ST. JOSEPH — Perhaps you’ve seen the commercial on TV. A woman is wrapped around the mid-section in plastic wrap as a wall of red lights prepare to focus their energy on the area awaiting “treatment.”
“Ways to lose stubborn belly fat: The roasted core wrap. Not cool,” the voice-over says. “Freezing away fat cells with CoolSculpting. Now that’s cool.”
So what is CoolSculpting? And why the recent influx of TV advertising?
CoolSculpting is a system developed by ZELTIQ in the mid-2000s that was sold to pharmaceutical giant Allergan in February 2017. The compact system uses a procedure called cryolipolysis.
Cryolipolysis is a noninvasive way for dermatologists to induce lipolysis – the breakdown of fat cells – without damaging other tissue, like the skin.
The CoolSculpting technology was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use on some of its target areas in 2010. But it is relatively new to Southwest Michigan residents.
Advanced Dermatology in St. Joseph has been using its CoolSculpting machine – which is smaller than most office copiers – on patients for about five months. Stonegate Plastic Surgery and Dermatology started seeing CoolSculpting patients last week.
“CoolSculpting has been around for quite awhile,” says Dr. Mark Kuriata of Advanced Dermatology, “and it’s been in our dermatological journals. So I was familiar with it before it became media buzz.”
Advanced Dermatology offers a range of dermatological services, Kuriata says, which is why adding CoolSculpting made sense.
“It was another tool to be able to provide services to the immediate and surrounding communities,” he says. “The science is there, and I’m certainly not into hookier things that don’t produce results. … Even though, a lot of times, we don’t necessarily think of fat as being related to skin, it is part of the full thickness of the anatomy of the skin. So it certainly fits in well with all the other products and services that we offer.”
At Stonegate, Practice Manager Sharon Parkins said late last month she was anxious to start offering CoolSculpting.
“We bought a special chair, we redid the room, the room looks out over the pond, we’ve done a kind of suite for them,” she says. “We wanted to make sure they had a nice calming area.”
How it works
The CoolSculpting process goes something like this:
“(Patients) come in for a consultation and assessment first,” says Kelly Ross, the cosmetic coordinator at Advanced Dermatology. “And we make sure they have enough fat.”
Staff must be able to pinch or pull the tissue away from the body, because it will be sucked into the applicator that’s attached to the CoolSculpting machine.
“It’s more recommended for people who are already working on either losing weight, or who have already lost a lot of weight, and just have those trouble areas they can’t really get rid of,” Kuriata says.
CoolSculpting is approved for seven treatment areas: under the chin, bra fat, back fat, flanks, abdomen, thighs and underneath the buttocks.
Once the target area is chosen, the patient will return for baseline photos and treatment.
The treatment area is marked, and a paper-thin gel pad is applied to help protect the skin.
Then, the appropriate applicator is chosen. They range in size from 3.5-by-2 inches to 10-by-6 inches.
The applicator is placed on the gel pad, and the machine cools to 11 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes, depending on the area being treated.
The fat cells are frozen, and then die. Over time, the body processes the fat and eliminates the dead cells.
A treatment includes one site. So if a patient wanted to target both flanks or both thighs, for example, that would be considered two treatments.
After treatment, the patient receives a vigorous massage, and they are on their way.
Because the treatment doesn’t freeze all the fat cells, the patient may chose to have additional treatments in the same area at least 30 days after the initial treatment.
Kimberly Meyer, office manager at Advanced Dermatology, says their patients have averaged five treatments.
Patients will check back after a month and have more pictures taken, then again after three months.
“A picture is worth 1,000 words,” Kuriata says, “and that’s the beauty of it, because, sometimes, and not necessarily with (CoolSculpting), there are subtleties where a patient may look at themselves in the mirror every day, so they don’t see these changes. But when you take a picture, a month apart, or two months, or three months, you see this process, and it’s very rewarding and very gratifying to see those results.”
Pros and cons
The biggest benefit of CoolSculpting, according to the practices, is that it’s noninvasive.
“The downside to the surgical option (like liposuction or a tummy tuck or a breast reduction), is that there’s downtime,” Parkins says. “There is no downtime for CoolSculpting. You don’t have to change anything you do. Nobody needs to know. Nobody has to take time off work.”
Unlike surgical options, however, patients have to wait six to eight weeks to see the results with CoolSculpting, Parkins says.
Staff at Advanced Dermatology say the 15 patients they’ve treated so far haven’t noted any major complications from the procedure, but there are potential side effects to consider.
“One danger is frostbite,” Meyer says. “So we don’t put ice packs on after, because that would add to and continue the treatment instead of letting it reduce.”
The treated area can be delicate to the touch for a couple of days, and might feel numb.
“It feels like a deep bruising,” Parkins says, “which is just the fat cells dying.”
She says Stonegate looked into CoolSculpting about two years ago, when it considered the procedure relatively new. Some of the stories of bad reactions to the treatment, however, were off-putting.
Adverse event reports filed with the FDA from 2010-12 echo that concern.
“Two months after the treatment, there was reportedly a slight enlargement of the treatment area,” one male patient reported in May 2010.
“I am now eight days post procedure and still feel intense burning in my lower abdomen and sharp stabbing pains occasionally. The area is tender to touch,” another patient reported in May 2012.
A third patient reported “tissue stiffening” and a lump of fatty tissue forming in the treatment area.
“We had been talking to CoolSculpting off and on since that time (a couple of years ago), and they’ve made some advancements in their technology and application,” Parkins says. “They aren’t experiencing people anymore who are saying it’s awful.”
Local experiences
Cory Sly and Megan Parkins, Sharon Parkins’ daughter, are on opposite sides of the CoolSculpting patient spectrum.
Sly, 45, of Niles, once weighed about 300 pounds, but has since lost about 100 pounds through exercise and a pair of tummy tucks.
Megan Parkins, 24, of Paw Paw, was looking for some help in toning her lower stomach area.
Both served as training patients for staff at Stonegate before the practice opened the procedure to the public.
“Things are feeling good,” Sly says 10 days post-procedure. “The first couple of days it might have felt like a bruise. It didn’t hurt all the time, like if I twisted, it hurt a little.”
Compared to a tummy tuck, which he called a gruesome procedure, CoolSculpting was a walk in the park.
“There really is no discomfort,” he says.
Talking about 2 weeks after her procedure, Megan Parkins says she was already noticing results.
“It’s a very slight difference,” she says. “The area feels a little higher. It doesn’t feel like it sinks as much, which is really nice. Everything’s a little firmer.”
She said she didn’t really experience any pain, but the area was numb post-procedure.
Cost
While CoolSculpting is a less expensive procedure than its surgical counterparts, it isn’t cheap, Kuriata says, and it’s not covered by insurance.
“But it is a very effective and safe alternative as opposed to going under the knife,” he says.
The cost depends on the size of the area being treated, the number of treatment sessions needed and the patient’s goals.
Sharon Parkins says a procedure with the smaller applicator runs about $750 per treatment – the largest applicator being about double that.
“People may have only need for one application, they may need three or four,” she says. “It’s really an assessment that needs to be done per individual. They might find that, financially, it might be a better option to do liposuction, or do a tummy tuck, or a breast reduction, or a different sort of surgical procedure.”
For patients wanting to learn more about the procedure, or its costs, both practices are holding open houses in the coming weeks.
Advanced Dermatology’s open house in May will include a live demonstration. Attendees also can speak with people who have had the treatment.
Stonegate’s open house is from 4 to 8 p.m. April 26.
Contact: asteinke@TheHP.com, 932-0363, Twitter: @DecodingDadhood
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