Thermage aftercare instructions template

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Key takeaways

The downloadable handout is one page: a flat list of aftercare instructions plus a patient confirmation line to sign.

Its core limits are 48 hours without heat or strenuous exercise, seven days without skin actives, and two weeks of sun care.

Makeup is safe straight after treatment, so an in-house sheet that bans it for 24 hours contradicts the handout.

The page carries no device-specific notes, so record the tip, mode and settings in the session note instead.

The US clearance covers wrinkles and rhytids, not skin tightening or fat reduction, so keep your consent wording in line.

Thermage aftercare is the short list of limits a patient follows after a radiofrequency session. The handout on this page is the printable one-page version. Its limits are 48 hours off heat and hard exercise, seven days off skin actives, and two weeks of sun care. Makeup needs no wait at all.

Solta Medical, the company behind Thermage, promises little to no downtime. Patients hear that and still call when swelling lingers into day three.

The rest of this page covers the US clearance, the handout’s own wording, and the advice worth saying out loud.

Why Thermage aftercare is so short

Thermage aftercare is a set of temporary limits, not a wound-care routine. The device heats the deeper layers of skin while cryogen cools the surface, so the epidermis stays intact.

That single fact explains every instruction on the handout. Heat and hard exercise wait 48 hours, because both push blood flow into tissue that is already warm and slightly swollen. Skin actives wait a week, since freshly treated skin reacts to them more sharply than usual.

The chart below sets each limit against the calendar.

The same logic explains the makeup rule, which trips up plenty of in-house sheets. Makeup is safe the same day, because there is no break in the skin for it to sit in. A 24 to 72 hour makeup ban belongs to a needling or laser protocol, not to this one.

Your marketing has to follow the same logic, and that starts with what the clearance lets you claim.

The FDA clearance covers wrinkles, not tightening

The clearance covers wrinkles and rhytids, not skin tightening, and never fat reduction. Solta Medical cleared the Thermage FLX System under 510(k) K170758 on September 22, 2017. Its predicate was the earlier Thermage ThermaCool CPT.

The wording splits by mode. Radiofrequency energy on its own is indicated for three things:

• Dermatologic and general surgical procedures for electrocoagulation and hemostasis
• Non-invasive treatment of periorbital wrinkles and rhytids, including the upper and lower eyelids
• Non-invasive treatment of wrinkles and rhytids

Radiofrequency energy applied together with skin vibration carries four more indications. Two of them are temporary improvement in the appearance of cellulite and relief of minor muscle aches and pains. The others are relief of muscle spasms and temporary improvement of local circulation.

Two practical lessons follow. First, the cellulite claim belongs only to the vibration mode, so name the mode you used on the consent form and in the session note. Second, “melts fat” has no place in your marketing, because no Thermage clearance mentions fat at all.

The three parts that deliver each pulse

The system has three parts: a console, a handpiece and a disposable treatment tip. The tip delivers radiofrequency energy for selective coagulation of tissue while cryogen cools the epidermis. The handpiece monitors skin contact throughout the pass.

You work in stamping passes across a marked grid, single or multiple. The system tunes its output across a range of tissue impedances. A return pad, grid paper and coupling media go on the accessory list for every session.

Thermage FLX added two comfort features over the older CPT platform. AccuREP technology sets the energy for each pulse, and the handpiece vibrates as it fires. Most sessions run 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the area treated.

Treatment areas, and the five fields your note needs

The tip you fit decides the area, so your note should name the tip first. Solta lists four: an Eye Tip at 0.25 cm², Total Tips at 3.0 cm² and 4.0 cm², and a Body Tip at 16.0 cm². The larger facial tip is the one that shortened session times.

Between them they cover the periorbital region including both eyelids, plus the forehead, mouth, jawline and chin. The Body Tip covers areas such as the abdomen, arms, thighs and buttocks. Give every session note the same five fields:

• Tip and lot number, since the tip is a single-use consumable tied to that patient
• Mode, meaning radiofrequency alone or radiofrequency with skin vibration
• Treatment area and pass count, mapped to the grid you drew
• Energy level and total pulses, as the console reports them
• Which cleared indication you treated, plus a note if you treated outside that list

Those five fields matter more than they look. A patient calls about swelling on day four. Answering that call is quick when the tip, the mode and the pass count sit on screen in front of you.

Who makes a good candidate, and who to screen out

The best candidate has mild to moderate wrinkling, intact skin over the treatment area, and realistic expectations about a gradual result. Screening is short, but one question on it is absolute.

Absolute contraindications: Implanted electrical devices

Solta contraindicates treatment in patients with an implantable pacemaker, an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or any other implantable electrical device.

Put that question on your intake form as a required field rather than a conversation you might forget to have. A broader med spa consultation form can carry it alongside the rest of the pre-treatment history.

Risk factors that need a longer conversation

Solta lists the possible adverse reactions as edema, erythema, bruising, blisters, burns, scarring, pigment changes, and rare reactivation of herpes simplex. Three patient histories deserve a longer conversation before you book:

• A history of cold sores where you plan to treat, given the reactivation risk
• A tendency to post-inflammatory pigment change, which the handout says can take up to six months to settle
• Active infection, broken skin or inflamed skin anywhere in the treatment area

Your own device labeling is the authority here, so read the contraindications section of the user manual that shipped with your console. Record the screening answers against the patient, not on a loose sheet at reception. With screening settled, the page you hand over is what matters next.

Inside the handout: One list and a signature line

The handout is one page: a single unbroken list headed “Aftercare Instructions”, then a patient confirmation line. There are no chapters or sections to navigate, which is the point. A patient reads it once in the car park and takes all of it in.

The instructions on that list group into six themes:

• What is normal: redness and swelling that usually settle within hours, though they can last up to five days. Tenderness, numbness or tingling should clear within seven days
• What is less common: bruising for one to two weeks, and lumps or nodules that resolve within two weeks. Pigment changes are rarer still, and usually resolve within six months
• Comfort measures: a cold compress, three pillows at night, arnica cream for bruising, an over-the-counter pain reliever, water, and a regular moisturizer
• 48-hour limits: no extremes of hot or cold, including hot baths, saunas and steam rooms. No strenuous exercise, and no excess caffeine or alcohol
• Longer limits: no skin retinols, AHAs, glycolic or salicylic acid for seven days. No excess sun or sunbeds for two weeks, with SPF 30 or higher in that window. No Botox, filler or hair removal until you confirm it is safe, usually after one to two weeks
• What is allowed, and what to do next: normal daily activity and makeup straight away. One line asks patients to contact you about any unwanted side effect, and another asks them to attend the follow-up

The confirmation line at the foot is a signed declaration. The patient confirms that they have read and understood the sheet, and that they had the chance to ask questions. That is the part an inspector looks for.

Four details the page leaves out

Four absences are worth knowing about before you hand the sheet over:

• No device-specific notes. The instructions read the same whether you treated with Thermage FLX or the older CPT platform
• No breakdown by treatment area. Face, eyelid and body patients all get the identical page
• No results timeline. No line on the sheet tells a patient when to expect a visible change
• No practice details. Add your logo, phone number and out-of-hours route before you issue it

None of those absences is a flaw. A one-page sheet gets read, and a five-page one gets folded into a bag. The next two sections cover what to say out loud instead.

Same timings everywhere, different advice by area

The timings never change by area, only the friction and pressure advice does. Every patient gets the same 48-hour, seven-day and two-week limits. What follows is the extra sentence to say at the door, and a good candidate for a practice-added line on your branded version.

Face and jawline: Makeup is fine the same day

Redness on the face usually settles within about a day, and any swelling by day five. Because makeup goes back on immediately, the useful advice here is practical rather than restrictive. Suggest a gentle cleanser and a regular moisturizer, then make the two-week sun rule concrete by naming a daily SPF they already own.

Eyes and eyelids: Warmth feels sharper here

The Eye Tip is the smallest at 0.25 cm², and periorbital skin is thin, so warmth and tingling feel more pronounced. Tell patients not to rub the area, and to leave contact lenses out for the rest of the day. The cold compress and the three-pillow tip earn their place most in this group.

Neck and decolletage: Friction is the daily problem

Neck skin is thinner and more reactive than facial skin, and it takes friction all day. Ask patients to skip tight collars, scarves and necklaces for the first 48 hours. Name the neck explicitly when you cover sunscreen, because it is the area patients forget.

Body areas: Pressure matters more than redness

Body skin is thicker, so redness and swelling are usually milder. Pressure is what to warn about instead. Loose clothing for 48 hours suits abdomen, arm, thigh and buttock patients, and anyone who trains daily needs to hear the exercise limit twice.

Results build over two to six months

Thermage results build over two to six months after a single session, and Solta says they hold for one to two years. The handout does not carry that timeline, so it has to come from you.

Use the table below at handover and again at the follow-up.

The side-effect windows in the first four rows come from the handout itself. The result and duration figures come from Solta’s published patient information for Thermage FLX. Quote both, and avoid the word “lifting”, which the clearance does not support.

Normal effects, and when a patient should call

The handout tells patients to call about any unwanted side effect, which is broad by design. Your team needs a sharper list than that, so the phone gets answered consistently.

These are the signs that warrant a call back in:

• Redness or swelling still worsening, or no better by day five
• Tenderness, numbness or tingling past seven days, which is the outer edge of the normal window
• Blistering, crusting or a burn, all of which Solta lists as possible adverse reactions
• A lump or nodule still firm after two weeks, past the window the handout gives
• Any scarring, dent or contour change in the treated area
• Signs of infection, such as fever, spreading redness, heat or discharge
• A cold-sore outbreak where you treated, given the reactivation risk
• Pigment change that is darkening rather than fading over the six-month window

Ask patients to email a photo when they call, and log both against the record. The handout also asks them to attend the follow-up even when recovery looks uneventful, so reinforce that at the door.

Issue the handout three times, not once

One handover is never enough. Patients retain very little of what they hear at the end of an appointment, so aftercare works best spoken, printed and then sent again.

Three touchpoints cover it;

1. At consultation. Walk through the 48-hour, seven-day and two-week limits before the patient commits, so a holiday or a race does not collide with the booking
2. On treatment day. Hand over the printed page and get the confirmation line signed. Then recap three points out loud: 48 hours off heat and hard exercise, a week off actives, two weeks of sun care
3. At 48 hours. Send the sheet again by email or SMS, timed for the moment the heat and exercise limits lift. Ask one question about how the area feels

The 48-hour message does double duty. It reminds patients what is still restricted. It also surfaces a slow-settling reaction while you still have time to see the patient.

Who the handout is for, and what it saves

Any practice running Thermage FLX or an older CPT platform can use it unchanged. That covers aesthetic practices, dermatology practices, med spas and laser practices. Two situations get the most out of it.

Multi-site groups gain the most, because one sheet ends the drift between locations. When each site writes its own aftercare, timings diverge, and a patient who moves between them gets contradictory advice. New staff benefit almost as much, since a fixed page is faster to learn than a senior practitioner’s habits.

What it saves is mostly phone time. Redness, swelling and tingling generate the bulk of post-treatment calls, and all three are answered on the page. The signed confirmation line then gives you documented patient education, which is what an inspector or an insurer asks to see.

There is a clinical return too. Patients who keep sunscreen on for two weeks and leave retinols alone for seven days give their skin a quiet fortnight. The result builds during exactly that window.

How Pabau sends Thermage aftercare and proves it went out

In most practices this job lives in three places. The screening answers sit in a paper folder. The tip and settings live in a handwritten note, and the aftercare sheet gets printed when someone remembers. Six months later, nobody can prove what the patient was told.

Practice management software like Pabau keeps all three on one client record. The intake form goes out before the appointment and comes back with the implanted-device question answered and timestamped. It stays attached to the patient rather than a filing cabinet.

Your session note then uses your own template, so tip, mode, pass count and energy level each get a field. Pabau Scribe, our AI scribe, can draft that note from your dictation and leave you to check it before it saves.

Mark the session complete and the aftercare sheet sends itself. Pre- and aftercare tools handle the same-day copy and the 48-hour follow-up, with every send logged against the record. Patients can open the sheet again from the patient portal whenever they lose the paper one.

Send Thermage aftercare without anyone remembering to

Pabau issues the aftercare sheet when you mark the session complete, then sends it again at 48 hours. Every send is logged against the client record alongside the screening answers and the session settings.

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Conclusion

Thermage aftercare is short because the treatment leaves the skin surface intact. One page carries all of it. Complaints usually trace back to an in-house sheet that borrowed its timings from a needling protocol.

So pick one set of numbers and use them everywhere. Heat and hard exercise wait 48 hours, skin actives wait seven days, and sun care runs two weeks with SPF 30 or higher. Makeup needs no wait at all. Then keep “tightening” and “fat” out of your consent form, because the clearance covers wrinkles and rhytids.

Do three things this week. Download the sheet, add your logo and out-of-hours number, then set the 48-hour follow-up to send itself. Book a demo to see how Pabau issues Thermage aftercare and logs that every patient received it.

Continue your research

Running another energy-based tightening device? NuEra Tight aftercare instructions template shows how the wording shifts when the cleared indications are narrower than the marketing.

Offering ultrasound tightening alongside radiofrequency? HIFU aftercare guide sets out the post-treatment wording for a course of sessions rather than a single visit.

Writing aftercare for a treatment that breaks the skin? Morpheus8 aftercare instructions covers the wound-care steps Thermage patients do not need.

Scheduling hair removal around a Thermage course? Laser hair removal aftercare instructions covers the sheet for the one treatment this handout puts on hold.

Checking your wider compliance position? Medical spa compliance checklist walks through the policies and records an inspector asks to see.

Frequently asked questions