Ultherapy is a non-invasive, FDA-approved skin tightening treatment. It is often referred to as a non-invasive facelift because it is most commonly used to tighten and lift skin in the lower- and mid-face regions but it can be used to tighten the skin in other areas, like the upper face, neck and chest, too. If you want to tighten and lift sagging skin without an invasive procedure, you may be a good candidate for this treatment at the office of Ingrid E. Trenkle, MD in Redlands, CA.
How Long Do the Results of Ultherapy Last?
The longevity of ultherapy results depends on several factors, including your age at the time you receive treatment and how well you care for your skin and overall health. On average, the results of treatment last two years.
People who receive this treatment later in life tend to have results that fade faster because their collagen and elastin tend to be extremely weak. An unhealthy lifestyle can also lead to less-than-durable results.
How Soon You Will See the Results of Your Treatment
You should start to feel satisfied with the results of your ultrasound treatment after approximately six weeks. However, it can take between three and six months to see the final results of the treatment.
During your initial evaluation, we will assess how much your skin is sagging to determine how many sessions you will need to achieve your desired results but most of our clients need only one session to achieve smooth, tight, beautiful skin.
How to Extend the Longevity of Your Results
For the longest-lasting skin tightening results, you need to make caring for the health of your skin a priority. There are many things that affect the health of your skin, and we’d like to highlight a few of the most important things you can control to keep your collagen healthy and strong.
Protect Your Skin From UV Damage
Although you can’t prevent your skin from aging, you can certainly take steps to mitigate your risk of premature skin aging. One of the most important things you can do to prevent premature aging is to wear adequate sunscreen and avoid tanning beds. Avoiding tanning beds is easy. If you feel the need to bronze your skin, opt for a spray.
Protecting your skin from the sun is a little trickier. If you have dark skin, an SPF 30 or 35 sunscreen will be adequate. If you have fair skin, you will need a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of at least 55 to protect your skin from the sun adequately. Regardless of the SPF you need, make sure the sunscreen you use is not expired and has been stored in a cool, dark, dry place.
Stop Smoking
Another thing you can control that affects the health of your collagen is nicotine consumption. You may not be able to avoid secondhand smoke if someone in your household smokes, but you can stop consuming nicotine directly. It’s important to note that if you are a smoker, you should stop cold turkey. Physical withdrawals only last for 72 hours, and smoking cessation devices contain nicotine, which will continue to damage your skin.
The reason it is so important to stop consuming nicotine altogether is that collagen makes up most of the supporting structure of your skin. When viewed under a microscope, it looks like mesh and nicotine is “sticky.” It gets caught in the mesh, causing it to sag. As a result of your skin’s support structure sagging, deep wrinkles form and your skin sags. If you started smoking at a young age, you may even look significantly older than you are.
Eat Plenty of Fruits and Vegetables
Yet another way to ensure your skin remains looking young for as long as possible is to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Citrus fruits contain high levels of vitamin C, an essential micronutrient that allows your body to produce pro-collagen. Pro-collagen is required for your skin to produce collagen when you eat protein sources that contain collagen, like egg whites, chicken and lean fish.
If you’re not getting enough vitamin C in your diet, you don’t need to take dietary supplements. You just need to eat more citrus fruits, like oranges and clementines. You can also get vitamin C by adding a lemon or lime wedge or grapefruit juice to your tea. Spinach, kale and Swiss chard are also packed full of micronutrients that allow your skin to produce the precursors to collagen.
Get a HydraFacial
Ultherapy works by encouraging your skin to produce collagen and elastin. To make the results of treatment last far longer than two years, you need to keep your skin producing extra collagen. If you’re young and have sagging skin due to your lifestyle choices, it isn’t too hard to change your lifestyle and improve the health of your skin.
Contrastingly, if you’re in your 50s or 60s, your skin just doesn’t produce new collagen at the same rate it did when you were in your 20s. You need to give your skin a boost every once in a while. A HydraFacial is a great way to rejuvenate your skin and help it produce extra collagen and elastin. We recommend scheduling one at least once a year.
Good Candidates for Treatment
One of the most exciting benefits of this treatment is that most healthy adults are considered good candidates. We will ensure that you are healthy enough for treatment during your initial evaluation but if you are between the ages of 30 and 64, you will probably be considered a good candidate for this treatment. Since it is recommended for individuals with moderate-to-severe skin laxity, it is rarely recommended for people in their 20s.
Keep in mind, although this treatment can be incredibly beneficial for adults with moderate-to-severe skin laxity, your skin still needs to be somewhat elastic for you to be considered a good candidate for treatment. If you have lax, inelastic skin, you may need to receive Juvederm injections a couple of weeks before your scheduled ultrasound-based anti-aging treatment to boost the elasticity of your skin.
Poor Candidates for Treatment
Poor candidates for treatment include individuals with a bleeding disorder, individuals with an active viral or bacterial infection and individuals who have a connective tissue disorder or autoimmune disease. We will also recommend an alternative anti-aging solution to you if you have implants in the area you are trying to treat. Finally, we ask that you hold off on considering treatment if you have an open wound or cystic acne in the treatment area.
What Makes Ultherapy Better Than Laser Treatments?
While ultrasound and laser treatments induce collagen production by using heat emitted from sound or light waves, ultrasound-based treatments have several advantages over laser-based treatments. Primarily, lasers affect the surface of the skin. Sound waves pass straight through your skin’s upper layers and affect the deepest layers of your skin’s foundation. In short, it is more effective.
Furthermore, soundwave-based treatments are safer for individuals with dark skin. There is no risk of bleaching the skin or burning the hair follicles. There is also no risk of your skin peeling for several days after treatment, and you don’t have to worry about post-treatment pinpoint bleeding.
A Crucial Note
Since ultrasound-based anti-aging treatments affect the deepest layers of your skin, leaving the upper layers of your skin “unchanged,” there is no downtime at all after treatment. To lift sagging skin with lasers, you would need three to six sessions and redness can be expected for a week or two after each session. Even after the redness fades, your skin may remain very pink for an extended period of time. This may affect your self-confidence.
How to Prepare for Ultherapy Treatment
Since Ultherapy is a non-invasive treatment, preparation isn’t hard. It uses heat emitted by soundwave energy, so there is no need for general anesthesia and the 12 hours of fasting that is required before general anesthesia. In fact, you can eat, drink and exercise just like you do every day, including on the morning of your treatment.
The most important thing you can do to prepare for treatment is to remove any cosmetics you may have applied to the treatment area before you come in. If you are coming in on your lunch break, remove any makeup or moisturizer you may be wearing. You may reapply your makeup immediately after your treatment. If you are sensitive to heat, you may take 800 mg of ibuprofen an hour before your treatment.
Discover If a Non-Invasive Facelift Is Right for You Today
The results of Ultherapy tend to last around two years but they can last longer if you take steps to boost your collagen production and keep your existing collagen healthy. To discover if this non-invasive facelift is right for you, please reach out to the office of Ingrid E. Trenkle, MD in Redlands, CA today to book an appointment. We look forward to hearing from you soon and helping you achieve a level of self-confidence you haven’t felt in years.
