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What are the best treatments for cellulite?
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- Dr. Susan Van Dyke , Dermatologist
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- About this video
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Dr. Susan Van Dyke
Dermatologist
Want to take action against your cellulite, but not quite sure what your options are? Here, Dr. Susan Van Dyke shares the best cellulite treatments available.
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Transcript
What are the best treatments for cellulite?
Treatments for cellulite - my favorite treatment is to thicken and increase the tightness of the surface skin so
you think, try this at home. If you have cellulite and you pull the skin taught it looks phenomenal. So what we
are doing, with a procedure called thermage, is we use radio frequency energy to create heat in the skin to
stimulate new collagen to make the skin tightened, and not only does it tightens the surface, but it tightens
the tendrils, those collagen fibers that hold the skin down. So it kind of firms everything up and you will see a
nice improvement of cellulite, which will last maybe year, year and a half, two years. There is no cure for
cellulite so even the best treatment out there, which appears to be radio frequency right now, has to be done
in a maintenance level.
Now there are other treatments for cellulite, for instance a procedure called endermologie. It’s been around
for a long time and it does give a nice temporary improvement in cellulite, probably by milking out some of
the fluid that seems to collect in these little out-pouchings.
Epidermology is a combination of massage and suction. There’s a procedure that’s a little bit more
aggressive than that called TriActive. These are all brand names so there are other names of similar
procedures, but just to give you an idea, TriActive has a low-level laser that stimulates collagen, plus the
suction plus the massage. So you are getting some fluid movement. You are also getting some collagen
stimulation.
Now if you don’t want to go into procedures the question is, what about products you can use at home?
There are massage units that you can help remove some fluid. There are topical agents that contain caffeine
or aminophylline. Those are ingredients that seem to break down fat, but honestly topical treatments are
pretty minimal. I wouldn’t spend a lot of money on topical. I would need you to have to get a little bit more
aggressive to get a longer lasting improvement.
Surgery for cellulite - good topic. Now cellulite is related to fat and the best surgery we have for fat of course
is liposuction. I will explain on the fat, there are two levels of fat. We have superficial fat and we have deep
fat. Liposuction is awesome for removing deep fat. It’s not that great for removing superficial fat because you
can get some increased lumpiness just by an irregular removal of fat and since we are already dealing with
cellulite, which is lumpy, unfortunately, superficial liposuction can make cellulite worse.
Most of the good surgeons, plastics surgeons, dermatologists who do liposuction will not promote it for the
treatment of cellulite and will offer other options rather than just liposuction for cellulite. 
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