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thermage?


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#1 curious_sle

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Posted 06 January 2008 - 05:44 PM


I stumbled over Thermage a seemingly easy treatment to reduce wrinkels.
http://www.thermage....general/faq.cfm

has anyone more information then the marketing blab? These pics certainly look good and have one wanting to try it :) .

#2 niner

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Posted 07 January 2008 - 05:03 AM

I stumbled over Thermage a seemingly easy treatment to reduce wrinkels.
http://www.thermage....general/faq.cfm

has anyone more information then the marketing blab? These pics certainly look good and have one wanting to try it :) .

It sounds like a little hand-held microwave oven for skin... It probably works at least in some cases. The pics they put up on the website always look good. Personally, I'd want to know that the incidence of bad side effects was really low before using it.

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#3 curious_sle

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Posted 07 January 2008 - 09:10 AM

It sounds like a little hand-held microwave oven for skin... It probably works at least in some cases. The pics they put up on the website always look good. Personally, I'd want to know that the incidence of bad side effects was really low before using it.


Yes the heat shrivels the colagen in skin leading to a tightenng and seemingly an increased formation of new colagen. It has spectacularly low rate of adverse reactions like 0.2% have any sort of negative effects and of those it mostly goes away. so it seems to be quite safe. Plus you usually need only one treatment and a full face treatment costs half that of surgery. I kinda like the concept but am unsure if it is that cool after all hence me asking for input.

For the longer term i am not so shure it is that smart. What do others opine?

#4 Fredrik

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Posted 24 January 2008 - 10:05 PM

It sounds like a little hand-held microwave oven for skin... It probably works at least in some cases. The pics they put up on the website always look good. Personally, I'd want to know that the incidence of bad side effects was really low before using it.


Yes the heat shrivels the colagen in skin leading to a tightenng and seemingly an increased formation of new colagen. It has spectacularly low rate of adverse reactions like 0.2% have any sort of negative effects and of those it mostly goes away. so it seems to be quite safe. Plus you usually need only one treatment and a full face treatment costs half that of surgery. I kinda like the concept but am unsure if it is that cool after all hence me asking for input.

For the longer term i am not so shure it is that smart. What do others opine?


Thermage has caused permanent "dents" and fat loss in some patients. They acknowledge this in their own literature. I would never let anyone cook the fat in my face so the collagen fibers can shrink. When you need tightening then a partial face lift is still the way to go (look at Madonnas newly tightened face), but you´re to young you don´t need that. If you just want a nice even skin tone then IPL will take care of pigmentation and broken blood vessels without any adverse effects.

#5 curious_sle

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Posted 24 January 2008 - 10:27 PM

Thermage has caused permanent "dents" and fat loss in some patients. They acknowledge this in their own literature. I would never let anyone cook the fat in my face so the collagen fibers can shrink. When you need tightening then a partial face lift is still the way to go (look at Madonnas newly tightened face), but you´re to young you don´t need that. If you just want a nice even skin tone then IPL will take care of pigmentation and broken blood vessels without any adverse effects.



Well, im not happy with the fine lines arround my eyes. Not much fat there so relatively less risk. Probably i'll just have to wait a few ore years till something way more affective then tretinoin comes along.

Oh, i should be able to get tazarotene with my tretinoin script right? Well, the lady at the pharmacy would not give it to me so i'll have to see about that later. (off for a few weeks in uva and uvb heaven... the Andes! 4000 meters anyone? Yes i got a really decent sunblocker and will avoid overexposure, already have excellent vitamine d levels etc and likely will use forskolin to amplify tanning as good as i can so i get some extra protection plus a nice tan with minimal damage. Damn, i forgot i lived there a while and never used sunblocker or a hat, sheesh).

Anyway, thanks for the information fredrik.

#6 sdxl

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Posted 25 January 2008 - 06:33 PM

Oh, i should be able to get tazarotene with my tretinoin script right? Well, the lady at the pharmacy would not give it to me so i'll have to see about that later.

No, prescriptions don't work like that. You'll need to ask your prescriber for a new prescription. As far as I know Zorac is only registered to treat psoriasis in most European countries. So your doc might be reluctant to prescribe it off-label.

#7 curious_sle

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Posted 25 January 2008 - 08:01 PM

No, prescriptions don't work like that. You'll need to ask your prescriber for a new prescription. As far as I know Zorac is only registered to treat psoriasis in most European countries. So your doc might be reluctant to prescribe it off-label.


Well, i could get most retinoids with the script but tazarotene is only indicated for psoriasis and i had been less honest i would have gotten it but alas i'm a hones creature. (might be my downfall one day?)

#8 veronica

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Posted 25 January 2008 - 10:45 PM

I do not have experience with thermage, but I was reading about it on this site:

http://www.yestheyrefake.net/
http://www.yestheyre...ne_thermage.htm

#9 curious_sle

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Posted 26 January 2008 - 10:30 AM

I do not have experience with thermage, but I was reading about it on this site:

http://www.yestheyrefake.net/
http://www.yestheyre...ne_thermage.htm


Thank you. I was aware of the site but not the article on her experiment. This procedure looks like the maximum i'd be willing to do in terms of semisurgical interventions etc.

#10 Fredrik

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Posted 27 January 2008 - 10:19 AM

Thermage has caused permanent "dents" and fat loss in some patients. They acknowledge this in their own literature. I would never let anyone cook the fat in my face so the collagen fibers can shrink. When you need tightening then a partial face lift is still the way to go (look at Madonnas newly tightened face), but you´re to young you don´t need that. If you just want a nice even skin tone then IPL will take care of pigmentation and broken blood vessels without any adverse effects.



Anyway, thanks for the information fredrik.


No prob! Thermage is not primarily for wrinkles it´s for sagging skin. The doctors I´ve read has not been impressed, only 50-60% of patients get a subtle lifting effect.

Based on these and other studies, it appears that only about 50-60% people experience clearly noticeable improvement with Thermage (at least with a single treatment). Even in responders the lifting effect is relatively modest: for example, brows are usually lifted by about 0.5-2 mm. This translates into a fresher, brighter look rather than dramatically younger appearance. However, since the healing response varies widely among people, there seems to be a minority, perhaps 10%, who experience substantial lifting and may look 10 years younger. On the other hand, up to a half of the people get no benefits at all.

http://www.smartskin...ofrequency.html


So what to do about under eye wrinkles?

For under eye wrinkles I would see a dermatologist or plastic surgeon experienced with either medium depth peels or Fraxel. CO2-laser will smooth the skin but you can risk permanent hypopigmentation "the racoon look".

Most people don´t need lasers if they combine botox, retinoids like tretinoin every night, sunscreen daily and a strong TCA-peel once in a while (when sun damage starts to accumulate again).

Strong peels can be better, safer and cheaper than laser in some situations. A 35% TCA peel with Jessners solution as a pre-peel is often used in the undereye area. It will tighten and smooth out the skin as it creates new collagen. It will look awful for 7-10 days but the result is really good.

Then there´s the deep peel that you only do once. It´s better than a laser on the thin areas of skin (like under eye). A phenol peel will create more collagen, but you do create an open wound, like you do with CO2-lasers.

Based on relatively limited research comparing the two methods, deep peels remain a viable alternative to ablative laser resurfacing. For example, Dr. Langsdon and colleagues from Facial Plastic Surgery Clinic, Germantown TN, concluded that:

"Phenol CP [chemical peel] is as effective as the laser in diminishing rhytids [wrinkles] in the thin-skinned areas of the face. The laser produces improved results in the thick, glandular areas of the face, but also produces more intense hypopigmentation, longer periods of patient discomfort, and longer periods of postoperative erythema [redness]. Both phenol CP and laser resurfacing remain useful clinical tools."

In another study, Dr Moss and coworkers found some advantage of phenol peel versus ablative laser in relation to rebuilding collagen. In particular, they concluded that:

"The initial biopsies demonstrated that the CO2 lasers ablate more superficial skin than the peels, but the 3-month biopsy specimens showed that the zone of new collagen formation was thicker as a result of the phenol peel. ...With the parameters used in this study, phenol peels resulted in the formation of a thicker zone of collagen despite the deeper ablation depth of the laser."

http://www.smartskin...micalpeels.html

The only laser at the moment I would risk trying is Fraxel. The other ones have to high risks of scarring, hypo- and hyperpigmentation. The Fraxel will probably stimulate more collagen than a medium TCA-peel, but less than a deep peel.

Whatever you choose you will also need botox, sunscreen and a retinoid to prevent these expression lines, dynamic wrinkles, from reappearing.

Edited by fredrik, 27 January 2008 - 10:58 AM.





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