Archive for the ‘Cellulite Treatments’ Category:
I was curious if a certain plastic surgeon in my area offered the smartlipo service, since he has done hundreds of liposuction surgeries and they all look pretty fantastic according the before and after pictures on his website. He’s located in the Akron, Ohio area and has a good reputation for great looking “work”. I’ve been researching this smart lipo thing for a while.
Not that I’m going to even get it, although I’d never rule out anything that was minimally invasive that I could afford without putting my other bills in jeopardy that would make me feel great about myself, but it’s kind of my job to know what the latest, greatest techniques for all these fun, new and exciting forms of plastic surgery and self improvement are. Not to mention, it’s a great time reading about all of it!
His staff did write back to me. I questioned whether he offered it because I couldn’t imagine that he didn’t, being so up on everything else, and I was right. Although his website showed only liposuction before and afters, his staff wrote back and told me he uses the Pro Lipo system for laser assisted liposuction.
I couldn’t find much on the internet about people’s experiences with this type of liposuction, nor could I find much about the specific brand name, except what I did find intrigued me since this appears to be just like liposuction, except the laser assists in breaking up the fat, and the cannula is probably smaller as well, and the recovery time is reduced, but they actually suck the fat out like they do in regular lipo, not just rely on the body to “get rid” of the fat after it’s broken up and supposedly destroyed by the heat of the laser.
That’s the only reservation I had about Smartlipo. It seemed that not every doctor used suction as well, and some people were saying they weren’t getting results after the surgery, making me wonder if there was no suction, did their body really “get rid” of the fat cells that were “destroyed”? It is hard to find docs that tell you they use suction along with the laser, so you’d have to go talk to them about their method. Laser assisted liposuction is supposed to help treat the appearance of cellulite as well, which is another bonus, since usually the areas we’re getting treated for are also marked with cellulite, which gets worse in fatty areas of the body.
The more I’ve been reading about the Smartlipo procedure, the more enticing it becomes. And then I start to think I should be happy with myself. I’m not overweight, in fact I’ve recently shed close to twenty pounds, however I still have that stubborn saddle bag fat that sticks to the side of my thighs, unmoving, even though I eat right and exercise.
I’ll admit it, I’m a perfectionist, and it’s not the best thing in the world, but I also feel like it’s gotten me places that perfectionism and obsession may not have taken me. It can be a burden though, and even though I do tell myself that I don’t have to be perfect, there are certain things I’d like to be content with, and a certain way I like to look in and out of clothes. Call me vain, but my theory is that you only have one time around, why not look and feel your best, and present your best self forward to the world?
There really isn’t much you can do about certain pockets of fat that have been there your whole life. Shoot, ever since I started to develop a woman’s figure, my thighs were there – bang, boom, pow. I wouldn’t mind them if they didn’t also have cellulite on them, but they are an aggravating part of my anatomy I’d like to change if I get the chance, and what with the recession and Doctors reducing prices on non essential procedures, it might just be the right time to take the opportunity to get this bothersome part of my body improved.
Sure, I could spend it on home improvements, but then again, sometimes I think, you only live once and if you aren’t happy with something, why not change it and throw caution to the wind, especially when it’s a totally safe and minimally invasive procedure, and may even improve cellulite? After all, you have a certain amount of fat cells in your body, and the only way to reduce the amount of them is literally to have some of them sucked out.
It’s true that when you gain weight, you don’t actually gain more fat cells, it’s just that the ones you do have grow larger and take up more space, thus expanding parts of your body that are problems, for women namely the buttocks, hips, thighs, belly and upper arms. Researching Smartlipo has lead me to several reputable doctors in the Ohio area, but it’s hard to tell which are the most reputable and most reasonably priced. What is the most important thing when considering who will do your Smartlipo?
Definitely the Doctor’s experience with Smartlipo specifically. If your chosen doctor is new to this procedure, it leaves you wide open to being a guinea pig who may or may not get the best results. If you’re booking a consultation, ask for before and after pictures and specific references for the Smartlipo procedure from former patients.
Move over SmartLipo, there is a newer, and claimed to be better, fat removal technique and tool that has the same benefits of SmartLipo, the fact that there is much less downtime than in traditional liposuction, less bruising and swelling, and less invasiveness, that has bumped SmartLipo out of the newest fad spot in localized fat removal and inch reduction. It’s called Smooth Lipo, and it’s by a brand name dubbed “Smooth Shapes”. It does not specifically address cellulite reduction, but it does say that many patients may experience a tightening in the skin after the minimally invasive procedure is done, resulting in less visibility of cellulite.
The supposed benefits that make this a little more efficient than the already fairly efficient SmartLipo procedure are that the laser is supposed to be specifically geared toward the liquification and destruction of adipose cells, so it does not really interfere with anything else, and is guided to only the cells it’s designed to remove, so it’s a more efficient fat tissue targeting agent, and more fat may be removed as a result of that (or may not, they seem to be careful not to make outlandish claims even on their site).
I couldn’t find anything about the cost of Smooth Lipo on their website, but I’d imagine that it’s about the same as SmartLipo and traditional liposuction, which runs around 3,000 per body area. It’s still a pretty expensive procedure, but if you have tried dieting and exercise and still can’t seem to get rid of certain pockets of targeted fat, than you may want to look into something like this if you have the money and are so inclined to spend it this way.
They do caution that this is not a permanent fix against gaining back in those areas again. If you overeat or stop exercising, you will gain the weight back again in those areas and then some, your fat just sort of redistributes itself, so this is not something that should be viewed as a weight loss mechanism at all, in fact it should not be viewed as a replacement for dieting and exercise either, because if you do not incorporate those into your daily routine to begin with, you will just end up putting it back on anyways.
I was going to talk a little more about two of the more interesting, and increasingly popular, cellulite treatments that are out there for women like you and me to have done so that we can have that object of desire : smooth thighs, buttocks, and belly, without the divots, holes, and “cottage cheese” look that cellulite has given us thanks to our different body chemistry and hormones, in addition to the fact that women tend to have more body fat since we are the sex that nurtures human life within us. Yes, another one of nature’s cruel jokes, but we are women and we shall overcome 
I talked a little about Smartlipo in the last post, and I really want to taper that off her because Smartlipo is really more of a spot fat reduction treatment that also claims it may help to smooth and tighten skin, which means that cellulite may also take a hike eventually, in addition to those ounces of fat removed. It is not however a primary treatment specifically for cellulite reduction, so we’ll focus more on Endermologie and Velasmooth.
To start with, both treatments are pricey, although it’s looking like in most areas Endermologie has the edge over Velasmooth when it comes to cost. Energmologie usually runs around a hundred bucks a pop, while Velasmooth runs anywhere from two hundred to three hundred dollars, but also claims to give results a little faster due to it’s three pronged approach, which is suction/vacuum action combined with infrared light and heat, which is supposed to effectively break up the collagen bands that cause cellulite (that puckered look).
I do happen to know someone who had Velasmooth, just one treatment so far though. She said that she was very impressed, and that she felt she noticed an immediate difference in the appearance of her cellulite and a small size reduction in circumference as well. She had her upper arms done and also her thighs and buttocks, and said that her pants seemed to even slip on a little more easily right afterwards, and her arms already had appeared to be a bit smaller.
Now, this may not be for everyone, and I have read a lot of good and bad reviews on this treament, but it’s always encouraging to hear something directly from the horses mouth, so to speak. Endermologie gets mixed reviews, but there are lots of women who swear by it for the ultimate in cellulite reduction and treatment, and have been getting it done for years.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that there was some new, fabulous cellulite treatment that really worked that you have to pay thousands of dollars for, plus usually upkeep of several hundred per year at least, I may actually have a decent amount saved up for a child’s college education.
Of course I’m exaggerating a tad, but you get the point. Cellulite has been the proverbial albatross around women’s necks (well really their thighs) for years now, and we can’t seem to get any good, firm data on a cellulite treatment that you can pay for in good faith knowing that it’s actually going to give you a thousands of dollar result like they all seem to claim.
Enter some of the more popular spa and dermatologist administered cellulite treatments that you can get professionally done today. Let me first stress to you that all cellulite treatment, even ones done professionally in a Dr. or professional’s office, must be kept up with some sort of maintenance schedule. Cellulite is not something that you can just zap away forever, because the collagen bands that make that puckered look will eventually come back together and form “holes” in the skin that make the unattractive appearance of a sponge or grapefruit that we all know and love (not).
That means that whether you choose endermologie, which runs about one hundred dollars a session, but varies per demographics of where you get treated, or you choose something like smart lipo or Velashape, you will have to make sure you keep the treatments up, although usually at a lesser pace and frequency, in order to maintain whatever results you enjoyed during your initial regimen.
Since this is fairly lengthy (cellulite discussions always are) I’ve divided this into two posts. The next one we’ll talk more about the three cellulite smoothers that we mentioned, Endermologie, Velashape and Smart Lipo, and which one may be best for you. In the end, it all comes down to digging in and finding the right place and person to do your treatments, and what you feel most comfortable with.
Ugh, it’s that ugly, spongy looking stuff that plagues even the thinnest of women. You’ve probably seen one too many gossip magazines with well known, famous, and beautiful women and even models, on the covers of these “expose” types of magazines, saying “ooh look who else has cellulite” as if to mock their perfect images and bask in their revelation that these gorgeous women also get cellulite, not just us poor shmucks who can’t afford the latest and greatest cellulite treatments and lymphatic drainage massages several times a week.
Well, I must say that sometimes seeing even the most beautiful and successful women get cellulite may sometimes make me feel a tad bit better about my own struggles with the spongy stuff, it still makes me mad that we have to deal with this on top of everything else a woman is made to feel insecure about by looking at all the fashion magazines and dealing with the increasing onslaught of near nudity in films, showing unrealistic figures and little to no real body fat.
However, we “regular women” do have several weapons against cellulite that we can use, and we can use them very successfully in our own homes, with dramatic results if we just use the right tecniques and the most effective products we can get our hands on. Most cellulite creams contain ingredients that help to reduce puffiness on the surface of the skin, by doing this, they tighten the skin and make any dimples that appear in the skin’s surface much less noticeable.
But you can add to the effectiveness of even the best cellulite treatments by using your own elbow grease to help smooth the lumps out. When you apply your cellulite treatment, make sure you apply it with plenty of pressure and also make sure that you apply the pressure going up toward your heart, instead of down toward your feet. We are trying to work against gravity – not with it, and you are trying to bring your skin and lumps up, not down.
Also, it may be slightly more effective if you use a cellulite massage, which is very inexpensive and can be found in even drugstores today, in the shower, when your tissue is heated and you can actually get better results since your tissue is more malleable and when it is heated it may be more conducive to smoothing out, at least temporarily.
I like the better results I get when I roughly massage my cellulite afflicted areas of my body, the thighs being the worst on me personally, however, I’m also fairly prone to easy bruising and that can be a problem when you are massaging very hard to help smooth out the bumps that cellulite produces in this area.
Sometimes I just used my hands and good old fashioned elbow grease to get the lumps out with my cellulite cream treatment, and sometimes I also will use a pronged massager that helps to more evenly massage the cellulite prone areas, with equal pressure, and both always result in bruising, unless I have gotten used ot the pressure and have been doing it a few weeks, then it tends to not bruise as much.
Well, I was reading something that if you bruise easily and are getting a procedure that may result in a lot of bruising, you can concentrate on eating a lot of pineapple a few days before you either go in for your cellulite treatment or your home treatment. What does pineapple have to do with bruising?
Well it contains a special chemical in it called bromelain which has been shown to help with bruising when taken a few days prior to a bruising treatment, such as injections with anti wrinkle and aging fillers or some other procedure that causes temporary trauma to an area. You can also try arnica salve, which is a natural treatment sold in ointment form in natural foods stores and even found also in your local drugstore sometimes.
There are bromelain supplements available also though if you’d really rather not eat pineapple – although pineapple, I must say, is delicious and nutritious and has tons of health enzymes that help cleanse the digestive tract and the organs while also helping to restore digestive health, especially when eaten alone without any other food within at least an hour of eating.
Body wraps were made popular as a way to temporarily spot reduce fat and to help trim size off the circumference of typical body omplaints on women and men – their bellies, thighs, buttocks, and upper arms, and evolved into somewhat of a regular treatment for many who swear by it’s detoxification abilities and their great affinity for spot reducing size as well as the appearance of that thing we all hate, cellulite.
Body wraps started off as a pampering beauty treatment for those that could afford things beyond the expensive haircut and coloring on occasion, since they usually went for anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars per appointment. Add that up and you have quite a costly beauty habit! For information on a product you can buy that you can make your own home made body wrap with by buying ace bandages and performing the wrapping yourself, see our Revitol cellulite treatment review.
Now, thanks to the innovation of a few companies offering at home body wrap treatments, we can do a body wrap on ourselves, in our own home, on our own time and in privacy and comfort. There are a few excellent kits being sold mostly online now that can really give you that smooth, toned, smaller look on your problem areas just like the in-salon treatments can do.
Body wraps done at home are a simple way to help trim a few inches off over a few days or weeks with repeated use if you are anticipating a big life event, say you’re in a wedding, going on a big date, or you have a high school reunion to attend, these are the times that many people seek out body wraps so they can spot reduce their trouble areas without actually dieting or killing themselves exercising to do it.
Home body wrap systems often work by the user applying some sort of herbal botanical concoction to the area they want to treat first. These special herbal mixtures may contain any combination of tightening and toning ingredients such as seaweed, caffeine and other ingredients that tend to help reduce water retention and encourage the smoothing out of the skin.
These kits then supply you with some sort of a wrapping devices, such as thin strips of wrap material that look similar to an ace bandage, which you then use to tightly wrap the area you are treating after you have applied the (usually herbal) formula.
These techniques provide size reduction and cellulite smoothing as well and tone improvement in the affected areas by using compression as well as the ingredients in the topical cream or serum to really force the fat cells to compress together, creating a smoother, leaner look, and often even temporarily reducing the size by “training” the tissue to stay smaller and tighter for a period of time as well as smoothing out the appearance of cellulite.
Often times once you can achieve the desired outcome after doing several treatments, you only have to do upkeep treatments after that to maintain the look you want. Note that body wraps both at home and at a salon are not designed for actual weight loss, they only make the body parts they are applied to appear smaller, but they usually do not cause the individual to lose weight, only size. Any weight loss should be viewed as a bonus.
Cellulite reduction products such as creams, serums, gels and liquids, heck, even some offer pills that claim to help with the reduction of the appearance of the stubborn spongy stuff, have quite a few ingredients in common usually. There’s a reason for that, and that is these ingredients have been demonstrated to have somewhat of an effect on the appearance of cellulite in the people that use it. Albeit it is usually a temporary reduction, but it nonetheless does seem to disappear from view at least reasonably for hours after application.
But are their ingredients that really help to tone and tighten, that you should look for when choosing the best cellulite treatment you can find, and do these products really make a difference? My belief is that they do, as a cellulite cream user myself, since I can definitely see a difference in the pitting and spongy look in my buttocks and thighs when I’m using the cream regularly vs. not using it.
First off, your cellulite cream should definitely have some source of caffeine in it. Where the caffeine is derived from it shouldn’t matter, but caffeine is one of the best surface toners out there, and models have been using the coffee grounds to reduce cellulite for a long time, however that’s messy and time consuming, so utilizing caffeine in a cream is best for those of us who don’t have time to mess with using used coffee grounds on our trouble areas in the shower every morning.
Many types of algae have been shown to have skin tightening properties, as well as helping to alleviate surface water from the skin, which just pushes the bulges out further, making the cellulite appear worse than it is and exacerbating the problem areas. Natural algae is not only great for cellulite, but also is therapeutic for the skin as well, so you get a two for one here.
Retinol and retinoids are excellent as well, as they are a derivative of Vitamin A, and they have great therapeutic properties for toning the skin and helping promote elasticity, something that is hindered by cellulite, hence the puckered look instead of a smooth look. Retinol is not only a great cellulite fighter, but is also excellent for the skin and is used in several top notch skin care products for anti aging because of it’s promotion of skin elasticity.
Well, for those of you that loathe that spongy, loose looking flesh that tends to accumulate so much on women in the same “problem” areas such as the hips, thighs and buttocks, and occasionally even the belly and lower legs (calf area), there may be some very exciting news in cellulite reduction. But brace yourselves, because it’s probably the most expensive cellulite treatment to date.
At a rate of about $4,000.00, you may have access to getting cellulite reduction that actually lasts, and also where results can be seen after just one session. Normally, cellulite treatments take several sessions to gain results, and then take monthly or biweekly treatments just to keep those results going, but this Thermage cellulite reduction treatment may be a little better than what’s currently out there when it comes to permanent results and quick ones too. It’s called the Thermage Therma Tip CL cellulite tool, and it’s bound to cause a buzz in the beauty and spa industry as soon as women see results after the very first visit, if it works as they company says it does.
Thermage is a system that has been used for a while now, and is usually used on the face as a means of anti aging and wrinkle control. It is a series of radio frequency waves and heat that are transmitted through the skin via a professional hand held device, and it supposedly can penetrate layers of skin more effectively than even the best layers currently can do.
This is why they are saying it is so effective at breaking up fat and helping rebuild collagen while improving the circulation and promoting blood flow to help break it up more, and why it is great for breaking up cellulite problem areas, and very quickly. The cost though is very high, and that is definitely a consideration and something that is casting it into the only-the-rich-can-afford stratosphere of beauty and personal care, so it may be very limiting, but often times when something is first introduced it’s astronomically prices and then comes down shortly thereafter.
Unfortunately, this is so new that I have not read any reviews or user experiences with the treatment yet, but I do know that many users complained about Thermage that had it done on their face, that it was extremely painful. This may be different though, since it is not being performed on such a sensitive area, and it may also produce a different set of feelings because traditionally where there’s cellulite, there aren’t many nerve endings of blood flow, which is why it bruises so easily, but which also may be why the pain could be totally tolerable in this area.
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