After my twin pregnancy, I became desperate to find skin-tightening treatments for my stomach. I’ve actually detailed everything I tried to help my loose belly skin here. This is my experience with Thermage – which I’d describe as the most invasive, yet the most effective, of all the stomach tightening treatments I’ve tried so far.
Side note, this is not me below, but it’s what the Thermage grid on your stomach during the treatment looks like.
How I Found Thermage
I discovered Thermage accidentally. I was scrolling on Instagram while breastfeeding, during which I normally see a lot of content for twin pregnancies and general mom life, and I saw it: a tighter-looking tummy on a woman roughly my age and build after her twin pregnancy. It showed her before and after photos – and her before photo looked exactly like my tummy at the time, mommy pooch and all. I couldn’t believe it.
Naturally, I had a lot of questions. Why was this the first I had heard about Thermage – was it super new? I had previously spent a long time researching the things I could be doing to best help my loose twin belly skin – so why didn’t it come up in my earlier searches?
As it turns out, Thermage FLX has been around for 20 years. So that gave me a little confidence. And it’s likely not a popular topic of conversation because of two reasons I could spot. First, it’s most often performed on the face to help with wrinkles and to tighten and firm the skin. The second is the price point, especially with the stomach being such a large area of skin.
Thermage skin tightening is pricey. Like, really pricey. To the point that my first thought was immediately “nope”. You’d easily pay upwards of $2000 for one session. But looking into it further, you really only need one session – and it was way cheaper than having a mini tummy tuck, for example (and without the surgical risks). I spent a few days researching it, spoke to my husband due to the significant financial investment it would involve, and we collectively decided that for my mental health: I was getting Thermage on my loose belly skin. Yay!
My Stomach Thermage Experience
Treatment preparation
Entering the clinic a week later, I was excited. My husband was at home with the twins, I was well caffeinated, and this was doubling as some great “me” time, given my treatment was 2 hours long. The appointment started with the usual consent forms and questionnaires from the staff, who were lovely. They did ask if I was breastfeeding, to which I said yes, and they did mention there may be interference with my supply. I didn’t think to ask how or why, and this hadn’t come up in anything I had read online (in fact I looked back and it just says it is safe during breastfeeding), but writing this a week after my treatment, I can confirm my supply definitely did take a temporary dive (I type as I’m power pumping to try bring it back up).
Next, I lay down on the bed and they transferred a grid outline onto my belly skin, which they divided into thirds. The grid looks like a tattoo, but it easily rubs away after the treatment. This grid is like a little map that outlines the areas that will be treated and has notable squares with circles between. The practitioner uses the machine to go over several “passes” of alternating squares and circles.
It also turns out there are two “tips” to choose from for the Thermage device. I say ‘choose’ like I had a choice – I didn’t really. I was asked about my pain tolerance levels, they assessed my body (specifically noting that I didn’t have a great deal of extra fat on me, meaning my pain tolerance may be naturally lower), and they settled on the “total body” or “full body” tip. I forget the exact name but the difference was that it was much smaller, filling just one ‘square’ on the grid, whereas the other tip was much larger and looked like it filled four squares at the same time. I had the feeling the larger one may have been more effective given it was targeting more skin at the same time, but nothing will be effective if you can’t tolerate the sensation in the first place, so I followed their judgement – and boy was I glad I did.
They then lathered me with the specific radiofrequency gel in the area they’d be working on first and that was it! We were good to start the treatment on the first third of the belly.
Thermage treatment was then started
This is when it all went downhill. I quickly realised that I had severely underestimated my pain tolerance, the sting of the treatment, or likely both. They started me on the “average” strength setting of level 2. They told me to let them know when it got above a 6/10 for pain. Here’s where I made a mistake: I tried to play the tough guy and kept saying I was fine, despite all the flinching, finger squeezing, ab tensing and the internal tears I was shedding. But I couldn’t keep this game up for too long because after they had done all of the squares, and then all of the circles next to the squares, it was time to do it all again for the “second pass” of the area they were working in (which was one-third of my belly). All the way up to five passes. Or maybe it was six? I think my memory has blocked it out much like how you block out childbirth pain.
I quickly understood I needed to say something, and they reduced the intensity level while activating the vibration on the device which serves as a way to distract you from the pain. Even then, some of the areas were crazy painful. They informed me that due to the location of the nerves (and my minimal fat levels despite lots of loose skin), I was prone to feeling pain.
You know how when someone uses a euphemism like “you’re looking lovely and plump” to make “you’ve gained a few pounds” sound nicer? Well, in Thermage, the terms are “spicy” and “bite”. I had heard “it might feel a bit spicy” and “let me know if it’s too much of a bite” several times during treatment preparation and now that the treatment was well underway, I understood why they talked so much about it. To add to it, once you know there’s a painful area coming up, you can’t help but feel tense and afraid!
Long story short, the next 30 or so minutes I spent with my teeth gritted and my hands balled into fists. Once all the passes were done, they proceeded to do the ‘vectors’ in that region. This is where I learnt that part of the way that Thermage works to tighten the skin is to first warm up the area with the passes (like they said, you “can’t bake cookies in a cold oven”) and then go over the areas that we want collagen to be really laid down over the coming months – as full results take 3-6 months to show.
My pain tolerance and enthusiasm reduced over time
I was delighted when the first third of my belly was complete – and then remembered two whole sections of my stomach were left. It was hard, and I ended up staying at the clinic for 3.25 hours total, with about 2.5 hours of that being treatment time. I could also feel my pain tolerance reducing more and more – probably because my determination to stay strong was quickly reducing too.
You could tell towards the end that everyone was getting a bit over it – myself very much included. I remember them talking to me beforehand and mentioning how I’d fatigue as the treatment went on and I recalled thinking to myself “why on earth will I fatigue, all I’m doing is laying on my back” and boy was I wrong: your body does fatigue, hard. The tension in your body feels like you’ve run a marathon. I was exhausted for days following the Thermage treatment. And I felt so hot and sweaty throughout the treatment, like I’d run a marathon.
I believe my pain tolerance affected my treatment and results
Now I’m only one week post-treatment so I can’t say for sure, but that last third of my belly was done at a much lower intensity than the other two-thirds, with the first third having the highest strength. The intensity was so low that I couldn’t even feel it in some areas, but everyone was just interested in completing the treatment (which felt like the right call at the time, but not retrospectively), so that’s what we did. But when you pay that much money for a treatment, I really should have hardened up and put up with the pain. Or taken strong pain relief beforehand – that’s actually what I’d highly recommend doing if I were to do it again.
I’m saying all this because despite the results taking 3-6 months to really show, I truly believe I could notice a significant difference in my lower belly where the first third was completed, and much less so in the last third where a lower setting and intensity level was used on the Thermage device. I’ll take some after photos shortly, but this is essentially everything I wish that someone would have told me before I had it done so I could maximise my results, given the cost of the treatment.
Aftercare After Thermage FLX
My aftercare instructions were super simple: don’t shower for four hours, don’t exercise for four hours. And that’s it! I was otherwise free to go about my normal day looking after my kids, cooking dinner and sending voice messages to my twin mom friends. My belly skin did feel a bit sensitive for the rest of the day, but that was pretty minor. I still performed my go-to 10-minute postpartum ab strengthening workout for diastasis repair that I’ve been doing daily since 8 weeks postpartum, and went to bed that night feeling exhausted, but content.
Was the treatment worth it? It’s very early days, and I’ll let you know in 3-6 months when my “full” results are out, but honestly so far, yes. I can honestly say that I do see a change, despite still having tummy wrinkles. They do seem to have reduced somewhat, particularly in that lower third of my tummy, from the level of my belly button down.
Any questions about my Thermage experience? Let me know – email me at [email protected]
