Introduction

Dermal Fillers have become incredibly popular, with over 2.6 million people having received them in 2018 (the number is very likely much higher today). With that has come the inevitable rise in vascular occlusions caused by intravascular injection. Most aesthetic injections are performed with hyaluronic acid (HA) fillers, which are reversible with hyaluronidase. Accordingly, there has been a surge of interest in and use of ultrasound for the diagnosis and treatment of vascular occlusions, as well as for vascular mapping prior to injection. As a radiologist turned aesthetic injector, I have been following this trend very closely. My background: I am board-certified with 16 years experience in diagnostic ultrasound and ultrasound-guided procedures. After 7 years in aesthetics, I am finally able to apply some of my imaging expertise to my current practice.

There are currently 4 portable hand-held ultrasound systems available on the market at a relatively low cost ($2500 to $6900) considering the historical cost of standard units in the past (a GE or Philips system when I was a resident in the 90’s could run well over $300K). In this review I’ll explain the main features, advantages and drawbacks of the following devices:

• GE V-Scan Air
• Clarius (L-15HD and L HD L-20)
• Philips Lumify (L-12-4)
• Butterfly

The main criteria for this review are critical features needed to diagnose and treat vascular occlusion caused by hyaluronic acid filler in addition to vascular assessment prior to and during dermal filler injections. The use of these devices for other purposes is mentioned but is not the priority of my recommendations.
Critical features for ultrasound use in aesthetics: (I consider the following features a must-have)

• High-quality diagnostic images
• Color doppler to evaluate vessels
• Long duration of imaging time: potential for treatment of occlusions to take many hours
• Ease of use

Clarius

Design

The first hand-held device I evaluated was the Clarius. Clarius offers two US probes at this time– either of which could be used in aesthetics. The L-HD15 (up to 15 MHz) had a standard footprint and the HD L-20 (higher resolution up to 20MHz) has a slim footprint (similar to a hockey-stick). The first thing that stood out about the Clarius is that it feels like holding a brick. This thing is BIG and HEAVY. If you were operating this device for any length of time your hand and arm would fatigue quickly. The device itself is very large for an US probe. Though the L-20 has a slim footprint, the probe itself is the same huge size as the HD-15. Why is that odd? The slim footprint that the high-res hockey sticks are designed with have a very small handpiece so as to not get in the way of needle procedures or the patient’s anatomy. They are great for getting into small areas where things are in the way– say the nasolabial fold near the nose. The Clarius handpiece is missing this important feature.

Image Quality and Doppler

Image quality of both devices is excellent. Do you need the higher resolution of the 20MHz? In my opinion no. There is no added diagnostic value. Unless you are specifically looking for that smaller footprint, there would be no advantage. And having done more US-guided procedures than I could possibly count, the larger issue is that enormous handpiece. As with all 4 of these devices, the Clarius offers high-quality color doppler for evaluating flow. For an extra $1000 you can also get power doppler– but this really provides no benefit over standard color doppler and in my opinion is not necessary for aesthetics.

Battery Life and recharging

Battery life with the Clarius is about 60 minutes with 90 minutes to recharge. Importantly– the battery is detachable (this is actually part of the reason the probe is so bulky and heavy). This is critical if you have to scan for any length of time– especially for occlusions. With the Clarius, you can have a backup battery ready for when your probe conks out. Since lysing an occlusion can take hours– and there have been reports of cases lasting over 24 hours, albeit without ultrasound assistance– one vital feature is having a probe that will go the distance. With a recharge time of 150% of the battery life, you might run out of battery anyway if you only have 1 back up. But you can always have 2!

Ease of Use

The software design for the Clarius is intuitive and simple to use. The device is wireless, and communicates via bluetooth to any phone or tablet. The handpiece itself is limited by its bulk and weight– twice the weight of a standard ultrasound probe like the GE and 4 times the weight of the Philips Lumify. Unless you’re a football player, this will be a major limiting factor for any physician actively using this in practice.

GE Vscan Air

Design

There is a lot to love about the GE Vscan Air. It has a unique design, built with a Linear transducer at one end and a curved array at the other end, all within a single cordless device that weighs the same as any regular ultrasound probe. This makes it ideal to use for many practices with a wide range of diagnostic ability for almost any body part. For an aesthetics-only practice, however, the curved array is completely unnecessary. For a radiologist like me, it is almost irresistible! I scanned my whole abdomen, just for fun! But really– you won’t use that feature for aesthetics.

Image Quality and Doppler

At 12 MHz, the resolution is slightly lower than the Clarius. To my eye, the images were slightly fuzzier, but the diagnostic quality was excellent. Color Doppler on the GE is excellent as well. There is no power doppler, pulsed wave or even M mode at this time, but again, these are features not needed for aesthetics.

Battery Life and Recharging

According to GE, the Vscan Air battery lasts 50 minutes– but in my hands this was closer to 40 minutes. Recharging is wireless and recharge time is 60 minutes. The battery is built-in, so you can’t have a back-up battery. This is where the GE falls short for aesthetics: for treating occlusions, you must have a method of imaging over longer periods of time than 40-50 minutes. So, unless you have a second probe, you’re out of luck.

Ease of Use

The GE has a huge leg up on the Clarius for ease of scanning. The probe feels great in the hand and at half the weight, it shouldn’t tire you out (if only the battery could last that long). The software for the GE is the least intuitive of the bunch, but it is adequate. It can be used with any phone or tablet, so it is very versatile. However, I had to pair the device every time I used it, even on the same tablet. I’m not sure why this would be necessary, and I found it to be annoying and introduced a delay each time I used it. So, as much as it was absolutely delightful to scan with the GE, they have some work to do on the interface to make it more seamless.

Philips Lumify

Philips makes 3 Lumify probes for different uses. I evaluated the L 12-4 which goes up to 12MHz, like the GE. They also make separate curved array and linear phased array for other applications, each probe for the same price. The Lumify has a very different design– it is corded and runs off the power of the device it is attached to. Thus it has no battery. At first I thought that this would be a drawback but it turned out to be an advantage.

Design

The Lumify is amazingly lightweight (since it has no battery)– at less than a quarter pound it is half the weight of the GE and feels comfortable and nimble in the hand. It is also a slightly smaller footprint than the GE or Clarius L HD-15 making it very easy to use on the face. Though it does have a cord, I found it not to be a problem while scanning. Perhaps this is because I am used to having a cord that is present on all of the major systems I’ve ever used. Regardless, I don’t think this is a detriment to scanning.

Image Quality and Doppler

The Philips has excellent image quality. Despite having a frequency identical to the GE, I found the images to be crisper– not significantly different from the Clarius. The color doppler was excellent and easy to adjust. It happens that a patient walked in my office with a full-on occlusion (from filler placed elsewhere!) and we were able to evaluate her blood flow with ease with the Lumify. It was this experience that cemented my belief that the higher frequency of the Clarius does not help diagnosis or treatment of vascular occlusions.

Battery Life and Recharging

The Lumify is powered by the device to which it is attached. Philips recommends a Samsung tablet, which puts out plenty of power and will last over 6 hours on a single charge with continuous use. This is a tremendous advantage over the rechargeable probes. You can always plug the Lumify into a different tablet if you actually needed to use it that long. The disadvantage is that the longevity will depend on what device you’re using. Android tablets are all different and Philips does not supply data on how long each different device would last. And apple devices do not put out enough power to run it at all. The Lumify will work with an iOs device– but you’ll need a battery pack to go along with it– which itself has its own battery life. The Lumify battery pack for the apple devices lasts 2 ½ hours and has a recharge time of 3 hours, and of course you can have a backup battery as well. Either way, the Lumify is the winner hands-down as far as battery life.

Ease of Use

The Lumify was by far the easiest of the handhelds to use. The app launches automatically and is completely intuitive. The demo didn’t come with any instructions, but none were needed. I was up and running in seconds. With the lightweight maneuverable handpiece and easy interface, the Lumify felt like a natural extension of my hand.

Butterfly

The Butterfly is all over social media marketing directly to the consumer. This device is a completely different technology that uses an array of sensors on a chip rather than true piezoelectric crystals that traditional ultrasound devices use to produce the images. With one handpiece, they are able to reproduce the equivalent of the linear and curved array probes. The result is a very versatile device with relatively low-resolution images. I’m including it in this discussion because of its ubiquitous presence and its availability as a portable low-cost ultrasound imaging system. However, I find the images lack the diagnostic quality one needs for superficial, soft tissue and vascular imaging. Its size and weight are comparable to the GE. It is corded, but unlike the Lumify, it runs off of an internal battery, like the GE. The battery life is 120 minutes with a 300 minute recharge time. So it will scan for longer, but there is no backup battery.

Butterfly does not require a membership to function, but many features including image storage are turned off without one. The membership currently ranges from $200 to $1200 per year, so this cost offsets the cheaper price of $2500.

Because the images are moderate to poor, the Butterfly is not well-suited to aesthetics applications. However, it can easily be used in a pinch if one is available. And if all you want is to invest the least amount of money to have an ultrasound only for emergency occlusions, you could consider it. But if you use it and learn about ultrasound imaging at all, over time you’ll wish you had bought a better device.

Summary

I highly recommend the Philips Lumify for use in aesthetics. For ease of use, high-quality images and the ability to scan for hours, this light elegantly-designed hand piece is the ideal solution for imaging in the aesthetic setting. Because of the heavy bulky design, the Clarius is not recommended, but otherwise is a reasonable solution for image quality and a replaceable battery. The GE is beautifully designed, but its low battery life and no energy back-up option makes it unsuited to treat vascular occlusions. The Butterfly will do in a pinch if the family practice down the hall has one to spare, but it is not recommended for aesthetics.

What is cellulite?

Cellulite is mostly seen around the thighs but can happen elsewhere in the body. It consists of fatty areas that have dimpling of the skin surface. The result is a wavy, dimpled fatty appearance. The dimples happen because the fat around the thighs is permeated with fibrous bands of connective tissue, like a honeycomb. The thighs have this structure that is very different from other parts of your body, like your belly. Imagine the belly fat as a tub of butter. You could take a spoon and scoop it all out. Now imagine that the thigh fat is like a honeycomb with fat in each little pocket. If you tried to scoop that out, you wouldn’t get much– you would be blocked by a band of tissue. Now imagine you add butter to each space. The belly just expands and fills up. But the thighs– those fibrous bands are attached to the skin. As you add fat, the skin bulges out but the attachments to the skin are tugged in, resulting in a dimple. This is why cellulite looks like it does.

Treatments for Cellulite

Thigh creams: no matter what is in a cream, there is no way it is going to penetrate through your skin and release those bands or kill fat. Save your money.

Shock wave: there are several devices that send shock waves into the tissue in attempt to loosen the bands. We have one of them at Glow called Cellutone. We use this device for a very different purpose (breaking up fat that has been treated with Vanquish ME to help it resolve faster and prevent tender lumps as it goes away). Experiments using shock wave to loosen and smooth out cellulite can show minimal temporary improvement, but this is short lived and not enough to throw money at it. There are many devices out there that purport to do this– don’t waste your money.

Cellfina: This is a semi-invasive procedure that uses a device to target individual dimples in the skin and the physician slices through the band through the skin surface. Cellfina can really produce some nice results. But they are temporary. Why? If you are going in there and literally cutting the band, why would the results be temporary? Because (unfortunately) the bands re-tether over time. That’s right– your body rebuilds those bands as it heals. The dimples return. Plus it is fairly invasive and expensive. This procedure was exciting when it first came out, but you’ll find few places offering it now. Not worth the money!

Surgery and liposuction: Believe it or not, surgery doesn’t work any better than Cellfina for the same reasons. If you take a scalpel and slice through one of those cellulite bands– it just re-tethers! As a matter of fact, those fibrous bands are really difficult to deal with during liposuction as well. Let’s go back to that tub of butter. With liposuction, you are using a vacuum to suck out the fat. The belly (and some other areas) are ideal for this, and results can be beautiful. But the thighs– they bump into those bands and can’t get through them– or lyse through some but not others. The results of liposuction on the thighs are often weirdly lumpy and wavy. The bands make it so that you have to cut into each tiny pocket of fat to vacuum it out– and this is really challenging.

Injectables: There is a new injectable medication called Qwo that is being sold for cellulite. There have only been 2 studies of Qwo with only a few patients in each. They showed a 6% and 9% significant improvement that both patient and doctor could agree upon. They showed a 50% minimal improvement that either the doctor or patient felt was present, but the other disagreed. The 1 year follow-up showed a 34% persistence of correction. Meanwhile the treatment causes massive bruising. By massive, these are the worst images of bruising I have ever seen. Long term with that much bruising, the body is often left with hemosiderin deposits that can permanently stain the skin.

Qwo is new, but my prediction– it will come and go. 

Body Sculpting– what can we really do for Cellulite? 

We have 3 big things we CAN do with our machines. We can kill fat, we can build muscle and we can tighten skin. We cannot lyse those bands! At least not very effectively with long-lasting results, and that is what I’m looking for. Our treatment for thighs can result in a significant improvement in the appearance of fat and cellulite. If you reduce the fat and build muscle, the cellulite will look better since there is less fat bulging out, thus less tugging in of the skin. We do have a protocol for thighs using primarily Emsculpt Neo, but occasionally adding other fat dissolving and skin-tightening treatments. The thighs are large areas, and have 4 muscle groups (the Quads in front, buttocks and hamstrings in back, and the adductors on the inner thigh and abductors on the outer thighs). That’s a lot of treatments. It is definitely not a one-and-done magical cellulite vanishing cream. I wish I could invent that! Here is an example where we really felt our thigh treatments made a big difference:

In summary, Cellulite is one of the most challenging issues we try to address in aesthetic medicine. The fibrous bands that cause the dimpling appearance are really strong, resistant to any kind of treatment and have a very strong tendency to recur. The best treatments focus on the realistic goals of reducing fat, toning muscle and improving skin.

If they are all getting Emsculpt on Bling Empire, it must be great, right? Body Sculpting has become very popular, and what’s a better indication of trendiness than appearing on reality TV? But what about the science? Should you believe the hype? [Aside: If you haven’t seen it, Bling Empire is a reality TV version of Crazy Rich Asians. Totally ridiculous but quite entertaining.]

Now that we have some experience with the Emsculpt Neo, we can talk about how it is different from other devices and from the original Emsculpt, and how results differ too. We’ve had to field lots of questions and can tell you definitively that the Neo, with its combination of HIFEM muscle stimulation and RF heating is a huge advance, placing it far ahead of any other device in the body sculpting world.

The original Emsculpt uses High Frequency Electro-Magnetic (HIFEM) muscular stimulation to cause massively strong contractions – called supramaximal because they are stronger than the muscle contracts in any normal physiologic condition. Emsculpt delivers over 20,000 of these supramaximal contractions in 30 minutes. No amount of cross-fit can equal that. The Emsculpt studies showed that HIFEM alone can produce on average a 16% increase in muscle and a 19% decrease in fat with 4 sessions.

Radiofrequency (RF) is a great tool to heat and melt fat. At Glow, we have many years experience with Vanquish ME and Exilis Ultra, both of which use RF. We have used these devices in combination with Emsculpt to get the best results. RF works by heating the fat cells causing damage and ultimately cell death. Emsculpt Neo has RF built in to the paddles, deploying both HIFEM and RF simultaneously. The question I had when first looking at the Neo is how does it improve results over using these technologies separately? Is there a benefit from simultaneous treatment? Will we still need those RF devices? The answer is yes and yes, as it turns out. Here’s what we have found.

The addition of RF heating improves the yield for both muscle and fat. It was not surprising that RF improves the fat loss— RF has a strong record killing fat. It turns out that warmer muscles are stronger and provide more effective contractions. This increases the yield on muscle as well. The official studies of the Emsculpt Neo show a 25% increase in muscle and a 30% decrease in fat, a marked improvement over HIFEM alone. We have seen this borne out in real life experience.

How do the other machines fit in? As always every body is different, and treatments have to be designed around each individual. Emsculpt Neo has paddles that are focused in one area about the size of the center belly fat. We use Vanquish ME because it can reach all the way from one love handle to the other, and it can also treat both the inner and outer thigh at the same time. We have found that for those areas, combining Emsculpt Neo with Vanquish ME gives us the absolute best results. Exilis Ultra can be used in many different areas that the other devices can’t reach, and it also tightens skin. So for some bodies, these devices are very helpful in achieving the desired results.

We are adding the latest before and after images to our gallery on the website here. We have found a very high patient satisfaction with our suite of body sculpting treatments, in which the Emsculpt Neo has now taken center stage. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

Who wants to do a Whole30 with me in January? Have you heard of Whole30? Would you like to start the new year with some great friends helping you to feel better both in your body and your mind? And maybe lose a few pounds along the way?

First– I’m doing this for myself and for anyone who joins me — no charges and this is not a gimmick. We are all coming out of one of the worst years in history and we could all use a huge boost to our mental and emotional health. I have been so grateful for my Glow family, and I am hoping to start anew with the people whom I care most about. If you’d like to join, there is no obligation, just a few like-minded people supporting each other.

 What is a Whole30?

It basically means 30 days of whole foods. This includes sources of protein (meat, fish, fowl, nuts) and lots of vegetables and some fruit. What’s off the list? The forbidden foods are grains (bread, cereal, and pasta), legumes (beans and peanuts), dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream) and… alcohol.

Why try a Whole30?

 Weight Loss

I first tried this a few years ago as a way of losing weight. If you read the Whole30 website, you’ll find that they stress that this is not a weight loss plan, and they encourage you not to step on the scale the whole time. However, after doing this 3 times in the past, I have always lost around 6-7 lbs each time. The HUGE reason I have gone back to it is because of the mental clarity that comes with it and the complete suppression of inflammation.

Mental Clarity

I could venture many ideas that might explain this. But I can attest– if you do this seriously, you will find within 2-3 weeks you have better mental clarity that you have had your entire adult life. At least, that’s what happened to me each time. The feeling is just amazing– better focus, creativity of ideas, clarity of thought– mental stamina. It is great to know that you can still have this in your 40’s, 50’s and beyond.

Suppress Inflammation

Most of what makes us ill– viruses like the common cold (or COVID-19), allergies, autoimmune diseases– you name it– the part that primarily makes you sick is inflammation. A lot of the typical American diet is filled with inflammatory foods. The biggest offender here is grains. If you have a common cold virus, your nose will be runnier if you eat cereal than if you have chicken soup. The amount of inflammation of any disease is promoted by some foods and thwarted by others. The Whole30 diet is designed to minimize inflammation of all kinds. If you have a chronic cough or congestion, pain or autoimmune disease, a Whole30 can be truly eye-opening.

Better sleep

There are some side effects. The best one is better sleep! I’ve had sleep issues my entire adult life (it first started in medical school and residency– where you are expected to function at all hours with no sleep). I’ve come to terms with it, and my sleep hygiene is great these days, but nothing compares to a good night of uninterrupted sleep on a Whole30.

Tools for the future

Once you do it and reap the benefits, it becomes a lot easier to adjust your habits to live a healthier life in the future. After your first Whole30, you’ll know so much more about what foods truly make you feel better. It doesn’t mean you have to change your whole lifestyle. It is just great information to help guide your choice in the right direction.

If you’re interested, please email me directly at kate@glowspaseattle.com. Let’s do something amazing in 2021!

-Kate Dee, MD

Emsculpt just got even more amazing. The new Emsculpt NEO is as big a game changer as Emsculpt was just a couple years ago. You may have already tried Emsculpt– it has been the number one body sculpting treatment in the aesthetics industry since 2018 when it first came out. BTL, the company that makes Emsculpt, developed it to use along with Radiofrequency (RF) devices Vanquish ME and Exilis Ultra for body sculpting. Here’s a quick review of how these work, and why Emsculpt NEO is going to completely change the way we do body sculpting.

RF devices are able to heat the skin and the fat– to tighten the skin and kill the fat. Vanquish ME selectively tunes to the fat in order to heat it enough to destroy fat cells. Exilis Ultra heats from the skin down, but keeps the surface cool enough to penetrate into the fat. RF devices are great at tightening the skin and melting fat, but did nothing for the underlying muscle.

Then BTL invented Emsculpt. It uses powerful magnetic waves that cause supramaximal contractions of the muscle. Supramaximal means that these contractions are way more than what you would normally do in any vigorous workout. These contractions are more powerful than your brain can make your muscle do. Emsculpt does this about 20,000 times in a half-hour treatment. Though intense, it doesn’t hurt. The result is a stronger, more sculpted muscle. In the studies done to validate Emsculpt, it was found (amazingly!) to kill fat as well. The only thing it didn’tsculpt NEO, Author: Kate Dee, Fat Reduction, Body sculpting, do was tighten skin (that’s why we still need Exilis). And it also couldn’t get to the love handles and leg fat (that’s why we still need Vanquish).

So why is Emsculpt NEO different? It offers two treatments in one. It combines the muscle treatment of Emsculpt with RF at the same time. The RF in the NEO is the same frequency that Vanquish uses to tune to your fat. It also heats up your muscles, and it turns out that Emsculpt muscle-building is even more effective on warm muscles. So the NEO can not only build muscle and kill fat, but it does so even better than Emsculpt or Vanquish or Exilis can do on their own. There have been 7 published studies of the new Emsculpt NEO. The results showed marked increase in muscle mass and decrease in fat on MRI, CT and Ultrasound. On average, there was a 25% increase in muscle and a 30%reduction in fat 1 month after a series of treatments. This is like having Emsculpt and Vanquish in only 30 minutes per treatment (this used to be a 2-hour appointment).

Emsculpt NEO is currently FDA-cleared to treat the abdomen, buttocks, thighs, arms (biceps and triceps) and calves. The Emsculpt NEO protocol is a series of 4 30-minute treatments. We are also working on a new protocol for the thighs (finally a treatment that actually works for saddle bags!).

We are excited to be able to offer the new Emsculpt NEO at our West Seattle office. As before, our full suite of body sculpting services will be available, so we can treat almost any body contouring challenge. Emsculpt continues to be available at our Kirkland location. For a full list of services at each center, see our brochures online: West Seattle and Kirkland.

If your skincare regimen pre-COVID-19 was not focused on treating acne and you’re experiencing breakouts due to wearing a mask, we recommend altering your skincare regimen to include an exfoliating cleanser with glycolic acid or salicylic acid. The Essopi 10% moisturizing cleanser is a great option for those with dry skin and our Nolio salicylic acid cleanser is optimal for oily skin. Glycolix Elite treatment pads with 10% glycolic acid are also a good option. If you sweat in your mask, it is best to cleanse your face and not let the sweat fester on your skin all day. This is a sure-fire way to help the acne flare-up.

We also recommend using our Element 47 acne toner. It is a liquid toner spray that is applied with a cotton round directly onto the skin two times a day. It has aloe vera, colloidal silver, grapefruit extract, and allantoin. These ingredients are anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory. Of course, we would highly recommend that you wear a clean mask, but if you must re-wear your mask without washing it, you can spray the inside of your mask with Element 47 and it will eliminate viruses and bacteria and reduce the reactivity of your skin. Element 47 is one of the least expensive products in our spa, and you can even use it as a hand sanitizer if need be.

Retinols or our prescription-grade acne triple gel are highly effective treatments for acne-prone skin. All available retinol creams are not created equal. We offer medical-grade retinol that won’t break the bank, and when the label says that it has 0.5% retinol, you can be assured that it does. We offer our own topical prescription acne triple gel at a fraction of the price you’ll find at a pharmacy. Most prescriptions are not covered, so we have arranged with an FDA-certified compounding pharmacy to provide you with this at a markedly reduced cost.

As always, if you need help sorting out what changes to make in your skincare routine, we are happy to help.

While CoolSculpting may be one of the most popular brands on the market, it is most certainly not the best. Today, we answer some of the most frequently asked questions about body sculpting, including if it actually works.

Does Body Sculpting Actually Work? 

As children, we are taught that if something seems too good to be true, it is a scam. So, does body sculpting actually work? Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Both Emsculpt and Vanquish ME are FDA-approved to remove excess body fat.

Vanquish ME is also FDA-approved to tighten loose skin and treat cellulite. Emsculpt is also FDA-approved to tone the underlying muscle tissue in the treatment regions.

What’s the Significance of FDA Approval? 

There are several reasons why FDA approval is important. First, FDA approval means that the treatment you are considering is safe. Second, FDA approval means that the treatment you are considering is effective.

Before a particular treatment is approved, it goes through rigorous double-blind, third-party testing. Regardless of which treatment you find is right for your unique aesthetic goals, you can rest assured that it is perfectly safe and unbelievably effective.

How Do These Treatments Work? 

Vanquish ME works by harnessing the power of radiofrequency energy. This sound energy warms the deepest layers of your skin, triggering collagen production. This collagen production tightens the skin and corrects cellulite. Moreover, the heat liquefies the localized fat cells, reducing the circumference of the targeted regions.

Emsculpt works by using electromagnetic energy to trigger supramaximal contractions. This cannot be achieved in a gym. In just 30 minutes, your targeted muscles will contract an astonishing 20,000 times. This simultaneously tones the targeted muscles and burns an incredible number of calories.

Where Does This Type of Treatment Work? 

The great thing about body contouring, or body sculpting, treatments is they can be used to treat virtually any part of the body. Because Emsculpt is so effective at toning targeted muscles, it is most often used to sculpt the chest, abdomen, and buttocks. However, it can also be used to remove excess fat from the upper arms, lower back, and more.

Because Vanquish ME is used to tighten and lift loose, sagging skin, as well as treating cellulite and eliminating excess fat, it is most often used to treat the abdomen. However, it can also be used to target the buttocks, inner and outer thighs, neck, and chin. To determine if a trouble region on your body is right for one of these treatments, book an appointment.

Discover How to Blast Stubborn Fat Today

If you eat right, work out regularly, and still can’t sculpt the body of your dreams, you may be the perfect candidate for body sculpting with Vanquish. This treatment doesn’t just work. It is the most effective body sculpting treatment out there.

To determine if this revolutionary treatment is right for you, please contact us today at Glow Medispa in Seattle, WA to schedule your initial consultation. We can’t wait to meet you and help you achieve your ideal aesthetic.

What Is Sculptra?

Sculptra is an FDA-approved dermal filler and minimally invasive treatment for those who are concerned about the appearance of lines and wrinkles. These signs of aging can affect your confidence, but they’re notoriously difficult to fade with topical creams.

Created with poly-L-lactic acid, this filler is injected into the skin where it naturally boosts your body’s collagen production levels and helps rebuild the framework of your skin to achieve a youthful appearance. For most patients, a treatment plan includes 3-4 injection appointments. These appointments typically take about an hour to complete, making them easy to fit into your daily schedule.

Once the dermal filler is injected, it begins to work with your body’s collagen and other structural proteins to lift, smooth, and tighten the target areas. Over time, you’ll see problematic lines, creases, and wrinkles fade away, restoring your confidence when you look in the mirror.

How Long Does It Last?

For the average patient, Sculptra easily outlasts other dermal filler options by giving your skin 2-3 years of consistent collagen support once your treatment plan is completed. This means that your body will continue producing collagen at a more rapid rate, which will continue to provide the framework your skin needs to smooth away wrinkles.

You’ll be able to enjoy this period of time without worrying about your appearance, and even though your skin will continue to age naturally, you’ll be able to maintain your ideal image by having touch-up appointments on an as-needed basis. When compared to other options to address deep lines and wrinkles, Sculptra is able to deliver results that last much longer than the average dermal filler and cost much less than a surgical alternative, making it an excellent choice for most patients.

Am I an Ideal Candidate?

If you notice deep creases, lines, and wrinkles around your eyes, mouth, or jawline, this treatment could restore your youthful appearance. It is not intended for minors but is ideal for adults who are seeking a non-surgical option for restoring skin elasticity and eliminating signs of aging for a significant period of time after treatment. To learn more about your candidacy for treatment, speak to us.

Get Started Today!

Don’t let lines and wrinkles affect the way you live your life. In just 3-4 treatments, you could say goodbye to signs of aging and enjoy smooth, luminous skin for up to 3 years. To learn more about how Sculptra can restore your skin, contact us at Glow Medispa in Seattle, WA. We look forward to serving you!