also had a weird "compacted spongy fat" texture (not on the outside, just when you felt it). I had no other changes - no weight changes, I hadn't been doing anything differently, I hadn't gained or lost any weight.
I didn't know what to think, but was too depressed to confront my Coolsculpting provider about it (a local dermatologist, she was intimidating, not very kind or nice, a cold personality). Eventually, I went to see a plastic surgeon about it. I told her my story, but she wasn't familiar with Coolsculpting yet. She felt the blob, and agreed that it felt strange. She theorized that perhaps healthy tissue was damaged in the process, not just the fat.
I decided not to pursue surgery just yet, and tried to lose weight, hoping that if I got rid of some of the deeper fat, then the bulge would be less noticeable. It didn't work very well, and folding in my fat into pants was super depressing. I couldn't wear bathing suits anymore; it was a deformity.
After that, I decided to go forward with surgery. I had a wonderful plastic surgeon who removed the whole bulge, and she said the tissue was dead and looked strange, it was definitely not normal tissue. I was glad to have had it removed. I now have a large major scar from hip to hip (my skin scars very badly, I knew this going into it, and I knew this was a risk). Even so, I'm glad to have gotten rid of that dead-tissue bulge. The surgery cost me another $10,000.
I wish I had never done Coolsculpting. It damaged or killed a lot of healthy tissue, and I think it shouldn't be on the market - or it should be more highly regulated, if there's a possibility that service providers are using it incorrectly. As a result, I had to have corrective plastic surgery and now have a life-long scar.
BEWARE COOLSCULPTING. It's not as "non-invasive" as the marketing would have you believe.