A Skin Tightening Treatment Could Help Tighten Skin On Your Face And Body After Weight Loss
If you have loose skin due to weight loss, you may be thinking of having skin tightening surgery. With this, the doctor pulls your skin tight and cuts off the excess. You'll probably be left with a slight scar, and you'll need to go through a recovery phase after surgery.
An alternative to consider is a skin tightening treatment you can get from a medspa or dermatologist's office. These don't require incisions or a long downtime and you won't have a surgical scar afterward. Here's how skin tightening treatment works.
A Skin Tightening Treatment Uses Heat
A tightening treatment can be given with radiofrequency waves, lasers, or ultrasound. These use different types of energy, but they all heat up deep layers of your skin. The temperature used is low enough that it doesn't cause pain and high enough to tighten skin.
You can have a skin tightening procedure done on your face or body. They work anywhere you have loose skin. However, if you have a lot of loose skin after extreme weight loss, your doctor needs to determine if skin tightening is right for you or if surgery would be a better option. The procedures work with mild and moderate skin sagging, such as you might have on your face, and on your body after moderate weight loss.
Heat Affects Collagen In Your Skin
Heat is used for skin tightening because it affects the collagen in your skin. It has an immediate effect by causing collagen to contract, so you may notice results right after a treatment. However, you'll notice even more results as time goes by. Heat causes your body to produce even more collagen. As collagen builds in your skin, your skin tightens over time.
Lasers Can Also Resurface Your Skin
Ultrasound and radiofrequency waves only provide deep heat. Lasers provide heat to deep layers of skin and they can also affect the surface of your skin. So, in addition to tightening skin, laser treatment can help even out skin color and reduce fine wrinkles.
Radiofrequency Can Be Given While Micro-needling
Radiofrequency treatments can be combined with micro-needling for additional results. This is done by using a needle pen that transmits RF waves. This allows the heat to reach even deeper levels in the skin. Plus, micro-needling itself is a beauty treatment that helps reduce wrinkles and stimulate collagen due to the tissue repair triggered by the needle punctures.
Ultrasound Treatments Deliver Intense Heat
When using a device for skin tightening, the temperature matters. A higher temperature gets results in a shorter amount of time and with fewer treatments. Ultrasound treatments can deliver higher temperatures so you may not need as many treatments to get the results you want.
However, your dermatologist can explain the advantages and disadvantages of each skin tightening treatment to help you choose the right one for your skin type and degree of sagging.
