The Interview
By Karina Kavanagh
By Karina Kavanagh
What options does the Whole Beauty Institute offer for facial rejuvenation? If you are serious about providing optimum facial rejuvenation for a patient you need to look at four things: tone, volume, expression, and surface. Mistakes happen when you try to use just one of these options to correct the aging face. For example, if you blow up a face with too much filler when the real problem is a loss of tone, you will create a very unnatural appearance. Our office does a detailed analysis of each patient’s face in each of these four areas so that we protect the patient’s natural facial identity.
There is a different answer for every patient. For a person in their late 30’s or early 40’s who is just beginning to notice a loss of tone, we can solve the problem in a few office sessions without surgery. Our team can gently heat the tissue until it tightens using a series of radiofrequency treatments. A person in their late 40’s or early 50’s has more loss of tone but is not yet ready for a face lift. Here we can do a simple no-incision lift with a device known as Face Tite. Through tiny openings I introduce a pair of probes—one sits on top of the skin and the other sits underneath. Energy flows between the tips of the probes and tightens the skin as I glide them back and forth. We were the first practice in this part of the country to work with this technology.
Only a person who has lost significant tone at all levels of the skin needs to consider a face lift, but it has become far simpler since we have developed techniques that allow patients to have a full facelift under local anesthesia.
Tell us more about the local anesthesia face lift.
From the patient’s perspective, it removes much of what was frightening about lifting. The patient can eat breakfast before the surgery, there is no IV, and there is no anesthesia hangover. The level of safety is unmatched since you avoid the risks associated with deeper levels of anesthesia.
How did you become interested in face lift surgery?
I have always been fascinated by the face because it conveys our inner sense of being to the world. Early on I realized that facial rejuvenation wasn’t just a matter of tugging on skin, but rather a restoration of facial structures to their natural position. I could also see that volume was often as important as tone, so I became deeply interested in using a patient’s natural fat to restore a pleasing natural fullness. I have done several thousand facial fat transfers in the course of my practice. The next frontier is improving the surface at the time of lifting, so we have advanced techniques to do this as well.
You have said that the face lift operation is making a triumphant return. Why is this?
There is simply no better way to bring the facial structures back to their natural position than a face lift. Fillers or other devices are just not as effective and long-lasting. Patients are catching on to this and returning to the face lift. This was proven by the latest statistics from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, which showed a significant increase in face lift procedure in 2017—far greater than the increase in fillers.
This is not to say that fillers have no place in facial rejuvenation. We have a great team of clinicians at the Whole Beauty Institute who use fillers with artistic discretion every day. They just have to be used intelligently and with great skill.
What makes your work stand apart?
Careful study of each face, a passionate commitment to preserving a person’s natural structure, and attention to detail. Plus, we have a great team at the Whole Beauty Institute and they are there for the patient every step of the way.
For more information, visit johnqcookmd.com. Dr. Cook’s Winnetka office is located at 118 Green Bay Road and his Chicago office is located at 737 N. Michigan Avenue #760. The office phone number is 312-751-2112.
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