CoolSculpting is a relatively new plastic surgery procedure that is supposed to freeze away your fat, without surgery! But what’s even more surprising, a large majority of men are getting this non-surgical treatment.
By Carolynn Grimes
ThePlasticSurgeryChannel.com
Patient Waiting Rooms are Looking Much Different
“More than 50 percent of the people doing CoolSculpting are men!” says Dr. Grant Stevens, a board certified plastic surgeon from Los Angeles, California. Dr. Stevens, has used CoolSculpting in his medical practice since 2009; he now has six units. “In the second quarter of 2013, fifty-two percent of my patients are men. So now our reception area looks totally different.”
Dr. Stevens recently conducted a three year study that involved more than 500 CoolSculpting patients. The study was recently published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal. Stevens found that 67 percent of the patients that came in for CoolSculpting had never been to his practice, and of those, 62 percent had never had an aesthetic procedure before, including a facial. These figures seem to demonstrate that both men and women who wouldn’t normally consider plastic surgery are now coming in for non-surgical options like Coolsculpting.
Dr. John Gross, a board certified plastic surgeon from Pasadena, California says, in the past surgeons would do small volume liposuction to help improve love handles. “There’s a whole host of men out there who work out and have small problem bulges that they would like to take care of, but would probably never want to take the time for surgery or take the time off.
Gross sums up the convenience of the device by saying, “The ability to come in to the office, and get an improvement of contour without any recovery and to go back to work the next day, I think will add a whole new segment to the patients that we’re seeing for body contouring. The best areas for CoolSculpting is anywhere there’s enough fat that can be pulled or vacuumed into the device, says Gross. “This includes the entire trunk area, the bra roll, inner thighs, outer thighs, even where there’s excess fat adjacent to the knee.”
Patients want non-surgical options, says Dr. Jackie Yee, a board certified plastic surgeon in South Florida. “I think CoolSculpting is a great opportunity for patients who either don’t want to have surgery, don’t have the time for surgery, or just don’t have the downtime after surgery. They are still able to do something to correct areas and bulges they don’t like.”
Dr. Yee is a plastic surgeon in Miami, where liposuction is one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures. We asked her, “Will CoolSculpting one day replace liposuction?” “I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t think it’s got the precision; I don’t think it’s got the aggressiveness of what we need to actually consider a huge threat to what we do with body sculpting using liposuction,” says Yee. Instead, Dr. Gross believes CoolSculpting will replace a segment of the liposuction patients, “and I think it’s going to add a new segment that we’re not touching.”
How CoolSculpting Works…
The technical term for CoolSculpting is cryolipolisis – it means to freeze the fat. “It turns out fat is more sensitive to cold than skin, bone, muscle and nerves,” says Stevens. “If you apply cold, to the abdomen, what happens is, the fat freezes just like if you put butter in your refrigerator, the butter solidifies but the water doesn’t.” Only the fat cells are frozen and your healthy skin cells remain. Once the fat cells are crystallized, the cells die and are naturally eliminated from your body. Doctors say you should see the final results in about three months.