San Francisco Skin Tightening / Michael Kulick, MD / Blake Green

Skin Tightening - How Laser Treatments Firm Your Face and Stomach

Almost every human being wants to look smart with tight skin but some conditions lead to having loose or sagging skin. Sagging skin on our face, arms, stomach, thighs, and other areas are very upsetting to many of us. No matter how hard one tries to work out to stay fit, sagging or loose skin will always make one look old and stay out of shape. Effective skin tightening required plastic surgical procedures in the past – some of which include facelift and tummy tuck. However, in recent years, there have been the discoveries of new non-surgical and laser skin tightening methods. These new methods of skin tightening technology improve skin tightening and helps to maximize the results achieved.

You can achieve a substantial skin tightening nowadays with a combination of different methods even without surgery. All these methods are different from those introduced like 3-4 years ago including Titan, Refirme, Thermage, and LuxIR Deep. Not to fall a victim of some fake skin tightening advertisements that can be misleading, you need to be informed consumer and understand the technology for you to achieve the best result.
How Non-Surgical Skin Tightening Works
For a skin to be tight, it requires good elasticity. Elasticity is the ability of the skin to snap back after it has been pulled away from the body. For a skin to have a better elasticity, there must be the presence of healthy elastin and collagen fibers that lie very deep at the bottom of the dermis layer of the skin below the surface. Just like small rubber bands, the collagen and elastin fibers hold the skin tight against our body and pull the loose tissue back to normal when it is pulled or stretched.

The collagen and elastin fibers in the dermis are caused to lose or sag by several factors that destroy them. Some of these factors include sun damage from ultraviolet (UV) light, excessive alcohol intake, aging, smoking, stress, and an unhealthy diet and lifestyle. Collagen and elastin fibers can also be destroyed by rapid weight loss after dieting, stretching caused by pregnancy or gastric bypass surgery.

However, the work of the laser and non-surgical skin tightening methods is to stimulate the growth of new collagen and elastin fibers in the dermis of the skin. Scientists have researched that when collagen and elastin fibers are heated to a temperature of 66 degrees centigrade, they will shrink or tighten and will be remolded and replaced by new collagen and elastin formation. The effect of this new collagen and elastin formation is that the deep skin contracts and becomes firmer. This thereby makes the loose tissue tightened.

Since the elastin and collagen lie very deep below in the dermis, the main problem is to get enough heat deep down in the skin to get the elastin and collagen fibers remodel without burning the surface of the skin as the heat is passed through the surface of the skin. This method has been improved by using very effective cooling devices that will cool the surface while passing heat through the surface. Some of the machines used include Thermage, Titan, Palomar LuxIR Deep, and Refirme.

Michael Kulick, MD: San Francisco Skin Tightening

Almost every human being wants to look smart with tight skin but some conditions lead to having loose or sagging skin.

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