Just Remembered...

We were fed so much information during the Ion Magnum & Perfector training sessions that I've forgotten a few pearls.The most important one that I was reminded of last night was about hormonal imbalances leading up to weight gain or an inability to lose weight.

Oestrogen dominance and sub-clinic hypothyroidism are common and often undiagnosed. Both result in weight gain and a resistance to weight loss by traditional means.

We were told that even patients with hormonal imbalances respond well to the Ion Magnum. But, the response rate will be slow initially. At least 5 sessions will be required before the body suddenly goes into weight loss mode.

This makes it a little more difficult to decide if one wishes to undergo a series of treatments. Under normal situations, instant reduction is visible. However, what are the alternatives? Continue the futile diet & exercise regime? Or just take a leap of faith and try the Ion Magnum?

I know my choice. What's yours?

SunSoul Home IPL Clothing Line

Yep! You can now to do IPL in the comfort of your own home! All that is required is to wear a cap from US brand SunSoul for 2 hours a week. No pain!!!

There are two versions: Yelomod for rejuvenation and Blumod for acne. 

The material is impregnated with a light filter. Sunlight is filtered to remove harmful rays and just transmit yellow light for Yelomod or blue light for Blumod. The caps are a lemon yellow & sky blue respectively. Various design shirts are also available for the treatment of the body.

I thought this was a really unique concept. Almost an oxymoron! We have been so ingrained with stay away from the sun, it's harmful, causes ageing, eek! Now suddenly we have a means of converting the dangerous into therapeutic. How wonderful!

I tried out the Yelomod cap when I was on holiday in Bangkok last week. No sunblock for 3 days in sunny Bangkok. Lots of walking in the sun. Add in a great propensity for pigmentation. Scary experiment!

And my face did not tan at all! No worsening of pigmentation. No harm done. Certainly it's far too early to judge if there's going to be much positive results from this super short exposure. It'll certainly take weeks to see much improvement with a simple system like this.

The ideal candidates for these products would be:

1. Post-IPL maintenance
2. Golfers
3. Active facial acne
4. Back acne

We have a variety of hat designs in stock & are awaiting the delivery of a couple of blue shirts. 

Update on Ion Magnum: Post Liposuction Muscle Toning & Visceral Fat Reduction

One of the major reasons for purchasing the Ion Magnum was for the treatment of post-liposuction patients. We often see, especially with men, that even after we all the fat out from under the skin, the tummy still bulges out. This is from a combination of poor muscle tone & visceral (internal) fat.

The Ion Magnum targets both these problems more effectively than exercise. 

We finally had the opportunity to try this out over the weekend. I saw a gentleman I did abdominal liposuction on a month before. We removed almost 5L from him tummy, but it was still bulging. Measurements revealed a 10 cm loss on average at 3 points over his abdomen.

We put him on the Magnum and set it to remove visceral fat.

Thirty minutes later, repeat measurements revealed a further 10 cm loss over his upper abdomen! I've never seen him smile so widely!

I've yet to try this mode personally on the Ion Magnum. My attempts at scheduling my own treatment were thwarted yesterday & today. And that's even after I booked myself into the appointment system!

Try again tomorrow...

Revitalash for Naturally Thick, Full Eyelashes

Considering I spent 3 days last weekend at a major International skin conference, I was surprisingly not enthused by much of the new products on offer. It was filler after filler after filler, all claiming to be the best. Yawn...

The first product to catch my eye was Revitalash. Having never had eye lashes of any form, and not being able to tolerate anyone coming near my eyes, falsies are out of the question. Here's a product that stimulates natural lash growth by daily application? Interesting & definitely worth trying out.

RevitaLash™ was developed by Dr. Michael Brinkenhoff as a special gift for his wife, Gayle, while she was recovering from breast cancer. Intensive chemotherapy treatments had damaged Gayle’s once-beautiful eyelashes, leaving them sparse, breakable and fragile.

After extensive research with a team of cosmetic chemists, Dr. Brinkenhoff formulated an eyelash conditioner that, after just a few weeks, gave a renewed look of vitality to Gayle’s eyelashes. Results are supposedly seen after between three to ten weeks of daily application. Then maintenance applications a couple of times a week are enough. Interesting!

I started my treatment that very night and am waiting for the day I can have visible eye lashes.

We have brought in a vials for clinic sale. Each one costs $238 and lasts for at least 6 months. At maintenance phase, each vial lasts 3 years!

Application is very straightforward. Just draw on upper and lower lash lines every night on cleansed face. Wait 5 minutes for it to dry before applying normal skin care products. Then wait with bated breath for growth.

Restylane Face Lift

This was the most interesting presentation on the first day of IMCAS Singapore 2008. I had actually not planned on listening to this presentation, but found it impossible to leave once she started describing her novel technique.

The speaker was a Dermatologist from Bangkok. She realised that Restylane & Perlane were unique in having lifting properties. She has developed a technique whereby tiny amount of the filler are injected superficially into the traction lines if the face, in the direction of lift.

The technique is simple & produced immediate results. These improved over the following two weeks, following which the results remained stable for about a year. She used 2-3 1ml syringes per face, so it's a relatively costly affair. There's also a little bit of downtime: bruising, swelling, redness. This can last for up to 2 weeks.

I'm not sure if many Singaporeans would be keen on this, but it is certainly a simple procedure with good results. It may have a role in those who don't trust machines, don't want surgery and would prefer to avoid complications associated with threads. Personally, I'd give the Perfector a go first, and only resort to this if all machine and non-invasive options fail.

Update on Perfector Testing: Acne Scars & Comedones

We know the power of Perfector on lifting & sculpting, so have been trying to check out its effects on other facial complaints. Two "willing" volunteers are Mery our clinic manager & Ffion my daughter.

Mery has residual acne scarring from adolescent acne. It cleared up tremendously after a couple of sessions of dermaroller treatment. So she was first up to see if Perfector would help reduce these further. She had a single 30 minute session on Thursday, and a few hours later, felt her scars were less obvious on the right side. We were too busy for her to have the treatment again yesterday. I'm hoping that with a few treatments done close together, she will get flawless skin without the discomfort of dermarolling.

My 12-year old daughter Ffion took a lot of persuading before agreeing to trying the Perfector. She'd rather live with comedones than be subjected to the treatments we had previously. To be fair to her, she has tried most things... once.

She had 10 minutes of Perfector treatment on Thursday and happily reported no discomfort. When I got home yesterday, I noticed her face was much smoother. About 50% of the comedones had disappeared! Even more had gone by this morning.

The best testament to the effectiveness and painlessness of the Perfector treatment is when a 12-year old asks to have another treatment 2 days later. :o)

Now we just have to tie her down to try the Ion Magnum!

Updates from A4M Singapore (July 2008)

The American Association of Anti-Ageing Medicine (A4M) held a meeting in Singapore last weekend. I did not formally attend the meeting, but had the opportunity to participate in some of the peripheral events associated with it.

The first presentation I attended was on Thursday evening, which was the Arasys presentation. That is aso when I fell in love with the Perfector & Ion Magnum.

The second presentation was on the Friday night. This was a lecture on Nutritional Medicine in Stress, Leaky Gut and Food Intolerances. The lecturer was from Brisbane, and spoke at length about the many changes that occur during times of stress: how part of the brain shrinks, the gut becomes permeable, and how ridiculous it is to tell a stressed person to relax or do some yoga.

Instead, he used multiple formulations to re-balance the chemical deficiencies in the brain, rapidy cut stress (in 20 minutes) and heal the gut. It's a lot of supplementation to rescue the situation, but definitely more sensible than trying to cut out a load of foods and relax a the same time. That's a formula to kill, no?

Stress in the levels that we live with on a daily basis can kill. Modern nutritional medicine can help in stress management.

The main conference was held over Saturday & Sunday at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront. There were delegates from all around the world. We appeared on Saturday to listen to Dr Weiss speak on the Science behind the Arasys Perfector machines. We then stayed on to try the machines out. That is when I lost 2 inches from my tummy whilst gutsing on chocolate cake.

I did not attend any other lectures. Many of them were on Stem Cells. I heard the other focus of attention was on Starvation to prolong life. Thanks... I'd rather die!

Instead, the girls & I spent the weekend training on how to use the Perfector & Ion Magnum. Both are simple & relatively straightforward to use. But the number of possibilities and uses for each machine is so great, it just took many hours to go through the theory & practical skills. In practice, the Perfctor is much easier to use than DermaRF. Just a pair of copper glove that pull the tissues ino the desired position, hold for a few minutes & voila! Face lift!

The learning opportunities continue this weekend (Sunday to Tuesday) with the IMCAS conference, at Suntec Convention Centre. My friends from Manila (Claudine & Cathy) will be attending. Dr Chanchai will be flying in from Bangkok and we have been told about new handpieces for the Derma RF that he will be demonstrating. Arnd Kensey, CEO of Humanmed (Body Jet Waterjet Liposuction) will be attending too. Another full weekend ahead, no doubt.

First Perfector & Ion Magnum Units in Singapore!

Both the Perfector & Ion Magnum were delivered late on Monday night. Unfortunately, we have had little opportunity to play with them as our schedule has been tight otherwise. I've had another little go at the Magnum, and am looking forward to getting hooked up again today. Perfector too. The stress of the last few days has resulted in a few pesky zits popping out. I'm hoping the machine lives up to its promise of zapping them so they disappear overnight.

I've also been burning the midnight oil and have put some information up on the main website. There are links from the "News" section of every page, but the URLs to explore are:

• www.simply-aesthetic.com/nanomedicine.htm for the science behind the technology
• www.simply-aesthetic.com/perfector.htm for information about the Perfector
• www.simply-aesthetic.com/ion-magnum.htm for information about the Ion Magnum

We will continue to update as we gain more experience with these devices.

Simply Aesthetic Has Purchased Arasys Perfector & Ion Magnum Machines!

As mentioned in the previous post, we were planning on adding the new technology from Arasys into our clinic's services. We just started talking to our patients today, and have had to start a "To Call" list once we knew when the machine was coming in. Considering we spent very little time in clinic today, the list is already 5 people long!

We disappeared (aka ran out!) at 12 noon to catch Dr Weiss speak on the science behind the technology. It's all very cutting edge stuff, way more complex than what we learnt in medical school all those years back. Even with my BSc in Medical Biochemistry it was not easy to fully comprehend the molecular science involved. Things have certainly moved far away from the old lock & key model of enzymatic reactions. The scientists can now see how each individual molecule behaves in vivo, how it moves as the it performs its role. Also how cells communicate with one another, plus inside each cell. The technology basically encompasses mimicking natural cellular communication to gently coerce the proteins to rejuvenate. Plus the teeny weeny (impalpable) current provides the electrons required to stabilise all the nasty free radicals that age us & cause disease.

Enough science! We are more interested in results!

Before signing the papers, I was strapped onto the Ion Magnum. I've not been eating great recently, so I was having a bad tummy day. My measurements were taken before the treatment, then I got strapped in. The sensation was an urge to contract my tummy muscles, just like doing sit ups. This went on for a good half hour. In the mean time, the trainer Christine started using the Perfector on the left side of my face.

Within a short time, the effects on my face were noticeable. My nasolabial fold was less deep, particularly obvious when I smiled. And this is the side that was always more problematic. My eyebrow was a little higher, and my skin more radiant. My dark eye circles were also improved. I felt no discomfort at all. The gloved scratched a little, but nothing else.

Once we did the left face, we decided it was feeding time! Picture this: I was strapped up in the Ion Magnum, doing crunches, eating a huge lunch, including a massive slice of chocolate cake! After the treatment was over, I had still LOST 2 INCHES around my waist!!! They tell me the results will continue to improve over the next few days. I can't wait!!!

Needless to say, we purchased the machines and called the girls in for training. So I've had the Perfector on me for hours today. Literally! Looking closely at my face after my shower was interesting. The changes are very obvious:

• My brows are lifted
• The early sagging in my jowls is gone on the left and minimal on the right
• My nasolabial folds have never been so minimal
• My skin is lighter and more radiant
• My jawline is more contoured

I'm ecstatic with the outcome!

It looks like we will be getting delivery of the machines on Monday. We will be honing our skills internally initially, then call for volunteers. We plan to launch the treatment in the next week or two. Watch this space or call the clinic for more details. The number of volunteers we can treat is very limited, so please call immediately to secure your place!

I'm in Love... with Arasys Perfector & Ion Magnum

I went to a product demonstration last night and fell totally, utterly in love with two machines! The technology is very unique: gentle, yet packing a great punch in terms of instant results!

The Arasys Perfector is the face machine. I saw faces being lifted & moulded into more pleasing contours in minutes. And there was no discomfort whatsoever! In fact, the sensation was NOTHING! It does what our RF does in a few sessions in a few minutes! Plus more! They have had vast experience in this machine doing the following:

• Immediately reduce wrinkle depth (saw that!)
• Lift faces, chins & necks (saw that!)
• Reduce melasma (saw that too!)
• Reduce puffiness of eye bags (yes, and we saw that!)
• Reduce active acne overnight
• Reduce acne scar depth
• Reduce redness of rosacea
  
• Change in skin texture (can see that in under 5 minutes!)
• Reduce sun damage

The body machine stimulated muscle activity at a phase that utilised fat as fuel as opposed to glucose. One short treatment was said to be equivalent to 10 hours in the gym! The lady that tried the machine was not fat by any means, yet lost 2 inches from her lower abdomen. The effects would continue for the next few days. The stimulation of lean muscle mass and utilisation of fat for fuel has proven benefits for visceral fat reduction. They say that so much antioxidation occurs during one body treatment that even the face starts glowing the next day!

We will be attending Dr Weiss's lecture tomorrow to find out more about the science behind the technology. We also hope to finalise the deal to purchase the machines this weekend.