Straightening Out Peyronies – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Peyronies is a disorder of the connective tissue of the penis. It affects at least 5% of the male population, is disfiguring and can be painful or desensitizing in some cases.
I am writing about it in my blog as it pertains to aesthetics and lifestyle changes as well as overall health and wellbeing.
I have had male patients walk into my chicago area office complaining of many things they want to address, but one of the more difficult things for them to speak about are issues regarding sexuality and their genitalia.
It has been common for men to come in for lipodissolve for fatty breast tissue or love handles. And it has been common for men to come in complaining of low libido but only recently have I been seeing more and more men with a diagnosis of Peyronies.
As it turns out, the reflex-biofeedback that I have mastered is incredible for tackling this horrible disorder. Not only does it address pain or de-sensitivity, it appears to address the abnormal connective tissue problem immediately.
The reflex biofeedback I’m speaking about is Russian in origin and has been around for over 25 years. It is FDA approved as a prescription device for pain management. However, it is commonly used “off-label” for all kinds of problems and has research backing much of the “off-label” use.
I would not have known it was useful for Peyronies if one of my patients hadn’t suggested trying it on him after I successfully treated a shoulder and hip injury of his.
To our amazement, he had a 90% improvement after only one treatment. The rest is history.
Most patients would be happy with just the aesthetic component of this disorder improved, however, having function and size improved is an added bonus that can not be overlooked.
The traditional “treatments” for Peyronies are painful and in almost all cases, a waste of time.
Information regarding SCENAR or INTERX can be found on my medical website at
www.disease-reversal.com
the link to SCENAR is in the top left corner of the home page.
I am in the process of setting up research with reflex-biofeedback in a neurobiology lab in Boston with returning veterans and different disabilities. I look forward to sharing the research with my readers.
Why Lipodissolve Over Liposuction – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Why chose a non-surgical procedure involving many injections that might involve a few visits over a single surgical procedure?
The answer is the risk/benefit ratio.
Liposuction, also known as lipoplasty or suction-assisted lipectomy, is cosmetic surgery performed to remove unwanted deposits of fat from under the skin. The doctor sculpts and recontours the patient’s body by removing excess fat deposits that have been resistant to reduction by diet or exercise. The fat is permanently removed from under the skin with a suction device. The patients is typically under general anesthesia.
The morbidity and mortality from liposuction is reported from several studies to be on average, 20-100 deaths per 100,000 surgeries. Higher with general anesthesia and higher when combined with other procedures like a tummy tuck. Tummy tucks have a death rate of 1 per 600 procedures just by itself.
Lipodissolve is a non-surgical procedure where phosphatidyl choline (lecithin) and deoxycholate (bile salt) is injected directly into the subcutaneous storage fat. The fat cells are lysed open from the substances and the patient’s immune system sends macrophages to the area to clean up the debris. Swelling ensues enabling many macrophages or clean up cells to enter the area and the body then eliminates the macrophages and dead fat cell debris via the lymphatic system and the intestinal tract. This procedure is performed for the same reason liposuction is performed and in the same areas.
There is a zero mortality risk from lipodissolve. Thousands of procedures have been performed world wide without any death risk. The morbidity is also close to nil. There have been a few cases of infection of the area treated, but these cases were not performed by medical personnel.
The results from lipodissolve can be remarkable. The skin shrinks over the area where the fat has been lysed as needles promote skin tightening and the fat disappears over a few weeks allowing the skin to shrink as well.
There is swelling and some bruising, this is part of the process and necessary for the process, but not a risky side effect.
Lipodissolve can be done in small areas such as the jowls, under the chin and on knee fat pads, liposuction is difficult in such small areas.
With a desirable outcome and little risk, lipodissolve is preferable to the surgical procedure liposuction.
FDA Warns Against Mesotherapy and Lipodissolve – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Again, bad press is abounding over lipodissolve and mesotherapies.
Two forms of safe, aesthetic procedures which have been time tested to be so safe, that there have been no deaths or hospitalizations in relation to either of these procedures.
Clearly, these procedures threaten those that would have you believe that plastic surgery is the only way to achieve a reduction in fat, or tighter skin.
There have been medical spas that have behaved badly over the years:
Strong marketing campaigns
Forceful contract ploys
getting payments up front
These certainly have been bad for the industry, but they are in no way the majority, nor do they affect the actual reality of the procedures.
In fact, most individual medical offices that offer these procedures, do not engage in these marketing ploys, that has been only the behavior of corporate spa chains.
Lipodissolve does melt away external soft fat, but it is not a weight loss procedure, just a spot fat proedure.
Mesotherapy can be great for cellulite reduction, skin tightening, skin brightening and pain management. I do not recommend it for spot fat reduction, as lipodissolve is much better.
There will always be corporate entities willing to sacrifice ethical behavior for a quick buck, but this should not color the procedures, just the marketing methods.
Look for a doctor that doesn’t have a hard sell. One that comes recommended and that will give you an honest answer regarding your outcome.
If you are very overweight, this is not an answer for you, with the exception of your chin or neck.
Any doctor that recommends lipodissolve on your belly when you are clearly obese, is too anxious for business to give you an honest answer.
Non-Surgical Neck and Face Lifts – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Many people walk into my Chicago are office inquiring whether there is anything they can do about their double chins or saggy jowls, short of having surgery. Surgery to correct double chins or fat necks, involve wearing a drain for a few days, often in the intensive care unit.
Lipodissolve enables us to remove the fat that is hanging while never cutting through healthy tissue or creating blood loss.
While many plastic surgeons bad mouth lipodissolve saying it is dangerous, it is all lip service. There is no real danger with lipodissolve. The treatments are standardized, not made up as the doctor goes along, as some would have you believe.
You can understand the threat this is to plastic surgeons who make thousands of dollars off of each surgical procedure and the lengthy hospitalization required.
This is why the marketing department of the academies of plastic surgeons started to spread the word that lipodissolve is not FDA approved. No procedure is FDA approved! The FDA only approves devices and drugs, never procedures.
My patients walk out the door within 30 minutes of arriving to my office, most do not even need a tylenol.
While there is considerable swelling, the swelling is necessary and temporary. I tell patients who are having the procedure on their face, to hide out for a day or two.
The results are well worth it:
Patients look refreshed as though they had a mini facelift without the pulled look.
The jowls that cause the marionette lines are gone.
The fat double chin is gone and no one risked their life by having to have a drain hanging from their neck while recuperating in the intensive care unit.
Often one procedure is enough, but those with severe cases may need a few, as we want the skin to shrink along with the disappearance of fat. In those cases, we would spread the procedures out be two to three weeks.
Next time you look in the mirror and start pulling your jowls or chin back, think about ridding the extra or sagging fat once and for all.
Keloid Scar Revision And Lipoma Removal Without Surgery – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
In my Chicago area office, I see many patients with thick unsightly scars and keloids.
Many of the patients think they have to have a surgical procedure to remove them. And, if they make keloids, they often avoid the surgery because there is a good chance they’ll form another keloid.
Another option for removing these scars is to inject a naturally occurring enzyme called collagenase. This breaks down the peptide bonds in the scar and the scar levels out. Once the scar is flat, an intense pulsed light and radio frequency is used to reduce the abnormal pigment or redness.
It is common to see these scars after a tummy tuck or a mini face lift.
Another common disfigurement that I commonly see are lipomas. Lipomas occur for mostly unknown reasons although they can occur in an area that had been physically traumatized.
Lipomas respond very well to either collagenase, or another substance we use in lipodissolve called phosphatidylcholine/deoxycholate or PCDC. In hard lipomas I employ collagenase, in soft ones the PCDC mixture.
An unfortunate but common location for woman to accumulate fat is in the back of the neck. This phenomenon has a few names: dowagers hump, buffalo hump and protease hump. Men can form these as well,but it is less common.The formation of this hump or fatty deposit can be in response to corticosteroid use or cushings syndrome. But I have seen it in patients who tend to accumulate fat in an apple body type fashion, in patients with metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetic) and in woman with underlying kyphosis or rounding of the spine.
The fatty prominence of “dowager hump” is responsive to the treatment mentioned above, but the procedure does nothing to straighten out the spine.
I do tend to address the underlying reason for the hump and try to reverse the process so it will not return.
The Down Side of Permanent or Almost Permanent Fillers – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Be careful what you wish for.
I’ve had more than a few patients walk in my Chicago area office with silicone filled lips or problematic bumps on their face from Sculptra that were unhappy with their outcome but could not do anything about it.
One of the unhappy patients had silicone enhanced lips and had never even had a temporary filler prior to the silicone. This, I believe is absurd, as it is always helpful for a patient to see how they will look like prior to a permanent change. Her doctor suggested a permanent implant the first time she asked for lip enhancement. This is a doctor to run from. The patient turned out looking like a pair of walking lips. She can have the implants removed, but this is not a simple procedure like injecting hyaluronidase into an area that was over filled.
While a patient might look good and be happy with a permanent implant down the road, one should always recommend trying the look temporarily at first to make sure it works.
Sculptra and some of the other fillers that stimulate lots of collagen production deep in the dermis, can achieve phenomenal results, they can also create lumps and bumps that are often visible. Even in the hands of a skilled doctor, there is a risk.
Sculptra seems to be the best for HIV related facial lipodystrophy. These patients have lost so much volume in their faces that they really can’t look over filled compared to how abnormal they looked prior.
The over filled look, or even filling to perfection, can often look obviously abnormal. The planes of the face can become distorted. So if you think you want to fill to perfection, do it at first with a short acting filler. If you don’t love the look, it will be gone in few months. If you love the look, repeat it the next time with a longer acting filler. Just remember, it is normal to have some amount of smile lines starting in your twenties. Smile lines can actually add more dimension to your face which is usually more visually appealing and interesting.
The Benefit of Using Growth Factors in Mesotherapy – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Growth factors are naturally occurring proteins that promote tissue growth. They are the hottest trend in upscale skin care lines.
Skin is a wonderful impermeable protective organ. Water soluble topical applications to not absorb well.
Mesotherapy with needles or with an electric current greatly improve delivery of product.
The newest form of mesotherapy to hit the medical spa market is the microneedle derm roller. This is typically accompanied by pharmaceutical growth factors EGF and TGF, often with copper peptides.
In my Chicago area office in Evanston, I employ the use of full needle mesotherapy, electric mesotherapy which has the added benefit of an electrical current that contracts the muscles and tightens them, and microneedle derm rollers.
All the above methods greatly improve delivery of often expensive products that one would not want to waste by just applying them topically.
I can achieve lightening of dark skin spots while avoiding the use of hydroquinone by applying safer water soluble products.
By placing patients on oral astaxanthin which reduces collagen breakdown by 30%This accompanied by pharmaceutical EGF and TGF used with dermal rolling can not only prevent collagen loss, but can actually promote new collagen growth to the point of filling in small vertical lines.
Skin Rejeuvenation and Mesotherapy – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Mesotherapy is not well known or frequently practiced in the states. However, it is a popular procedure in Europe where aesthetic medicine is a medical specialty. And, it is popular in my Chicago area office.
Typically mesotherapy is performed with small needles attached to a syringe in order to inject growth factors and vitamins just under the top layer of skin. This is performed to either enhance the collagen growth, reduce wrinkles or lighten dark spots.
Needleless machines which use a microcurrent to pulse the product under the skin have become popular as have meso guns and dermal rollers. The products that are used to encourage dermal growth and reduction of wrinkles have grown into a large list based upon ongoing research in skin repair and clinical outcomes.
Very fine needles are used as a method of getting product into the skin, but needles also stimulate the growth and repair cycle of skin as well as encourage tightening. Needleless machines use a current to open micropores in the skin in order to achieve similar results.
One of the benefits of mesotherapy on the face and neck, is a reduction in fine lines and an increase in the glow of the skin. The fibroblasts or cells responsible for the growth of collagen, become bathed in vitamins, minerals and growth factors. Micro trauma promotes new collagen growth even on its’ own.
The mesotherapy technique can be used for cellulite reduction very effectively by using collagenase, a naturally occuring enzyme. The collagenase is injected into the abnormal collagen fibers that trap the fat cells, creating a smoother surface.
This technique can also be used for pain management by injecting lidocaine or traumheel or even just sterile saline as the needling itself often breaks an abnormal pain cycle.
How to Lose Abdominal Fat Without a Procedure – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
There are two types of abdominal fat; visceral and subcutaneous.
While many studies cite the dangers of visceral fat because of it’s association with heart disease and diabetes type two, subcutaneous fat can also pose some dangers.
All fat cells have the capability to transform cholesterol into hormones, particularly estrogen, and large amounts of subcutaneous fat can translate in to excessive estrogen.
Many patients visit my Chicago area office for lipodissolve but this can only eliminate subcutaneous fat. If they have visceral fat which is never good, I recommend dietary changes and either conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), or DHEA.
The studies on both of these supplements are very promising in reducing fat and increasing lean body mass.
The November 10 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study on the effects of DHEA on visceral and subcutaneous fat.
The study included the non-control group of elderly subjects taking 50mg per day of DHEA for six months.
The conclusion was that DHEA supplementation significantly reduced not only visceral fat, but subcutaneous fat as well. And, previous studies have shown an increase in bone density in subjects taking DHEA.
CLA has been studied and is associated with an increase in lean body mass and decrease in visceral fat. However, the studies were not as impressive as with DHEA. Non the less, many weight trainers body sculptors swear by CLA.
Lipodissolve is only good for someone with a medium to lean body weight who has stubborn fatty tissue in spot areas, like a mushy lower abdomen (women) and love handles (men and women).
The Benefits of a Low Glycemic Index Protein Drink in Permanent Weight Loss – The Lipodissolve Clinic Blog
Many patients that walk into my Chicago area clinic want to go on a cleanse. While it can be very beneficial to go on a cleanse, what you do after you’ve finished, is more predictive of the longterm gains you’ll have made from doing it in the first place.
We all know someone who is a “yo-yo” dieter. There are “yo-yo” health eaters as well.
“Diets” in general do not work, no matter what the reason. It is imperative to learn to eat in a way that is the most beneficial to you. So if you need to shrink your shadow, this requires a change in your habits. Likewise, if you want to improve your health status and reduce toxins, this also requires lifestyle changes and not just a month of raw fooding or cleansing.
I highly recommend adding a low glycemic protein drink with great prebiotics such as inulin while starting to make lifestyle and dietary changes. The reason is that these drinks help you feel satisfied and if they contain inulin and low sugars, they can actually alter your bowel flora (the beneficial gut bacteria).
Recent research in obesity has revealed that many obese individuals harbor different bowel flora than thin individuals. The flora of obese individuals actually breakdown what is otherwise undigestible cellulose and obtain sugars and calories from it. And, rats fed a high sugar and fried food diet, actually change their bowel flora to those of obese individuals. This means, if you a eat high sugar, high bad fat diet, you are slammed with a double whammy as the bowel bacteria will be altered to grab even more calories from your food than if you didn’t eat this way.
We all know that once we get on a carbohydrate binge, it is very difficult to stop the inertia. The best way I have found to stop the inertia is with a high quality low glycemic index protein drink. Occasionally, I’ll add some herbs to help quell intense cravings.
Once a patient is off the carbohydrate merry-go-round, I find it is easier for them to make permanent changes in their eating habits.
