Plastic Surgery Technology - San Antonio - Dr. Constance Barone

Dr. Barone: The new technology gives patients more options, and more options means a lot of it can be done under less-invasive situations or techniques. In other words, a lot of the procedures can now be done under local. In other words, they're talking to me during the procedure. Face lifts, new technology, new ways of numbing and doing blocks can be done under straight local. Liposuction, because of the cannulas, are now smaller and finer, not like the old technology, which were large, but smaller and finer. And the handpiece oscillates and vibrates. Then you're able to get a smoother result, a more seamless injection. When you add the numbing solution called tumescent solution, the hand-piece vibrates and oscillates while it's injecting the solution, so you are able to add this numbing solution in a almost painless manner. In addition, radio frequency; once again, that's really new on the horizon. That allows skin tightening, contouring. You can also decrease itches with radio frequency. The minimally invasive technique with radio frequency allows us to do the neck, and the chin, and all that area, with tightening, with just a needle stick. It's under straight local. That gives patients an option to return to work sooner. The Thermismooth, which is radio frequency just applied to the skin, is now being shown to treat cellulite. It's treating skin tightening to the arms, abdominal skin laxity. And we're seeing more and more applications to the radio frequency which can be done completely non-invasive by our aestheticians, by our OR technicians, by my office staff, which really affords no downtime. So these are all new technologies to allow us to have a faster post-op recovery done in a safer mannerism. So laser technology has really evolved. There's many lasers available, and there's different lasers to do different things. By taking care of different wavelengths, we're able to target different, like, blood versus fat versus collagen. So, the tightening procedures that we have available with the Sciton laser, that targets the collagen, so you're able to get skin tightening with that. The blood vessels and the blood, for veins on the face, veins on the legs, are able to get targeted with a different wavelength. The hyperpigmentation that we see in our faces is able to be treated with even a different wavelength, called IPL or BBL which is a wavelength that allows the brown spots to actually be lifted up out of the skin and the pigments to drop off like iron filings. And lastly, the ablative lasers, which consist of Erbium and YAG lasers, are able to treat the fine lines and wrinkles, as well as the deeper wrinkles with the profractionated laser. Those deep wrinkles around the mouth area are able to be targeted. Laser hair removal is also a laser which we're able to do effective treatment for hair removal in all skin types because of the new laser technology.