Hope In A Needle?
By PéPé Castro

In the latter part of 2006, J.A. Aranas, a public relations officer, visited a cosmetic surgeon “to try to find an easier way to lose weight,” she says.  Aranas’s cosmetic surgeon suggested for her to consider mesotherapy, a non-surgical cosmetic medicine treatment wherein doses of medication and/or vitamins and supplements are directly injected into the mesoderm, the middle layer of the skin (thus the name), to help melt away the accummulated fat in certain parts of her body.

According to Blue Mountains (bluemountains.com), one of those offering mesotherapy in the Philippines, the “chemicals administered melt away fat from fat cells, rather than remove fat cells (so that) many people are now using mesotherapy for targeted fat reduction at the hips, thighs, love handles, saddle bags and neck, among others, instead of trying surgically invasive procedures, such as liposuction.”

Satisfied with the results she got from her treatment, Aranas actually became one of the growing numbers of those discovering mesotherapy, what USA Today once dubbed as a possible “hope in a needle.”

GROWING POPULARITY

Mesotherapy was pioneered by Michel Pistor (1924-2003), a French doctor, in 1952, with the French Academy of Medicine recognizing it as a specialty of medicine in 1987.

Although it has been in use in European countries and South America since the 1950s, it only gained widespread popularity in the 1990s, when an American doctor, Lionel Bissoon, brought the technique to the US, servicing such celebrities as singer Roberta Flack, who actually endorsed the procedure in ABC’s 20/20 in 2003, for supposedly helping her lose 40 pounds after a year of treatment, though she admitted also dieting and exercising.

The growing popularity, however, is understandable, mainly because of the “simplicity of mesotherapy,” Aranas says.  “There’s not much fuss about the process.”

After consulting with a mesotherapist, a cocktail of chemicals and/or vitamins are chosen and administered into targeted areas via multiple small injections.  A typical treatment may involve dozens of small injections in a concentrated area using a very small needle (0.4 to 0.6 centimeters), though for the treatment of localized fat loss, whereby a bigger needle (30G) is used to administer the medicine at a depth of around one centimeter.

Normally, treatments last for only 10 minutes, though the procedure has to be repeated up to 15 times at intervals of one or two weeks.

Aside from weight loss, celebrity cosmetic surgeon Vicki Belo’s Belo Medical Group (BMG) adds cellulite reduction, face and neck rejuvenation, sports injury, arthritis and joint problems, and hair regrowth, as among the other applications of mesotherapy.

There are various “types” of mesotherapy.  BMG and Blue Mountains, for example, offers mesolift, wherein a cocktail of amino acids and multi-vitamins is delivered into the face and neck through microinjections, using the nappage or scratch methods; mesolipo, a combination of French and Brazilian methods that makes use of a combination of medicines that dissolves fat and improves skin tone; and mesoscalp, wherein a combination of multivitamins, hormones, and minerals is injected into the scalp to stimulate improved hair growth.

While results vary “depending on your body type and the condition being treated, on average, patients notice visible improvement in two to three sessions.  Still, for certain conditions, patients see results after the first session,” states mesotherapy.com. 

After each session, some bruising, itching and redness are to be expected, lasting from a couple of hours to a couple of days.  Swelling and tenderness are also to be expected for the next one to two weeks following each session; as well as some lumpiness or hardness in the treated areas, which will smoothen out in the weeks to follow.

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