If you'd like to tighten your skin, but the laxity isn't severe enough for skin tightening surgery, look into a non-surgical skin tightening procedure. Skin can be tightened using different treatments in a med spa. They work in similar ways, but they have different brand names and use different types of energy. Here's a look at how a non-surgical skin tightening procedure works and some options to consider.

How Non-Surgical Skin Tightening Helps

Surgical skin tightening works by making an incision, pulling your skin tight, removing excess skin, and then stitching up the incision. Non-surgical methods work in an entirely different way. They use techniques that cause your body to make elastin and collagen.

Your body reduces the amount of elastin and collagen it makes as you age. That's what causes your skin to get loose as you get older. By causing your body to ramp up production of elastin and collagen, your skin can gradually tighten over the weeks and months following your series of treatments.

The drawback to non-surgical tightening is that the results aren't as quick as they are with surgical tightening. However, the plus side is you won't have to undergo surgery or a long recovery period. Non-surgical tightening is easy to undergo.

How Non-Surgical Tightening Is Done

Collagen and elastin are stimulated when your skin is injured in some way. As your body works on healing the injury, it produces more collagen, and the side effect is tighter skin. Microneedling treatments can tighten skin. This treatment involves sticking needles in your skin to cause controlled injuries to the deeper layers of skin. As the skin heals, it tightens. Microneedling is often done to small areas such as your face and neck.

Heat is another way to stimulate collagen through damage. Heat can be applied with ultrasound and radiofrequency treatments. Radiofrequency treatments can even be combined with microneedling for an enhanced effect. The heat from these energy treatments penetrates the outer layer of skin and targets the deeper area. This could cause contraction of the fibers in your deep skin to cause some immediate tightening. However, most of the change takes place slowly over time.

A nice benefit of non-surgical tightening is you can have the treatment done and not need to go home for a recovery period. With microneedling, your face may be red and a little sore like you have a sunburn, but you don't need any downtime. You may need to hold off on exercising and getting sun exposure, but you might be able to go back to work the same day.

Non-surgical skin tightening can also be done in combination with other treatments. When combined, you might have fat removed along with skin tightening or have additional treatments that help your skin look better. A cosmetic doctor will evaluate your skin and determine the right type of standalone or combined non-surgical skin tightening treatment that has the best chance of giving you the results you want.