Dr Cat’s News Update April 2023

by redoy | Apr 4, 2023 | Dr Cat

It’s my first day in the magical city of Lisbon, my first time visiting Portugal, and I’m sitting on the veranda of the historic Torel Palace boutique hotel in a ray of sunshine looking out at this beautiful little city while catching up on my notes from AMWC Monaco, the biggest conference in our industry. After Portugal, I head to Brazil for a wedding and then have been invited back to Necker Island, which I’m seriously considering. I feel very blessed, I truly am living the dream 💗🙏😻

Monaco was a bit of a culture shock after being a beach hippie in Mexico for a month, and it also gave me a good slap in my energy levels, so I was in bed every night at 9.30 pm after a quiet dinner, rather than heading out socialising and networking until the early hours as I’ve done in the past! It was lovely to catch up with many dear friends who teach at the top levels of our industry and to discuss existing and upcoming treatments with them. This year while there was nothing truly groundbreaking (other than EmFace, which we already have!), there were lots of ‘tweaks’ that we can implement in clinic, including some new techniques using BotoxⓇ in the neck to provide a better definition of the jawline. Give us a month or two to play with the treatments and you’ll start to see some tweaks and changes.

A big change that you will start to notice in clinic is our transition to becoming paperless (finally!). When I started the clinic almost 22 years ago, I had the intention then of becoming paperless – it only took 22 years! 🤷‍♀️ After Easter you’ll start to see us using iPads again, this time with the ability to input your notes directly into the system. You will also be sent your forms electronically to complete before attending your appointment – if you can do this before your appointment it means we have more time to focus on you and your concerns. It has taken a lot of work to find and develop a system that is robust, confidential, and (relatively) easy to navigate and I am so proud of the work our team has put in to bring it to life! Please bear with us as we have the inevitable teething issues, but we are super excited to finally ‘go live’ after a lot of work and training behind the scenes. Please feel free to send us your ideas and feedback as we implement the system – with your help we can make it even better!

I had a lovely month in Mexico with my mum, and was joined by my friend Rani for the last two weeks, which livened things up a bit! I was looking after my health with sunrise meditations on the beach, and evening walks with my mum and stepdad David along the beach to watch the sunset. Rani and I were fortunate to go out whale watching on a boat and we saw eagle rays jumping out of the water, and went swimming with them! We had lots of fun adventures like snorkelling, ecstatic dancing, and featuring in a promotional video! If you want to see more of my adventures in Mexico, you can check out my ‘Mexico 2023’ highlights reel on my Instagram – @drcatstone. Rani was incredible at capturing our holiday with the most amazing videos and photos! I was quite tearful saying goodbye to my mum, but incredibly grateful for the sunshine, swimming in the waves each day, beautiful food, and great company. Mum and David are building a house there, so I know I’ll be returning again – they’ve even built a ‘Cat Suite’ for me to stay in when I visit!

I’m still super excited about EmFace, and can’t wait to get back for my next treatment, which will be in May when I return to NZ. EmFace even got a mention in the latest Fashion Quarterly magazine! We are currently treating a patient with Bell’s Palsy (paralysis of one side of the face due to damage of the facial nerve) to see if we can help improve the tone of the paralysed muscles, so I’m super excited to see the results from that! I’ve also had friends and patients who have had the treatment messaging me about the immediate results they are seeing and how excited they are about them! If you are curious about EmFace and interested in a consultation to see if it’s appropriate for you, please get in touch with our wonderful team. Our reception team can answer most of the common general questions, but if you are specifically interested in whether it’s appropriate for you, you’re best to make an appointment for a consultation.

I will be running a training session on treating Bell’s Palsy patients with injectables on 2 May for our team, and have decided to open it up to other injectors in the industry. If you’re interested or know someone who might be, please check our social media and training section of the website over the next few weeks to register!

We are delighted to welcome the lovely Mel to the Britomart team on reception. She will be taking over from Isaac and we wish Isaac all the very best in his future endeavors. Mel is warm and bubbly, and has recently moved from the Philippines with her husband and four-year-old son. She has an excellent background in customer service and we are sure she’ll be a fabulous addition to our amazing team!

We are also excited to be running a Pink Ribbon Event this year at our Takapuna clinic. We will be showcasing many of the treatments people are curious about if they haven’t had them, with live demos of EmFace, nutritional skin peels, and Vampire Facial Plus, and will have a touch-and-play station where you can play with the different types of fillers direct from the syringe, to see and feel how they are different. We will also show you the filler dissolving process with hyaluronidase, and how quickly it works on HA filler. You’ll have the opportunity to ask all your burning questions about these therapies or anything else in the clinic, and you’ll receive a TFP voucher equivalent to the price you pay for the ticket. All ticket sales from the event will go to the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ. Find out more and purchase your ticket for the event here.

Breast cancer has certainly been a bigger and longer journey for me than I originally anticipated. We know that 1 in 8 NZ women will experience breast cancer, so I feel so very fortunate that my journey has been one of survival – I’m very conscious there are many who don’t have that privilege. We have so many patients who have been affected by this disease, and I’m keen for us to provide support for Breast Cancer Foundation NZ and all the incredible work they do with education, screening, and lobbying for change.

Most of all I’m very grateful for our incredible team, who run the clinic so smoothly while I continue to focus on my recovery, and the support of our wonderful patients like you, who are the lifeblood of our business and the reason we are excited to get up in the morning and come to work.

Obrigada and tchau (thank you and bye) from Portugal.

Sending lots of love and hugs,

Dr Cat’s News Update March 2023

by redoy | Mar 1, 2023 | Dr Cat

I’ve just arrived in Mexico to visit my mum for a month, before heading off to AMWC Monaco – the biggest conference in our industry – and then a wedding in Brazil! Last year I rushed straight through to Zipolite where my mum was staying, mainly because I was in a pretty fragile state thanks to taking Tamoxifen. When I was on the plane to Mexico City last year, I started chatting with the man sitting next to me, and he suggested I spend at least a day in the city next time – so that’s what I’ve done this year!

To be honest, I got into the hotel at 2 am, thanks to a late flight and a looooong wait in customs, so I slept until about 10 am. I then spent about 4-5 hours walking around the National Museum of Anthropology, fascinated with the Aztecs (they called themselves Mexica) and Mesoamerican history and culture. The museum had so many interactive learning experiences, I highly recommend it to anyone who geeks out on history and humanity as I do! I was then grateful to catch up with some of the local Entrepreneurs Organisation members for dinner at a wonderful little cantina in Polanco.

It’s been a busy (and crazy) month, considering it’s the shortest month of the year! I’m so grateful that none of our team was severely impacted by the floods and the cyclone that hit Auckland and the upper North Island, and my heart goes to all the people who have lost homes, livelihoods or loved ones in the disasters. Thank you for your patience to everyone who we had to reschedule due to closing for the events – the safety of our team and patients comes first, and we were also without power for a couple of days at Takapuna. While they have been devastating events for so many people, there have been also so many heart-warming stories of courage, compassion and community. It gives me faith in humanity.

We are absolutely delighted to have the wonderful Camille back from maternity leave, and to see her gorgeous face in clinic. We’ve had a lot of training again this month, with our ever-popular Hyalase Workshop – teaching cosmedicine professionals about filler complications and how to manage them with filler dissolving injections; our quarterly team training day, where the team trialled a new filler which is currently huge in the UK, Europe, South Africa and South America (unfortunately it won’t be hitting our shores until about 2025 🤷‍♀️), and tweaked their techniques for Vampire Facelift, Vampire Facial Plus, jawline filler and microdermaplaning.

Probably a highlight for the whole team was Rita Yang’s talk on ‘Respectfully Consulting With The Gender Diverse Patient’. Her talk was converted to an online webinar thanks to Cyclone Gabriel, and it gave us some incredible insights into what happens in a journey of transition and the courage these individuals possess, as well as sparking ideas for the team on how we can be even more approachable for those who are non-binary or transitioning. My two biggest takeaways were to never assume, and to just ask – which is a fantastic approach when dealing with absolutely anybody! We are currently working on some of our forms to make them more inclusive, so you might see some minor tweaks in the next few months!

My personal biggest highlight of the month is being the first clinic in NZ to offer EmFace! Every doctor that I have spoken to overseas who has EmFace has described the technology as ‘revolutionary’. I had seen several doctors I highly respect – such as Steven Liew in Sydney and Sarah Boxley in Perth – post about introducing EmFace and how excited they have been about the results, so when I was given the opportunity for a private viewing a few weeks ago, I jumped at the chance!

EmFace is a non-invasive, painless treatment designed to improve the lifting of the face and softening of lines in the cheeks and forehead. It does this with High-Intensity Focused Electrical Stimulation (HIFES) of the lifting muscles of the face – the zygomaticus and risorius muscles for the smile, and the frontalis muscle for the forehead – at the same time as radiofrequency to heat the tissues and stimulate collagen and elastin. I have seen extremely impressive before and after photos from doctors overseas which show not only an improvement in the shape and contour of the cheeks, but also a much better definition of the jawline, improvement in early sagging of the jowls and brow, and significant softening of the forehead and cheeks lines. Younger patients see improved shape and contour of the cheeks and jawline, whereas older patients start to see an improvement in jowls, sagging and heavy brows. The nice thing is that it stimulates your own tissues, so gives very natural-looking results with no chance of overfilling (not that we would overfill you here anyway)!

EmFace is a great option for those who are nervous about or not ready for injectables, and it also works well alongside your usual injectable treatments. You will need to wait a week after BotoxⓇ or a month after fillers to have the treatments, but you can have your injectable treatments immediately after your last treatment. For example, I had Profhilo and my usual BotoxⓇ immediately after my last treatment before flying out. Expect to have a course of 4 treatments spaced a week apart, or sometimes 6 treatments if you want/need a more significant effect. Results often peak at about 3-6 months and can last up to a year.

I’ve been told that EmFace is also a wonderful ‘Cinderella treatment’ – after your initial course, you can pop in for a single treatment at any time if you want a perk up before an event. As there is no downtime you could even book up to a few hours before the event and then go straight to hair and makeup!

Before purchasing the machine, I flew to Sydney to trial EmFace’s nearest competition, Trilift. This machine also uses electrical stimulation and radiofrequency, and seems like a good machine. Where it is different is that it’s a lot more operator dependent, and they treat one side at a time. I had treatment before racing to hair and makeup for the EmFace Australia launch around the Sydney Harbour on the superyacht The Jackson. I liked the idea of being able to treat each side of the face differently, as we treat a lot of people with Bell’s Palsy, and I had these treatments in mind to help these patients regain some muscle tone and condition in the palsy side of the face. I caught up with Steven Liew and international lead investigator Brian Kinney (who I know through ThermiVa) and asked them about it and was delighted to find that Steven is already using EmFace for some patients with Bell’s Palsy.

I raced back from the EmFace launch in Sydney to catch the Ed Sheeran concert for my step-mum Heather’s birthday. Heather was such an incredible support for dad, and I stayed with her almost every time I went to Russell to visit dad, so it was important to me to be there and my way of saying ‘thank you’. We had great tickets down on the field, and Ed Sheeran was the ultimate performer, despite a few downpours and some pretty intense winds as the cyclone started gearing up! 😹 We escaped a little early to miss the rush and to have an early night so that Heather could drive home early in the morning to miss the worst of the cyclone. She got home with just 30 minutes to spare!

We got the EmFace last week at Takapuna, and had training for Tegan, Sheridan and Beck, along with some of our Takapuna admin team. Please be patient with us while we set everything up to start treating, it’s a simple and easy treatment, we are just making sure we have everything in place in the back end. We are hoping to have treatments available this week! There is no special prep required for your skin, so you can just come in for a consult and have your first treatment on the day if you choose to proceed. If you have any form of metal in your face, or significant scars on your cheek or forehead you might not be a suitable candidate, but reports are that it’s a great touch-up treatment for people with a previous facelift. As with most of our medical treatments, it’s not suitable when you are pregnant or breastfeeding.

Due to medical council rules, we are not able to show you photos from other clinicians, but you can check out the EmFace website for some of their before and after photos. We are hoping to have our own before and after photos from our first patients in 3 months’ time, so keep an eye out in June/July!

You might already know that Healite is one of my favourite treatments, so I’m excited that we are offering a special rate for a course of Healite treatments this month! The best way to get great results is to have an intensive course with a treatment every 2-3 days – and the neck and shoulder massage is a delightful bonus!

There is lots of news, and lots of exciting things on the horizon, so you might want to follow our Instagram or Facebook if you aren’t already! As always, we are so incredibly grateful for your support, and our team is looking forward to seeing you in clinic soon!

Muchas gracias y adios from Mexico,

Love and hugs,