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  • Don't Want a Facelift? Try Thermage
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Thermage stimulates your body's own natural skin renewal process. It helps to build collagen in your own skin. So it's pretty revolutionary technology. It utilizes radio frequency, which is heat. So through a process of deep heating and simultaneous cooling of the skin, you'll actually produce new collagen over several months after the treatment. For patients who don't want a facelift it tightens your skin, it tightens the jowl area, it can tighten the eye area; it actually can tighten any area of your body. There are people who come in for Thermage and want, not just their face done, but they want their jowls done, or they want the back of their knees or their arms because they're unhappy with how things sag. Because as we age, gravity affects us; and the Thermage is the only non-invasive skin tightening technique that actually, within an hour or two, will tighten your face with no pain, no injections, and no surgery.

You'll come to the office. There's no pre-treatment necessary. What we do is we mark your face with a grid or any area of the body. If you're going to tighten your abdomen, we would mark your abdomen with a grid. After we mark the abdomen or the face or jowls or whatever area you're treating, we then use this radio frequency technology to heat the skin. We use multiple passes so it could take an hour to two hours to treat, say, your face or the jowls at any given treatment. But it's only one treatment. It doesn't hurt. It's a completely painless procedure and it's full of what I call "audience participation" because we ask you while we're doing the procedure, "Does it hurt?" If it hurts, it means we've put the heat up a little bit too high, and we will lower it. So it's adjusted specifically for each individual patient.

If you're treating a face and lower neck, which is traditionally what most patients come in for, you can plan on being in the office for up to two hours. But when you leave, there is no down time. You can resume your general activity. There's no pain afterwards. There's no treatment necessary afterwards. And then within three, four, five, six months you'll see the ultimate effect of the treatment, which is basically, you're building collagen. Collagen is the building block of the skin. So while producing new collagen, you're actually giving yourself younger looking, healthier looking skin and tightening your skin at the same time.

There is no down side to this procedure. It is completely painless and that's why I think, it appeals to a lot of patients who don't want to go under the knife, don't want to have surgery, don't want to have injections, and overall, don't want to have any pain. So I think, in that sense, it's really the ultimate procedure because you only have to do it one time, and it's highly effective. The results from the procedure will last up to two to three years. So, there are patients who come every few years to have the Thermage done again because they have such good results. But over time, as you age, you may need to have the Thermage done repeatedly so that it can plump back the collagen.

Don't Want a Facelift? Try Thermage

Dr. Michele Green explains Thermage, a skincare tool that aims to stimulate the body's own natural skin renewal process.