Dear Dr. Seckel,All the skin tightening and non-surgical facial rejuvenation treatments confuse me. I am 45 years old and look about 35. I don’t want a face-lift. I have some wrinkling and looseness on my neck, some collagen breakage (this is what I’ve been told the lines are), some tension lines in my forehead, crows feet around my eyes and a little of the fold thickening around my mouth. My biggest concern is my neck. I have had microdermabrasions and there have been no changes. Is there anything that truly works consistently? In one of your answers I see another skin tightening treatment compared with titan in that it uses infrared. You stated you liked this the best for yourself personally. I have not heard of this before. Do either infrared treatments or radio frequency treatments cause damage? If so, does one cause more than the other? Thank you for answering my questions, Saraa, Reseda, CA
Saraa,
Thermage is RF and has had problems. There is a class action lawsuit against Thermage. I use the Lux IR -infrared machine made by Palomar Medical. It is safe-works and is less painful than Titan the other infrared machine.Any tightening technology will tighten your neck–30% at best after 4 treatments spaced 4 weeks apart and after a 6 month wait for collagen remodeling. Other skin tightening machines are aluma with FACES, and Refirme.
A face lift or neck lift by a good experienced surgeon will give you 100% tightening and require a 2 week recovery. Skin tightening works but skin tightening is not a non-surgical face lift.
You mention crow’s feet. Botox is excellent for crow’s feet around the corner of the eyes and the upper cheek. Wrinkle removal from other areas like the cheek requires a laser skin rejuvenation method such as an activefx laser skin peel. Skin tightening does provide wrinkle removal on the neck.
For more information on skin tightening, lasers and non-surgical facial rejuvenation read Save Your Face or contact me.
Boston, Massachusetts