At Mariposa Aesthetics & Laser Center in Oklahoma City, OK, we understand that loose, sagging skin can seriously affect your self-confidence. While it’s a natural part of the aging process, it’s not something you just have to learn to accept. Ultherapy is an FDA-approved skin tightening treatment that can help you reverse the signs of aging without incisions or dozens of injections. Here’s what you need to know about this treatment.
How Many Sessions of Ultherapy Do You Need?
Most people need only one treatment session to achieve their desired results. However, in severe cases, two treatment sessions may be necessary. We can give you a better idea of how many sessions you can expect to need once we have evaluated the nature and severity of your concerns. It is generally advisable to wait three or four weeks after your first session to come in for an evaluation and determine whether another session is necessary.
It can take four to six months for your skin to finish producing extra collagen in response to the treatment. However, after just three to four weeks, we will be able to tell by the way your improvements are progressing whether or not a second treatment session is necessary.
How Long Will the Results of My Treatment Last?
Individual results vary, but you can feel pretty confident that your ideal results will last for two to five years. Generally, the younger you are when you get treatment, the longer you can expect your ideal results to last. This is because the signs of aging treated by ultrasound-based therapy are caused by moderate or severe collagen loss. There are a number of factors that can cause collagen loss. For example, you can show signs of premature aging due to:
- Chronic unprotected UV exposure
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Tobacco consumption
- A poor diet
- A poor skincare routine
However, what usually results in collagen loss is your body being worn down by the aging process. By the time you reach roughly the age of 25, your body starts to produce collagen at a significantly reduced rate. Over the years, the effects of insufficient collagen levels compound.
What Can I Do To Enjoy Longer-Lasting Results?
Eat Nutritiously
You can’t stop the natural aging process. However, it is possible to extend the longevity of your Ultherapy results by making sure your collagen stays as healthy as possible for as long as possible. One effective step you can take to accomplish this goal is to make sure your diet is nutritious. For your skin to produce new collagen and keep its existing collagen strong and healthy, it needs plenty of water, amino acids, and vitamin C.
Water, vitamin C, and amino acids can all be found in high quantities in dark green vegetables, like kale and broccoli. Other good sources of water and vitamin C include carrots, citrus fruits, and tropical fruits. To make sure you’re getting plenty of amino acids, you can incorporate legumes, poultry, and dairy products into your diet. Red meat is another good source of amino acids, but eating too much, especially fatty cuts of meat, can be bad for your health.
Moisturize Your Skin
Keeping your skin hydrated is another simple, effective step you can take to maximize your skin tightening results. Unless you have dry skin, moisturizing once daily will be enough to keep the outer layers of your skin hydrated. Moisturizing consistently is more important than what time of day you moisturize. However, you should strongly consider moisturizing after you shower or bathe, especially if hot water is used. Hot water exposure can dry your skin out, and moisturizing will help negate this effect.
Stay Hydrated
Applying lotion to your skin once or twice per day will go a long way in helping your skin remain hydrated. However, lotion won’t penetrate all the way to the foundational layer of your skin. If you want to enjoy your skin-tightening results for as long as possible, you also need to make sure you are getting enough hydrating fluids in your diet. Do your best to drink six to eight glasses of hydrating fluids daily.
If you find this goal difficult to achieve, consider why. If you simply forget to drink because you’re too busy to remember, set alarms on your phone or download a fun app to help you remember. Many people find gamification effective until something becomes a habit. If you feel like you can’t drink that much liquid, consider your diet. If your urine is not consistently pale, eat more fruits, vegetables, and soups with a high water content.
Wear Sunscreen
Wearing sunscreen is another great step to take if you want to look young for as long as possible. The sun’s UV rays break down the collagen supporting your skin and keeping it young, tight, and healthy. At the same time, it slows your skin’s ability to produce more collagen. If you want to enjoy the longest-lasting results, make sure you apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen every two to four hours.
Exercise Regularly
Getting regular exercise is also good for your skin. HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is great for collagen production because it increases the levels of growth factors circulating throughout your bloodstream. The significance of this is that growth factors play a key role in your skin’s collagen production.
CrossFit is a great example of HIIT, but you don’t need to join an expensive, boutique gym to help your skin stay tight. What matters is the intensity of the exercise. Try to get 15 minutes of high-intensity exercise daily. Ideally, this should be done five days per week. If you try a high-intensity exercise, like sprinting, and it doesn’t work for you, try something else. Doing squats or lunges as quickly as you can may turn out to be a better fit.
Am I a Good Candidate for This Treatment?
You need to attend an initial consultation to verify that Ultherapy will be appropriate for you. However, if you are an adult with concerns about wrinkles, folds, or sagging skin, there is a very good chance this treatment will be considered safe for you. It is based on the same ultrasound technology that has been used for capturing images of a mother’s womb since the 1950s. If sound waves are safe for a fetus, you can feel confident that the treatment is safe for you.
One reason it is so important to attend an initial consultation is we need to make sure the treatment will be effective for you. We need to evaluate your concerns, discuss your goals, and determine whether inducing extra collagen production will help you achieve your cosmetic goals.
How Should I Prepare for My Treatment Session?
We will give you a complete list of preparation instructions during your initial evaluation. One of the most important preparation steps you will need to take is to mitigate the risk of skin irritation at the time of your appointment. For example, you should not use depilatory creams in the areas targeted for treatment because they can irritate your skin. As another example, you should wear sunscreen diligently to mitigate your risk of sunburn.
What Other Anti-Aging Treatments Can Help Me Improve My Appearance?
Ultrasound-based therapy is highly effective for the treatment of cosmetic concerns caused by significant volume loss. However, it is not effective for the treatment of all aging signs. If you have cosmetic concerns caused by dynamic wrinkles, Botox injections may be a better fit for you.
Botox is an injectable muscle relaxant that can treat a wide range of cosmetic concerns. Examples include crow’s feet, forehead folds, smoker’s lines, and nasolabial folds. Most adults with dynamic wrinkle-related concerns qualify for these injections, but exclusions apply. For example, this treatment is not appropriate for pregnant or breastfeeding women. Typically, injections are administered into three to five locations per area of concern. Treatments can usually be completed in under half an hour.
Schedule Your Initial Consultation Today
You can generally expect to need only one Ultherapy session to achieve your desired results. However, in cases of extreme skin laxity, two treatment sessions may be necessary. It can take around four to six months for the final results of treatment to become apparent, and they usually last two to five years. To find out if this ultrasound-based skin tightening treatment is right for you, schedule an appointment with us at Mariposa Aesthetics & Laser Center in Oklahoma City, OK.
