By: Grant Stevens, MD

Most women are skeptical about cellulite reduction treatments because they’ve had bad experiences with creams, wraps, and other products that usually don’t work at all. Jeana Keough, star of Real Housewives of Orange County, recently came to my plastic surgery and skin care practice in Los Angeles to get help for her cellulite, and I recommended a treatment called SmoothShapes®. Here are my answers to the “Top 2″ questions you need to ask about any new treatment:

Question 1: Does It Treat the Cause?

Most cellulite treatments don’t get results because they don’t get at the source of the problem.

Cellulite appears when tightened fibrous tissues in the skin pull it into dimples and constrict fatty pockets so that they swell. Over time, weight fluctuations and aging can make the skin thinner and the fat cells larger, making these dimples even more obvious.

SmoothShapes addresses all of these causes, without surgery:

• Fibrous tissue – The system’s manual massage feature uses rollers to manipulate deep tissues, softening those tight fibrous tissues
• Enlarged fat cells – Laser energy uses heat to melt fat cells, causing some of them to be removed from the body
• Loose skin – Laser energy has been proven to help tighten loose skin, and it may have some beneficial effects to help stimulate better flow of lymphatic fluids (which helps prevent fat cells from becoming constricted).

Occasionally, older or thinner-skinned patients will benefit from Thermage® or other skin care treatments to help firm and tighten the skin, but in most cases SmoothShapes is enough. Jeana Keough didn’t need the skin treatments, but she did decide to have her knees tightened and lifted, which I’ll sometimes recommend as a way to give the legs a smoother, more even shape.

Question 2: Do the Results Last?

Some cellulite “treatments” only seem to get good results because they cause the skin to swell, and when the swelling goes away, the results disappear, too.

Like most effective Los Angeles skin care treatments, SmoothShapes requires a course of treatments – typically around 4, depending on how noticeable and widespread your cellulite is. Through this process, it helps your tissues adjust the ways they maintain themselves, promoting better circulation to help create results that last.

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