Ultrasound-Based Treatments in Practice

Hello. I am Dr. Jennifer Levine. I am a double board certified facial plastic surgeon, and my office is on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and I'm here to talk to you about ultrasound based treatments. So in my practice, the ultrasound treatment that I use is Ultherapy Prime. And the reason why I use this is because Ultherapy is using ultrasound energy in two different ways, so it actually has a clearance for two different forms of ultrasound energy. The first is collimated ultrasound, which is for visualization. So when I'm treating a particular area, the transducer allows me to see the areas that I'm treating and then deliver the energy precisely to a specific layer. The second form of energy is something called micro focused ultrasound. So every time the device is delivering a line of energy, it's delivering energy in a series of little dots.

These dots are something called TCPs or thermal coagulation points. So these are little precise areas that are going into a specific layer, and this is what allows the body to produce collagen and elastin. So it heats up the tissue to between 65 to 70 degrees centigrade, which is pretty hot. So these TCPs are going to then stimulate the body to produce collagen, which then is going to occur over three to four months or six months in certain patients. Right now, Ultherapy Prime has clearance for the face, to lift the face, neck, brow chest, and we've also gotten an indication for the arms and abdomen, so this is my go-to treatment for skin lifting and tightening. Other great things about this treatment is it's safe for all skin types, so that's great. It's not dependent on the sun, so it doesn't matter if you're going in and out of the sun, and it has no downtime, so patients are able to return to activity immediately following the treatments.

The Ultherapy Prime is different than the legacy Ultherapy Prime in a couple of different ways. One is that it is faster, it provides better visualization, and people are seeing the results faster, and they also report that it is significantly more comfortable. So this is a treatment that's very well tolerated by really everyone, and we're really seeing great results with this treatment. So what my patients are seeing is they look better. So they see not only an improvement in their skin quality, but skin lifting, and it is noticeable. Our patients report that actually other people tell them that they look better. So it's something that's not only experienced by the patient, but the patient will have other people say, "Wow, you're looking so good." So it's a noticeable result even though obviously if you're making collagen, it's like watching paint dry, so it's happening, but it's slowly over time. But it's one of the treatments that my patients really notice a visible result, which is very exciting.

So this is great for people who have lost weight. So for the GLP-1 patient who is concerned about laxity, wants to get that collagen back in their face, this is a great treatment for those patients. They don't want to be volumized, but they would like to be lifted. This is also a great treatment for a perimenopausal or menopausal women who have started to notice a decrease in collagen and elastin in their skin, and this is a great way to naturally return this, and obviously for people who don't want to do injectables, this is a great treatment because it's your own body doing the results over time.

So Ultherapy Prime is the only treatment that allows you to actually visualize the layer that you're treating when you're doing a facelift, which is called a SMAS, and deliver targeted energy to that layer. In order to, obviously we know that all patients are going to have different things that occur with aging. So you have lines and wrinkles due to muscle action. You have volume loss, you have changes to the skin itself, and then you have laxity to this fibromuscular layer. And traditionally, we would lift that if you're doing a facelift, but because all of the layers of the face are connected where we're actually able to target and treat this deeper foundation layer, it actually lifts everything up and gives a more natural, harmonious result to the face.