Dr. Taub’s Letter, Winter 2014 Newsletter
Dear Patients, Colleagues and Friends,
This has been a jam-packed 3 months personally for me due to my 2 week-long trip to South Africa for the 3rd annual DASIL meeting (Dermatologic Aesthetic Surgery International League). I spent a few days in Capetown and Stellenbosch wine country before the meeting and stayed at a private game reserve afterwards. Although difficult to leave the office for so long, the combination of incredible sights, exchange of ideas with international colleagues and friendships I have developed with them is very rewarding. I have learned also that attending meetings is extremely important for developing new ideas, not just new devices or techniques, but improving on existing treatments in almost every way. Making a treatment more effective can often make it less expensive for you or provide better satisfaction with the outcome. Combination therapy is often a topic, as combining technologies often leads to the very best outcome. This is fortunate for us, because we have so much technology at Advanced Dermatology. If you know me at all, you know I am searching constantly for a way to make every treatment we offer better in any way we can.
I had never really had a safari on my “bucket list”, but many of my clients/patients who have traveled the world had told me it was close to the top of their list of favorite places and I can tell you why! It is outstandingly beautiful and calming to see wild animals in their own habitat. We saw giraffes within a few feet of us, eating leaves off of trees, lion cubs playing, lions mating, lions eating from a carcass of a wildebeest they had caught. Nine elephants came outside our compound to drink out of the pool and they were only 10-20 feet away. Most of all it makes me wish I could personally do more to save our environment. There is a delicate ecosystem there that could have its days numbered, not to mention the animals that are endangered by poaching. However, if you ever have the opportunity to go, take it!!! It was worth the 2 days to get there.
We have a new “device” that we didn’t even have time to get into a whole article about, but it is called the Z-wave. It uses “shock wave energy” which sounds painful but isn’t; it is a 5 minute treatment after CoolSculpting® or Vanquish™ that will improve and speed up the results as well as reducing potential discomfort. Studies are reporting anywhere from 10-30% improvement of each treatment with when this device is used post treatment.
In this newsletter we tell you how to deal with and prevent itchy dry skin and frostbite, as well as what treatments are best to accomplish in the winter. This is our time to take advantage of being homebound and lack of sun – a great time for healing the skin. There can often be a 3-6 month time frame to get ready for an important event like a wedding or a reunion, so remember to come in far in advance of your special event for planning purposes. Treating leg veins is no exception. This is the time to come in if you want to be ready for summer of 2015.
I want to thank you for the trust you place in us. Whenever you allow us to be the providers of your skin care, from giving you a facial to doing a high-powered laser treatment, skin cancer body check, injectable or surgery, we know that you do so because you trust us. All of us really do understand this is a great privilege, one which we have worked very hard to earn and one in which we continue to work hard to maintain.
By now we have probably hunkered down for winter (I am writing this in early November and it hasn’t started yet!) I keep hearing it is going to be a bad winter but we are Chicagoans and we will make it!!!
Amy Forman Taub, MD
And the Staff of Advanced Dermatology and skinfo® Specialty Skincare Boutique
