My time receiving the Cool Renewal treatment was fine and the people that performed the treatment were very kind and friendly.
Unfortunately it was the aftermath that was terrible. I was in a LOT of nerve pain after about 1 day or so. After trying to tough it out for a day or 2 I called them (they didn't call me to follow up after the procedure) to see what else I could do to resolve the excruciating pain. The woman I spoke to advised me to use Lidocaine ointment, Ibuprofen and ice. I had been using ice and while the ice made it tolerable while it was on my stomach, as soon as I'd take the ice off it was back again. After 2 days of the Lidocaine ointment, taking 800 mg of ibuprofen every 6 hours and alternating Tylenol, I called back (once again, no one called to check on me after calling and telling them about the pain I was in). I had to be transferred to the Cosmetic Surgery office to speak with a nurse, who spoke with Dr. Ferrari who prescribed some Neurontin for the pain. The Neurontin they had prescribed didn't work and I took to living with an ice pack on my abdomen 24x7. The pain was constant and exponentially increased if even a shirt, bed sheet, touched my stomach and the saddest, my children hugging me put me in enormous pain. The ice would hurt when I first put it on, but the numbness from the cold would help. If I kept it numb all the time I was tolerable. It'd wake me while I slept; I had to travel with an ice pack strapped to my stomach.
I called them back after I was out of the Neurontin and told them it still wasn't working (unfortunately, no one STILL called to see how I was doing despite my numerous calls into them to see what they could do to help alleviate this pain from this procedure that was "no downtime"). I also, by now, had Googled my symptoms and low and behold, there were MANY people with the exact same symptoms that I had as a result of Cool Sculpting, however going into the procedure these symptoms were never mentioned. "You won't have to take any time off of work" was the only thing discussed, in the literature it mentioned there might be discomfort that is easily handled by some ice and ibuprofen, but never were expectations set that in some circumstances, severe nerve pain, lasting months could occur. I eventually had a phone call with Dr. Ferrari himself who said that he would prescribe another prescription of Neurontin, but, if after that the pain didn't go away, there's nothing else he could help me with. He said I'd have to see my GP because there was "something else unrelated going on". This was the straw that broke the camel's back as I had NO issues remotely like this prior to the treatment.
NO expectations were set for potential severe pain (even though there is PLENTY of documentation on this), NO follow up was made to see how I was doing and then to tell me this was MY issue and not related to the treatment was insane. I will say that I did see some results from the procedure so that was okay. The pain eventually subsided after 7 weeks. Unfortunately it was outweighed by the lack of setting appropriate expectations, lack of follow up and terrible patient care after the fact.
During my follow up for pictures, and when they asked if I was ready to set up my next treatment and I explained to them my disappointment they didn't really have much to say besides "sorry to hear that". I asked them if I could get copies of the before and after pictures and they said yes, but I still have not received them.
To be clear, my issue with Cool Renewal Spa is not that I ended up with such insane pain from the treatment, the poor rating is due to the lack of setting appropriate expectations, lack of acknowledgement of the issue and terrible patient care after the fact by Dr. Ferrari. read more