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Dr. Craig H. Greene performing Smartlipo on a patient.

OPELOUSAS — In the past, when fitness buffs trimmed down to their goal body weights, but still couldn’t get rid of those love handles or saddle bags, they had to resort to painful, expensive liposuction. Now, patients have a new, less invasive option to get their ideal physiques – and they don’t have to go to Beverly Hills to get it.

Opelousas family physician Dr. Craig H. Greene with La Vie MedSpa is one of the select physicians in the country now offering Smartlipo™ LaserBodySculpting, a less invasive technique for fat reduction and body toning. In contrast to conventional liposuction, which is usually performed on obese individuals, Smartlipo is geared towards fit individuals who just need a little fat removed from problem areas. Target regions include the abdomen, bra area, between the thighs, above the knee and under the chin. “Smartlipo is more for body sculpting, where we try to limit it to more fit individuals,” Greene explained.

With Smartlipo, the physician destroys fat with a 1064-nm Nd:YAG laser which goes right under the skin. “It’s kind of like taking margarine, putting it in a pan, placing the heat on, and turning it into oil,” Greene explained. “The laser kills the fat cells and turns that fat into oil, and we then vacuum out that oil and some of those other fat cells.”

Besides toning the body, the 1064 YAG laser has another advantage — collagen formation. After the procedure, the patient is left with some loose skin. “The laser cases that skin to tighten up on you, and over the next couple of months, that skin continues to tighten,” Greene said. “So, not only do you have loss of fat, but you have tightened skin.”

Another benefit is that Smartlipo is performed under local anesthesia, rather than general anesthesia like conventional lipo. Compared to lipo patients, laser-treated individuals need very little downtime. “Traditional lipo is done in an operating room environment under general anesthesia, so you have to go through recovery,” Greene explained. “And, the recovery time is in weeks. With the Smartlipo, you are back at work the next day.”

The procedure was FDA-approved in November, 2006. Greene was among the first physicians in Louisiana to acquire the Smartlipo system. So far, he has performed 30 to 40 procedures with good results.

Compared to traditional lipo, which requires an operating room and an anesthesiologist, Smartlipo costs much less. Nationally, the cost is approximately $4,000 for the first body area and $2,000 for each additional body area. The procedure can be performed on more than one spot at a time. “People get behind their arms done, their chins, upper and lower abdomens, and love handles,” Greene reported. “Patients do lot of the different areas at one time because of that price break in the extra body areas. One of our patients from this area commented, ‘It costs less than a four-wheeler!’ So, you know who she was trying to convince.”

Greene says that his patients are ecstatic with the results. “They walk out of the office with a big-ole grin on their faces,” he said. “They come in for follow up, and they are walking like a show rooster — they are just so proud to show off their new bodies.”



January 2008

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