Hi, I’m Dr.  Barry Lycka, Edmonton Dermatologist,  host of Inside Cosmetic Surgery Today at Webtalkradio.net.  I’m also host of the television show Yourcosmeticdoctor.tv found on the internet.

One of the questions I am constantly asked is what is cellulite and how do we get rid of cellulite?  Surprising, 85% of women are bothered by cellulite and it’s often associated with the worst bodies found in magazines which of course is something that most people do not want.

Stars with cellulite is a very, very common thing that you see on the internet.  You’ll also see them in tabloids.

For example, Nicollette Sheridan who is ‘hot to trot’ on the set of Desperate Housewives but who does not look that attractive in her skinnies.  As you can see here, some very pronounced cellulite.Cindy Crawford who has been renowned as one of the most beautiful women of all time also has pronounced cellulite. Many celebrities have cellulite. Mischa Barton, actress, star of The OC has real bad cellulite.  In fact she is a poster child for this.  This picture was taken from Makemeheal, a very prominent website which displays her cellulite in black and white terms, not a very pretty sight. Scarlett Johansson, another actress also has prominent cellulite on the back of her thighs.  Tara Reid, a very thin person has cellulite.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Lady Gaga in a recent picture was found to have some extreme cellulite on her thighs so does Sharon Stone and Britney Spears, very pronounced areas of cellulite on their buttocks and thighs.

So what do we do about this?

Well first of all, you have to understand there are lots of misconceptions about cellulite.  One of the most prominent misconceptions that cellulite is just “fat”.  Well, we know it’s not just that and we’ll be going back over that in just a few minutes.

Another promise – another common misconception -  is that exercise can rid the body of cellulite.  Unfortunately this isn’t true.  Although it can help, as many of the things help, exercise does not get rid of cellulite itself.  Many other prominent actresses that you saw in those pictures are exercise fanatics yet they have prominent cellulite on their prominent areas.

Another thing is a healthy diet can get rid of cellulite, a very, very common misconception.  Well I’m sorry to say, you can eat spinach salads for the rest of your life and still have cellulite.

Fourth major misconception is that major creams can cure cellulite.  Although some creams help, all they do is mask it.  They help to attack some of the parts of cellulite but they don’t go after the structural defects that we found.

And the final thing is an aesthetician has ‘magic’ cellulite treatments.  Though aestheticians have been good at controlling cellulite, unfortunately they haven’t been able to get rid of it once and for all.  That’s why modern age cosmetic dermatology has come about.

You see there are five components of cellulite.

Number one is there is very thick fiber septae which you’ll see in a few minutes and a little bit more explanation.  This is responsible for the dells and the valleys that we see.

There’s also expansion of the subcutaneous fat component so fat is part of this but not the whole thing.

There is also dermal laxity and atrophy.  I have seen that a large part of this dermal atrophy and laxity is because of stretch marks and stretch marks are very prominent in areas where people have cellulite.

Then edema forms when the fat gets large enough that it can suffocate the important structures in the area and they just cannot absorb the swelling in that area very much.

And finally free radicals from which are the products of metabolism.  And the less the body gets rids of them, this can cause more problems.  It’s a bit like having an overstuffed mattress that’s why this picture is here and that’s what exactly cellulite is, a bit like an overstuff mattress.

So the anatomical based approach to cellulite treatment has come about from a company called Cynosure.
Now Cynosure has invented the laser and a laser delivery system for helping attack these problems.

Number one, the fat is deplaned so it’s less of an issue.
Number two, there’s selective thermal subscision of the septae.  Those bands that are pulling things down are literally cut by the laser.  And then because there’s heat, it causes them not to reform.

And finally, the superficial layer of the skin is thickened and this causes the cottage cheese like texture to go away.

So what are the tools?
Well the number one tool that we use for this is something called the Smartlipo Triplex with Cellulaze which uses a Cellulaze with a 1440 fiber.  Now you don’t have to remember this number.  It’s something I’ll remember but you won’t have to.  This cellulite system basically helps to help legs and it’s got a unique side delivery system which makes sense.

This research has been in based on three years of research.  Studies have been done now for at least two years with a high degree of patient satisfaction.  There’s been a lot of research gone on with this.  The first paper was done on ten subjects, that’s followed by 50 subjects and then there were 60 more additional subjects in its six sites.

So what happens?  Well first of all, there is deplaning at the adipose tissue.  In other words, the ‘hills’ are taken out.  This causes the fat to get smoother.  It’s deplaned so the bulging goes away.  The ‘hills’ go away.  This is a good picture of how we’re doing it.  The laser is literally melting the fat in that area and causing it to shrink down.

Secondly, we get down and rid of the ‘valleys’, the areas where there’s the valleys.  The lasers are used in a special way, cutting those bands, that are there to free them up.  This is not just cutting, it — the heat actually helps to prevent them from regenerating.  If they were just cut, they’d come back again.  This is a picture of what the laser is doing here.  It’s basically subsiding those wonderful bands so that they can go away.

And finally, there’s dermal remodeling.  This is where the cottage cheese like texture is made to go away.  The pretreatment heterogeneous skin helps to move away very nicely.  So here’s what we’re doing here.  We’re heating the undersurface of the skin, literally thickening it and this process takes six months to a year after the initial injury so it’s not an immediate thing but you see the other processes is much quicker.

So this is the 3D approach.  A lot of things were done to measure this so that doctors can really see this happening.  So let’s look at some of the pictures here.

Here’s a person that has had this radical treatment done on the thighs very, very nicely.  Again, another person before and after the laser treatment from Dr.  DiBernardo’s study.  Finally, another person with the treatment here, very, very nice results.  And again, that cottage cheese or orange peel texture is removed by the laser system.  And finally, some more areas are treated with the laser, very nicely to help improve that.

And this is a person with real bad cellulite.  Formally this would be very, very hard to treat.  Look at the improvement in the pictures here.  An again, close-ups of the areas that were treated with really bad cellulite.

So in summary, cellulite treatment is now a reality.  It consists of treating cellulite with a 1440 nanometer laser with a unique side firing fiber.  Elasticity measuring has been done and that’s improved.  3D imaging has been done and is improved.  And you saw the results of photography there.

The beautiful thing is 93% of patients have satisfaction at one to two years.

If you would like to have some more information, give me a call at my Edmonton office at 780-425-1212.  I’d love to send you a package of information on this.

Thank you very much and have a great day.