Tightening and lifting the skin is often a crucial part of helping a patient to look their best. Often patients notice sagging brows and upper lids, or jowling around the lower face or deepening nasolabial folds. Some patients aren’t ready for surgery. They don’t really have enough to be worth the scars. And, many younger patients want to hold onto the thick firm skin that they have. Even if a patient could be a good facelift candidate, many in today’s world do not want the traditional facelift of past, or even some of the newer facelifts procedures of the present. They don’t want the scars, the downtime or the risk of “looking done”.
I believe that skin tightening and thickening on the face and neck is one of the best ways to improve your appearance to and help to hold you at your current age.
There are many ways to tighten and lift the skin. And patients are often confused by the myriad of choices available to them. The technologies to me, that are the best are:
Thermage – Still the gold standard of skin tightening. It uses radiofrequency to shrink and tighten the skin as well as to stimulate new collagen production through bulk heating of the skin. It can be used to treat eyelids, the brows, the lower face and the neck. This is what I have done on myself since 2002 and is one of the main factors that I believe contributes to my slowed aging process. The treatment has evolved over the years, and the current CPT machine provides for significantly reduced discomfort and greater results. For most patients, only a single treatment is needed. An occasional patient will do a follow up treatment to continue to improve their results. No downtime is needed.
Forma – this is a newer delivery system of RF. Used on the face and neck, one can see significant lifting over a series of several treatments. This is also my favorite choice for younger patients who want to do a bit of prevention. Keeping the collagen machine going in the skin helps to keep you at your current age. Treatments once or twice a year is often what we recommend for the younger patient who wants to “hold themselves in time” No downtime is needed and is the favorite of many patients who want a quick fix for a special event.
Ulthera – Ulthera is another effective treatment modality. While many practitioners love this device, it is not one that we currently offer due to more significant pain associated with treatment.
Fractora – uses fractionated RF delivered deep into the skin to tighten and improve lines and wrinkles. This skin tightening is done as a series of treatments which have several days of downtime with each.
Precision TX Lift – a minimally invasive procedure where laser energy is used to heat the skin from underneath resulting in a 30% increase in skin thickness and a cleaner jawline and lower face.
