Bridget Reed Newby is only 32, but skin damage caused by her love of tanning salons drove her to get her first IPL treatment with Green about six years ago, with a second one a year later.
“I’m one of those girls who did a lot of tanning in the tanning salons,” says Newby, who lives in North Bethesda with her husband and baby son. “I did have a freckle face, which is cute up to a point, but then you realize those aren’t freckles, they’re sun damage.”
Newby now shuns tanning salons, but still likes to go to the pool and the beach during the summer. Concerned that she’d suffered more sun damage, she underwent her third IPL treatment in January. Each cost $575, she says.
“It’s not painful, and I would say I’m a little bit of a wimp when it comes to pain,” Newby says. It took a few days for the darkened spots to go away after the treatment, she says, but “it wasn’t so bad that you can’t go out.” And her friends said her skin looked much brighter afterward.
Although Botox and synthetic fillers are extremely popular, some doctors are also using patients’ own fat and blood to help fill in crevices. Surgeons can inject fat removed with liposuction from the hips, thighs or other trouble spots into the face or hands, which tend to lose fat with age. And then there’s the so-called “vampire face-lift,” which is neither a face-lift nor a procedure that involves drinking blood.
“We take a test tube of your own blood. It’s centrifuged, so the red blood cells are removed, but all the growth factors that are in the blood are concentrated into a gel and then injected into certain areas…to add volume,” explains Singh, who says he has been using the procedure for about 10 months. The full effect might not be noticeable until up to three months afterward, he says.
Doctors recommend that patients do their homework when considering a noninvasive cosmetic procedure. Check to see if a physician is licensed and board-certified, preferably in a specialty that is trained to work with the face and skin, such as dermatology or plastic surgery. In the wrong hands, even nonsurgical cosmetic treatments can cause serious injuries, such as burns, doctors say.
In Maryland, whether physicians call their place of practice a doctor’s office or a spa, they must be licensed by the state to perform, delegate or supervise cosmetic medical procedures and to use cosmetic medical devices. Those devices include anything “that alters or damages living tissue,” such as lasers, IPL or Thermage, as well as microdermabrasion and injections of medical products, such as fillers and Botox.
Also, doctors are required to have been trained in performing the cosmetic procedures they offer and in using the devices they require. Training programs provided by companies that make or sell such devices aren’t sufficient, according to state regulations. Other licensed health professionals, such as physician assistants or nurse practitioners, can perform cosmetic medical procedures under the direction of licensed physicians as long as the doctor is at the same location.
“It is essential that a patient is comfortable with the credentials of the facility that they choose,” says anesthesiologist Arleen Lamba, medical director at Blush Med Institute in Bethesda. Lamba says that patients should find out who will be performing the procedure and who will be present while it is occurring. Also, if a physician isn’t performing the procedure, patients need to know whether a doctor is on site to monitor their progress, she says.
As a professional makeup artist and image consultant, Foley says she’s often asked for advice about cosmetic procedures, and she always recommends making an appointment with a board-certified doctor who has been in practice for years.
“You need to work with people who are extremely experienced,” she tells clients. “This is your face.”
