How to Choose Your CoolSculpting Provider

March 08, 2019

CoolSculpting is an increasingly popular treatment that addresses stubborn pockets of fat that do not seem to want to go away no matter how much we exercise or diet. Many women that are in the spotlight and who are already seemingly at their goal weight such as Molly Sims and Debra Messing swear by it.

Not all of us are bothered by love handles, that little bit of fat under our chins, or on our backs, thighs, or butt, but some of us do wish it would just go away. There is nothing more frustrating than trying every trick in the book and having nothing work. The beauty of CoolSculpting is that it’s non-surgical and minimally invasive, meaning that you don’t have to “go under the knife,” so to speak, just to get that contoured, more sculpted look.

That said, if you’re thinking that CoolSculpting is the thing for you, you need to keep in mind that it’s a fat reduction treatment, not a procedure for weight loss, and it’s really important that you have realistic expectations of what it can do for you. It will eliminate pockets of fat, but it won’t cause you to lose weight and drastically change your appearance.

So what is CoolSculpting exactly?

CoolSculpting works by freezing the fat cells under the skin that you’d like to get rid of without damaging the surrounding tissue. This allows for the fat to be naturally broken down and eliminated from your body in the weeks that follow the treatment. If you’re wondering why diet and exercise may not have an effect, it’s because they will reduce the size of fat cells all over the body, whereas CoolSculpting works to eliminate them altogether in specific, targeted areas.

Now here’s what’s SUPER important to keep in mind: it’s extremely important not to get your CoolSculpting procedure done just anywhere. You want to choose your treatment clinic very carefully. The last thing you want to do is go budget on your body.

Here’s why:

Even if you consider CoolSculpting as a cosmetic treatment, it’s still a medical procedure that affects your body and your health, so you want to be sure that whoever is performing your treatment is either a trained registered nurse or a medical aesthetician, and that your treatment is performed under the supervision of an expert doctor.

Your first step for any procedure—surgical or not—should always be to book a complimentary in-person consultation with a board certified doctor in order to assess whether you are a good candidate and to make sure the treatment you are interested in is going achieve the results that you have in mind.

Even though CoolSculpting is a very safe procedure, you want to make sure that your CoolSculpting expert knows what they are doing. What you don’t want is to have any other tissue that surrounds the targeted area of fat damaged in the process. Fat cells are not water-based and therefore freeze at higher temperatures than other tissue like skin cells. An expert CoolSculpting technician will know all of the appropriate protocols to follow in order to make sure that your fat cells are eliminated without causing damage or injury to your skin.

Additionally, if you’re someone whose skin is extremely sensitive to the cold, you could risk damaging healthy surrounding tissue. The best way to prevent this is with an in-depth consultation, so always make sure you are assessed by an expert before you decide to start your CoolSculpting treatment.

What you are looking for in your CoolSculpting specialist is someone who has a lot of experience, has had a lot of training and education in CoolSculpting, and who has A LOT of knowledge of this procedure. You want someone who knows how to correctly apply the applicator to achieve the best result and someone who targets only unwanted fat cells.

Believe it or not, there are some areas of fat that we want to keep, and if your CoolSculpting treatment is administered badly, you could end up with what’s known as a shark bite. Yes, a shark bite. Sounds awful because it is, and it looks like an actual shark bite! Badly administered CoolSculpting could eliminate an area of fat that you wanted to keep, resulting in the opposite effect that you were looking for—instead of contours, you could end up with a significant and noticeable indentation. YIKES.

Think of your body as a work of art. The only person you want working on that body is a true artist. At The Plastic Surgery Clinic, Linda is that artist. She is our CoolSculpting expert, so stay tuned for next week’s Q & A with her where she reveals some of the secrets behind her work and tells us how she achieves that perfect sculpted look for our patients.