The Skinny on the Skin

It has been a month now since I started paying attention to my skin, and I have made quite a few discoveries.

Bella kindly pointing out my Cholesterol Deposits

1)  Bella loves to see others in pain.  She will get inside your head with her ready-for-a-horror-move-scream voice and tell you in advance just how pulling-teeth painful something is going to be, just to see you squirm.  This strategy actually works on me.  I get so dang nervous that the pain is amplified to a ridiculous level.

I have had all the different treatments twice now.  The first time, it was traumatizing.  More to the point, Bella was traumatizing me.  The second time, when I tuned Bella out completely, it was uncomfortable, but it didn't even really hurt - and that was using a higher setting.

Lesson Learned:  Don't go with your femme faille girlfriend, expecting her to hold your hand and lower your anxiety.  Not if her name is Bella Coley anyway.  Oh, and if you do take Bella with you, expect to be publicly ridiculed.

2)  Kelly Whitworth knows her stuff.  It sounds like she is making up words when she explains the science of what she is doing, but that is just her Alaskan accent coming through.  Alaskan and Latin don't mesh well together.  Kelly has a great bedside manner, which is just as important as being technically proficient.  And she is remarkably gracious with people (Bella) who drill her incessantly, as if she signed up for taking an oral exam while performing the procedure.

Lesson Learned:  Use a licensed Esthetician whom you trust.  They should be able to explain things to you in words you understand, and what they are saying should make sense to the common guy.  This is your face, it is a bigger deal than your hair, so don't go to the cheapest, go to the best.

I have been using Exquisite Skin Esthetics at the Alyeska Center for Facial Plastic Surgery because I appreciate the safety net of having Anchorage's "Face Man", Dr. Jack Sedwick, being accountable what Kelly is doing.  Just an extra layer of security and comfort in an area where I am not messing around.

3)  Not a Do-It-Yourself project.  DO NOT pull a Sarah Nan and buy professional grade product such as acid off of E-Bay, and decide to ask your girlfriend who knows absolutely nothing about chemical peels to apply it for you.  Especially if you live in Seward, where it takes a helicopter to get you to Anchorage medical care.  There is serious science, don't build a bomb in your bathroom and have it explode on your face - the damage can be irreparable.

Lesson Learned:  Hard to pass the red face test when you know from the start you are going to be walking out of the office with a red face.  Not all procedures are for everyone, they should be able to defend not only what procedure they are recommending, but how they are going to apply it to you.

4)  Results are worth it!  I had no idea what to expect, but I understand now why this is a growth industry.  I am pretty comfortable with how I look, but, as I was aging, things were starting to change - and not in a good way.  Age spots were connecting on my face, giving it a splotchy tan fade.  A hundred bright cherry red dots had appeared when I got pregnant with Casmir, and they never went away.

Flaws Enhanced for Photo Shoot

The skin on my lower cheeks was starting to get crepey, add a few years and that is not attractive.  Fine lines created crows feet that were accentuated with Anchorage's dry air, and these growths of skin kept popping up on my face and just would not go away, despite numerous inquiries from numerous doctors.

Okay, so I asked my eye doctor and my gynecologist, and they expressed them and sliced them off, but they kept coming back.  On my face.  Cholesterol deposits.  Ewh!

Its been a month, and almost all of those spots are gone from my face.  The age spots, the red dots, and the cholesterol deposits.  Almost completely away, as if they had never been there, and I have every reason to believe that this time next month...nada.  My skin will look like it did when I was 20...translucent white.  The little broken veins on my frostbitten nose are even gone.

The fine lines and the crepey cheeks are still there, but improvement in making them disappear is noticeably, I would say they have diminished by 30%.  I don't think they will disappear entirely, although Kelly suggests that if I were willing to get a little shot of something, temporarily, they would.

There is another option, which I am exploring, that is the same theory as the Susan Sommer's FaceMaster Facial Toning System that she is pimping on the home shopping network...only the difference is instead of something passively lying on your face, Kelly plays the role of personal trainer and gets the muscles you want to focus on to exercise in a manner that is going to achieve your desired result.  I saw before/after photos on this one - the result is astonishing.

I had one session, and intend to complete the series.  Not as drastic or expensive as mini-face lift, and for me it appears to be a viable option.