What You Need to Know About Body Sculpting

AB: Hello and welcome to Simplifi Health. My name is Aurelia Byrne and today I'm here with Dr. Jill Wade and Dr. Wood.

JW: Good morning. How are you, Aurelia?

AB: I'm great. Today we're going to learn about truSculpt 3D body sculpting.

JW: Right. Body sculpting is right at my alley right now. I'm feeling a little fluffy once again. I am thrilled though to introduce to you all our guest, Dr. Kathryn Wood. She is a Board Certified OB/GYN and honestly one of the most brilliant doctors I have ever seen in my entire life. We want to welcome you here today and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

KW: Oh, well, thank you so much. That was more, I don't feel that way but thank you so much.

JW: What I was going to also say was how humble you are because I'm telling you guys, she is brilliant, she has been studying with me personally, with the [inaudible 00:01:04] courses, in the heart attack, stroke, and diabetes prevention for several years now. We co-manage many patients together. I have really been able to see firsthand what amazing care you give to your patients and your clients. It's amazing. 

KW: Thank you so much.

JW: I can say on behalf of them, thank you because I know they are better, feeling better, looking better because they’re with you.

KW: Oh, thank you so much. It’s great to know that I can send them to you and you just got your field investigator head on, you’re like Sherlock Holmes and say you’re going to put them under that fine tooth comb and find whatever is wrong in their mouth and figure that out.

JW: Absolutely. I enjoy that so much. I think that you have approached health care in a wonderful way in the sense that you're not only a true specialist and excellent in your specialty but you have realized that it's not just about treating them medically, that to make a woman feel and look the best they can, you realize there's more to it than that. How many years ago was it when you actually opened up, beyond your traditional practice, your aesthetic practice as well?

KW: My aesthetic practice called Dermalase and now it’s Dermalase Face and Body, I opened that back in 1999. It's been that long that I've been started off with a couple of lasers for laser vein and hair removal and then just expanded out to things for our faces and the other parts of the body that women want and that men want too, men want a lot of those things too. It's been really fun and interesting. As time has passed for me, I've been much appreciative to have all that too and so it’s fun to provide that for people.

JW: I agree as I approach the fifty years and things like that. I know we're all going to get older, I mean, time is going to happen but I just want to grow old gracefully and so these types of things to me are prevention in nature so that hopefully you're not going to end up with some major kind of reconstruction and facial surgeries and things like that down the road because if you can do some items ahead of time, I'm hoping that may keep me from ever having to go to a full-blown type of surgical situation.

KW: Exactly, exactly.

JW: I'm really interested today in hearing about body sculpting. To me, it seems like it’s been around for a little while but and maybe it's had its course of maybe it started doing it this way and then technology may be better with the lasers and then kind of transformed itself into this 3D sculpting so can you give us a little bit of maybe brief history of kind of like how did it start? Did you have anything else before that sort of worked but then we kind of grew into this?

KW: Yes. I’d say we started probably definitely over ten years ago with a VelaShape which is using radio frequency energy and what that does is it would massage the tissues and kind of pull them up a little bit into the device and use some heat with that. It was good at tightening skin but it didn't really permanently affect the fat cells underneath. So they had different upgrades to that and they improved on their technology through the years which we kept that upgraded. Then there's been a freezing technology that's been out that a lot of people have heard about and it’s good at killing fat cells but it doesn't really tighten the skin because really radio frequency will do that. 

AB: Interesting.

KW: Yeah. I didn't know that.

JW: I didn’t know that at all. So just because you kill the fat but if your skin looks all saggy, it’s still saggy.

AB: It’s still saggy, then you don’t get the desirable result.

KW: Right, so you really want to try to do both at the same time. It’s just where [inaudible 00:05:35] kind of been a leader in the market, they are a laser company and they create devices to kind of answer those missing questions, those missing problems out in there and they look at that so this technology with the truSculpt 3D which is the device that I have will heat up the skin and it will tighten the skin and it also kills fat cells. It does that at a certain amount of fat cells each time that you do the procedure in a certain area. You stay within certain guidelines on how you treat a particular area at a time to create the heat that you need to get to that point.

JW: Okay, so I have to ask what areas are we talking specifically? Are we talking turkey arms? The little jiggle under the arm?

KW: Yes, yes. Pretty much anything any that you would want to tighten or kill fat cells you can do. There are two different devices with this, there’s the smaller head on it that is great for like the back of the arms or under the neck and tightening the skin there, but then they also have the other larger device that goes down and you would use it more on the body contouring areas like the abdomen of [inaudible 00:06:50], the thighs, and those areas. You pre-pop up back fat, all of that.

JW: All that fat.

KW: The main thing you find that pocket of fat and that’s the center of your mark, that's where you go for in.

JW: I love this. Would you attack all areas at the same time? Does the fat then kind of move around to another spot? Or do you kind of work in one zone first and then if you want to drop down or pick a zone and then work in the zone, then would you go to another zone or do you try to work the whole body at the same time?

KW: The best way to describe is we always do an individual consult because we want to look at what someone’s really targeted area would be, what their big concern is and then you want to find the pocket of fat within that area. You have templates that you're going to put on the body and that you can actually draw a little white kind of almost like a little chalk mark around there so you see where it is and you center it over the pocket of fat and you're working in a fairly tighter space to get that area because you want to create an even amount of heat in that area and get a good heat sink to that area. 

At any given time, once you turn on the device, you have about an hour worth of time that you can work. So if you have a medium template on, you can do four different areas at the same time and you’re going to group in together the areas that you would want to see and if you want to get some circumferential work done, you could do up to two areas at any given time when you're in so you could basically do eight medium templates for example or finish up and do a little bit on the neck if you want to tighten the neck. So it’s really customized to the patient to look at them and get a good consultation. We always like to get before and after pictures because we always are hard on ourselves saying, “I’m not seeing anything,” and it does take a while. It’s not immediate.

JW: Okay so tell me about, what do you mean it's not immediate?

KW: It’s not immediate so I would say in years past when maybe when we had the VelaShape, we had more immediate tightening and you could see some things immediately, with this it's going to be two to three months. We say three months to really get the after pictures and see that these fat cells die off and the tightening and all of that take place. The hard part about it I guess is the waiting in the patient and you want to check and see if someone's losing a lot of weight during that time frame, their skin might loosen more than what you anticipated so you have to be aware of that and you try to be about the same as you were going in.

AB: Is it a zapping motion like it’s a go zap, zap like a laser?

KW: Yeah, you're thinking of laser on the face or for hair removal which is a zapping [inaudible 00:09:49] like a [inaudible 00:09:50].

AB: Yeah.

KW: No, it’s heat and does get pretty intense the last five minutes, I will say that. So it is just a general heat in a concentrated area so you are going to feel that even with the freezing techniques that have been out, it’s freezing and it's uncomfortable and then there's a deep tissue massage that goes along with that which is not pleasant either. There's no pain no gain, I always say that. Unfortunately, when I’m having something done it’s like, “I did this to myself but…” In the end, it’s like, “Okay, it’s worth it, I did.”

JW: No pain, no gain. So if you're working as owner at template, is it a one time work of that zone or do you have to go back over the same zone a couple of times?

KW: I think what we're finding is that you talk about 20%⎼24% reduction at any one time and just depending on the person, if you have, say you have a really thin person and they just have an area, little pocket, I think one time they're going to see that's going to be really significant for them. But if it’s like me and I've got little areas, I think we’ve figured out we want to do…

JW: Little more junk in the trunk.

KW: Yeah, yeah, probably a couple of times to really what, many people really see the difference and really feel happy. I can see it in the pictures but I want my patients to be happy and satisfied.

AB: Okay, so I have a question. I’m thinking about myself here. Sometimes, it’s not like the back fat but it’s like skin but it doesn't feel like it's chunky but it’s almost like kind of loose. Do you have to have like, I'm sure there's fat in there. So that would be something that would work out.

KW: Yeah, if you're really just wanting tightening only and you don't feel like you need to get the fat gone and the smaller head that we use could be used for that, the treatments there are done a little bit differently, they’re done about every couple of weeks and you’re doing is skin tightening over a period of time. The other one you would want to do a procedure and if you want to do the same area again, I would go ahead and wait the full three months and see what improvements you have and then go from there and see if you want to do it again or if you're happy with where it is. That’s basically the patient’s options.

JW: So because it’s a laser, it’s actually penetrating through the skin and taking its effect on the first basically layer or thickness of the fat. It’s not going to transfer all the way through the fat and that’s why let’s say somebody who has a little bit more volume of fat that’s why we're going to do it maybe two to three times because each time you’re going to go a little bit deeper into that fat pocket.

KW: And it’s actually not a true laser so it's radio frequency energy, kind of like microwave energy basically. It is going to go in and destroy a certain number of cells within there and it doesn’t, I don’t think it’s layered too much as how deep it can go but you’re getting spot fat cells within there. So probably the thicker the fatty layer is, the more you’re going to want to go after that area, we think so.

JW: You're not seeing any lumps or bumps coming up per se?

KW: I think it initially sometimes there will be a little bit of lumpiness and then you can massage that and it does get better over time so you are targeting those little isolated pockets of fat.

AB: Is there any type of supplements that you like to give your patients while after the treatment or during or anything like that that’s a little different?

KW: We haven’t really come up with anything per se for that. There's always supplements that try burn more and increase your metabolism with green tea and some of the things out there so I certainly think anything like that to go along with it would be probably a great idea too.

JW: Anything we didn't cover like a special post-op instructions, any downtime like are they going to have any downtime?

KW: Maybe a little bit of soreness afterwards, a little bit of redness to the skin obviously when you're done, a little bit of soreness that just depends on the person, some people leave and when I've had it done, it’s like I could touch it and didn't really feel their lumpy bumpy. Then there are some people that feel a little bit of bumpiness in there and then they might be a little bit tender for a while so it’s variable but it’s nothing that would limit them…

JW: That could keep you from going to work or anything like that.

KW: No, not at all. No, nothing like that at all.

JW: Does it leave your skin a little bit red?

KW: It’s a little bit pink.

JW: But just about like 24-hours?

KW: Yeah, not usually more than that at all.

JW: It’s not like a sunburn or anything like that.

KW: No.

JW: Oh, my goodness.

AB: I want it.

JW: I just want to come and just get started from top to bottom.

AB: Transform me.

KW: I know, I know.

JW: Sculpt me, please. Do something.

KW: The other thing too, I kind of briefly talked about it but you can treat all body types. Some of the devices that have been out there for a while, it has to kind of grab the skin. If someone's thin and they have an isolated pocket, they might not be a good candidate because it has to kind of grab the skin in there. This does not require that you're grabbing anything, you're really laying this device really gently over you and you're not pressing down you're just laying it over that area, over the template.

JW: I am sure just like us, there are many people out there who want to know right now how they are going to get in touch with you and run over to the office and get started tomorrow. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you guys?

KW: The best way would be to either go to dermalase.net which is our website. That will take you to my website. There's a phone number on that which helps us kind of track those that come in through the website. But then if you wanted to call the office directly, Monday through Friday, you can get in touch with someone at 972-769-7546.

JW: Thank you so much, Dr. Wood, for being with us today and making us all feel more beautiful.

KW: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it so much. Thank you.

AB: If anybody would like some more information about this podcast, you can go to youniversityhealth.com. For dental professionals, you can go to relevancehealth.com. Thank you for joining. This is Aurelia, smile with heart.

JW: And this is Dr. Jill Wade, keep smiling from the inside out.