To comprehend how a person could develop a hard lump of fat beneath the skin, it’s best to be familiar with the procedure. It utilizes a lengthy thin CoolSculpting applicator, which is placed topically on the areas of the patient’s preferred.
“Fat is then sucked in the handpiece that resembles a suction cup and the area of fat inside the handpiece is subjected to extremely low temperatures that, basically, freeze the fat cells, causing them to form crystals,” states Troy Pittman, M.D. A Board-certified cosmetic surgeon practicing in the private sector within Washington, D.C. “The fat cells that have been frozen go through the process is known as cellular apoptosis — and the immune system eliminates the cell debris.”
This cold approach to tackling fat deposits in the body is not new. CoolSculpting specifically was first approved by the officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2010. However, the main difference that leads people to sign for multiple sessions of CoolSculpting throughout the years is that it’s designed to reduce specific regions of fat in the body. It’s not a comprehensive weight loss process similar to gastric bypass for instance. CoolSculpting is designed to address the areas of fat that aren’t able to be treated with exercises, diet or lifestyle modifications as as stated by its advertising website.
The latest guidelines suggest that CoolSculpting may be used to treat areas like arms, thighs, the stomach, buttocks, and the areas in your facial area, specifically the chin. The procedure itself is only several hours, at the very least however, patients can see immediate improvements within six months with certain research-based findings suggesting that a single session could reduce as much as 20% of the composite fat around the affected area. Although some patients may are able to repeat the procedure to see better results, the price for a single treatment can be as high as $4000.
As per Dr. Pittman, the risks that patients of CoolSculpting are educated on prior to their first treatment include:
- The sensation of pulling or tugging the skin near the site of treatment This could be accompanied by discomfort.
- The patient may experience redness, bruises, or other signs of skin sensitivity or swelling after the procedure, which could last lasting for a few days
- The people who work on their chins could feel a sensation in their throats during the days following their procedure
- Sometimes, it is possible to develop PAH may occur within a few months following the procedure.
What’s PAH and how was it being developed?
This condition is generally regarded as rare by specialists such as the Dr. Pittman, and has been shown previously to affect less than 1 percent of people who go to cooling procedures that melt fat according to JAMA Dermatology. Plastic surgeons aren’t able to detect PAH until a long time after the procedure, and they are not aware of the condition until after it has occurred. Dr. Pittman explains that growth of fat cells is slow with time, and they aren’t aware of the causes at all.
The majority of patients who have suffered from PAH have reported that the area affected may be painful or irritable to contact. “This causes patients to have the treatment area becoming larger and fatter, not skinnier,” he adds.
It is possible it’s because PAH appears to be more prevalent in larger CoolSculpting machines as well as older models, however it is not the case with Dr. Pittman adds that the adverse effect is more frequently noticed in males than women. “It appears to be more often on the lower abdomen, but not on other areas in the human body.” Dr. Pittman says. “There’s no way to know the patients who will be affected by PAH and therefore everyone should be aware.”
While there aren’t many risk to health in the long term from PAH however, patients may need to undergo the possibility of a painful surgical procedure to address it. This is which CoolSculpting patients typically did not want to do initially. Dr. Pittman says most commonly the hardened layer that is a result of the fat’s removal with liposuction (which doesn’t guarantee to eliminate the pain completely) as well as patients put in surgery to take it completely.
In a letter the people as a response to the Evangelista claims and allegations an official from CoolSculpting claimed that the procedure was studied in research studies published within “more than 100 research papers” and was performed on more than 11 million patients around the world. Effects such as PAH “continue to be documented in the CoolSculpting guidelines for both patients and health professionals,” they added.
Does anyone know of a different method in place of CoolSculpting?
If hearing about the Evangelista case makes you think about these procedures in general some plastic surgeons might suggest that CoolSculpting may not be the best option for fat reduction, despite the fact that there are more than 8 million people who have signed up for the procedure, as per reports in the New York Times.
“The best method for weight reduction is through surgical liposuction” Dr. Pittman tells us. “For those who are seeking a non-surgical solution with no or minimal downtime, their expectations must be properly managed; they’re unlikely to see an outcome that is surgical with a non-surgical procedure.”
There are other options for topical treatments to CoolSculpting specifically, such as TruSculptID which is approved for physicians through Cutera. The treatment uses “radio-based electromagnetic energy” to target fat cells through heating them, instead of freezing them as Pittman explains. Pittman explains, adding that the procedure achieves the same result. Like CoolSculpting, best results may come after multiple treatments.
