Yes and no, and the split is simple. The fat cells a session breaks down are gone for good. The fat cells left in that area can grow if your weight goes up, and that can hide the result.
So the treated cells are permanent. The shape lasts for as long as your weight is about where it was when we treated you.
What happens to the treated fat cells?
The cold breaks them down, and your body clears them out over the following weeks. Once they are gone, they are gone. Cleveland Clinic’s patient page on fat freezing says the same thing: cells that the cold destroys are permanently removed from the body.
You do not see this on the day. The clearing takes weeks, which is why the change turns up in your clothes before it turns up in the mirror.
What happens to the fat cells that are left?
Not every cell in an area goes. The ones left behind behave like fat cells anywhere else on you. Gain weight and they get bigger, lose it and they get smaller.
Your body has a set number of fat cells, fixed during childhood and your teens. A 2008 study from the Karolinska Institute, published in Nature, found that the count does not change in adulthood, even after a large weight loss. Weight changes the size of your fat cells, never the count.
That is why a treated area can look fuller again after a big gain, even though the treated cells never came back.
Will the fat come back somewhere else?
Not because of the treatment. If your weight goes up, the extra goes where your body puts it, and for most people that is the same places it always did. Cleveland Clinic makes the same point: weight gain is possible afterwards, and fat may be deposited in other areas of the body.
A treated area has fewer cells to fill. So it often shows less of a gain than the areas around it.
What will your results look like a year from now?
If your weight is about where it was, the area looks the way it did at the end of your course. Nothing in your body works against the result. The change is in the number of cells, and that number does not drift back on its own.
A few people come back later for a top up session, or to start on a new area. It is not needed for everyone, and we will tell you either way at the end of your course.
How to protect the result
- Aim to weigh about what you did when the course ended.
- Finish the course. Stopping at session two of six leaves more cells in the area for a later gain to fill.
- Save the last photo beside the first one. It is the most useful record you will have if you ever wonder whether the area has changed.
What this looks like in Creve Coeur
The progress photos from your course are filed with your plan at our studio on Old Olive Street Road. A year later you can put the first frame next to the last one and see for yourself.
Most of our clients come from Creve Coeur, Chesterfield, Ladue, Clayton and the rest of west county. The drive is short enough that a top up session, if you ever want one, is a lunch hour.
What to do next
If you have a spot that has not changed in years, CryoSculpting is how we freeze off stubborn fat in one area at a time. The page lists the areas we treat and answers the questions people ask first.
For the step by step, from the intro visit to the progress photos, read how it works.
Call (314) 301-9012 or book an intro visit. Half an hour, and you leave with a plan of your own.