What is CoolSculpting?
You deserve a smooth and flattering body shape that matches your natural frame and muscle tone. However, even a pleasantly rounded or toned body may not match your vision of your ideal self due to lingering fat deposits in non-ideal places. That’s why there’s CoolSculpting.
Your Body Shape: Science vs Evolution
The body puts fat wherever it wants. Your body’s ideal map for fat deposits is not based on beauty but, instead, on the survival of your ancient ancestors. Bodies store fat to save you from a harsh winter, long drought, or year of crop failures. DNA doesn’t know about supermarkets, and even if you’re building muscle, it wants to keep those emergency stores.
Fortunately, you have a way to change how your body stores fat in key areas to give your body the smooth and elegant shape you deserve – without surgery. CoolSculpting allows you to freeze fat cells in targeted areas to help your body let go of those unnecessary emergency stores and reclaim your ideal shape based on your bone structure and muscle tone.
What is CoolSculpting
CoolSculpting is a scientific approach to body contouring through cold treatments that can thin and smooth unwanted areas of fat. The method implements a type of fat-reduction treatment called cryolipolysis (CLL). This process is FDA-approved for non-invasive body contouring from head to toe, focusing on whatever areas you’d like to smooth and shape.
How CoolSculpting Works
Fat cells are sensitive to cold temperatures and the cells will die when frozen. Cryolipolysis applies controlled cooling to selective fat cells to achieve cold-induced apoptosis. Cold treatment is applied safely through the skin ensuring a relaxed and non-invasive process. After cooling, the damaged fat cells are removed by your body’s natural maintenance processes. This results in reduced fat thickness in the targeted areas for a smoother and slimmer body shape over time.
What Results Can I Expect?
CoolScupting is a process that takes three months to change the shape of your body. CoolSculpting can be used to reduce the thickness, bulging, or folding of fat in targeted areas, allowing your natural shape to come through in smoother and more elegant lines. Whether your goal is to reveal toned muscles you’ve been working hard to build or to perfect luscious curves that flatter your natural shape, CoolSculpting can help you achieve smoother body contouring through a natural, healthy, and non-intrusive process.
Most patients experience a 20-25% reduction in the targeted area.
Three Month Transformation
Results will appear over the course of three months of treatment. You can treat up to four different target areas at a time. Each treatment will target and cold-damage an area of fat cells. Your body will then go through a healing and maintenance cycle over the next few days in which you will see initial inflammation, followed by slimmer and smoother lines as fat deposits are reduced.
What is the CoolSculpting Experience Like?
CoolSculpting appointments typically last from 30-60 minutes per treatment. Sculpting one target area can take 2 to 4 treatments over the course of 1 to 3 months.
The treatment starts by measuring the targeted area and placing a protective gel pad to protect the skin from the cold. You sit back in a comfortable chair as the cooling device connected to the CoolSculpting machine is placed over the pad and begins cooling the area. You may feel a tugging sensation as suction occurs, followed by a gradual cooling that eventually numbs the area.
The sensation is mild and even pleasant. You can read a book, listen to music, or chat with your treatment specialist to pass the time.
How is CoolSculpting Better than Liposuction?
Liposuction is a type of surgery. While both CoolScupting and Liposuction have the goal of body contouring, they could not be more different. Liposuction requires an incision, sedation, anesthesia, andÂ
- No Surgery – Surgery is inherently dangerous and requires a great deal of recovery. CoolSculpting is non-invasive and does not require an incision. That means no long recovery, no infection risk, compression garments, or anesthesia.
- No Anesthesia – CoolSculpting is quite comfortable and you don’t need sedation or anesthesia for the treatment – another safety bonus as both sedation and anesthesia can introduce risk.
- No Down-Time – CoolSculpting results in one day of redness as your body goes through a maintenance cycle to clear dead fat cells. You don’t need the 3-5 weeks of recovery after liposuction surgery and you don’t need to miss any work.
- One-Day Recovery – You’ll be looking and feeling normal within a single day after CoolSculpting.
Liposuction is a surgical procedure with all the dangers and recovery time that comes with it. CoolSculpting takes no more than an hour and you’ll be recovered, ready for any activity, within a single day with none of the risks, discomfort, or downtime.
CoolSculpting Preparation and Recovery
What should you know about before and after CoolSculpting? Not much! Unlike many med-spa treatments, there’s no special preparation for CoolSculpting on the day of your treatment. Come in with clean skin (skip your morning body lotion) and relax. There are no special eating or routine requirements. Simply come in, relax, and literally chill.
After CoolSculpting, you will experience about one day of redness and swelling, and that’s a good sign! It means your body is busy clearing out the affected fat cells and you’ll see your first-stage results soon. Your skin will look and feel normal within a few hours, or the next day at the latest.Â
Our only tip is to drink lots of water. This will facilitate blood flow and help your body with the process of fat elimination after your treatment. Enjoy any hydrating drinks including water, tea, milk, or broth. Add a few electrolytes and you’re good to go.
CoolSculpting FAQ
CoolSculpting is a fat-reduction treatment for men and women who want to get rid of stubborn pockets of fat in certain areas of their bodies.
CoolSculpting is NOT a weight loss procedure. CoolSculpting is a nonsurgical alternative that has little to no downtime.
CoolSculpting is FDA-cleared for the treatment of visible fat bulges in the submental (under the chin) and submandibular (under the jawline) areas, thigh, abdomen, and flank, along with bra fat, back fat, underneath the buttocks (also known as banana roll) and upper arm. It is also FDA-cleared to affect the appearance of lax tissue with submental area treatments.
The applicator will be placed on the treatment area and there will be a slight sucking sensation as it adheres to your body, followed by that signature cooling effect. During the procedure, you may experience sensations of pulling, tugging, mild pinching, intense cold, tingling, stinging, aching, and cramping at the treatment site. These sensations subside as the area becomes numb. Following the procedure, typical side effects include temporary redness, swelling, blanching, bruising, firmness, tingling, stinging, tenderness, cramping, aching, itching, or skin sensitivity, and sensation of fullness in the back of the throat after submental or submandibular area treatment.
After the applicator is detached, your provider will do a brief massage on the area to break up the treated fat cells and enhance the fat reduction. That’s it!
Each CoolSculpting® treatment is different, so it depends on which areas of the body and how many of them you plan on doing. Depending on the area, treatment can be done in as little as 35 minutes. The CoolSmooth applicator is discontinued; however, some practices may still use it. If you opt to do multiple treatments in a session, expect to spend more time. Some providers have multiple CoolSculpting® machines, allowing patients to do multiple treatment areas at once, reducing the amount of time spent in office.
While you will see up to a 20-25% fat reduction in the treated area after a single treatment, it depends on the person and the area being treated. Your provider will work with you to determine if additional treatments are necessary to reach your desired goal.
You’ll start to see changes as soon as 1-3 months post-treatment. Final results may take 6 months or more.
CoolSculpting® uses cryolipolysis, which is just a technical way to say fat-freezing. When fat cells freeze, they die and are then naturally eliminated through the body’s natural process. Don’t worry: This process happens so gradually, you won’t necessarily notice a difference in your day-to-day life.
Following the procedure, typical side effects include temporary redness, swelling, blanching, bruising, firmness, tingling, stinging, tenderness, cramping, aching, itching, or skin sensitivity, and sensation of fullness in the back of the throat after submental or submandibular area treatment. Rare side effects may also occur. Paradoxical hyperplasia (visibly enlarged tissue volume in the treated area) may develop two to five months after treatment and requires surgical intervention for correction. As with any medical procedure, ask Mary Clare Galarza, RNC if CoolSculpting® is right for you.
The CoolSculpting treatment helps eliminate stubborn pockets of fat. But, since CoolSculpting is not a weight loss treatment, it is possible to gain weight post-treatment if you don’t keep up your healthy habits. This kind of weight gain will most likely happen evenly throughout your body, not just in treatment areas.
Schedule a Free In-Person Consult
The first step for any CoolScuplting treatment is a personalized consultation to build your unique treatment plan. You will explore possible target areas, and your desired results, and build a treatment schedule with your CoolSculpting specialist. Contact us to schedule a free in-person consultation for CoolSculpting fat reduction in Albuquerque at Sana Spa.
Individual results may vary.
