Yes, this procedure can remove annoying love handles — but sometimes problems can occur

Q. I want to do cool sculpting because I heard it’s a great way to get rid of fat. One of my friends had this done and told me that it actually made her area look worse. Is this possible?

A. Cool sculpting is a great procedure that does improve fat around different areas of the body. This is not like having liposuction, where you need a significant amount of downtime and many liters of removal.

Essentially, your fat area is cooled, causing lipolysis. Over a period of several months, the fat dissolves and disappears. With the new equipment, there have been few cases of what you are worried about.

The concern you have is a problem called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH). This is a situation where instead of having the fat being dissolved, it gets hard and appears to be bigger than before your cool sculpting was undertaken.

Fortunately, this problem is rare and may be corrected with traditional liposuction. While this is not ideal, as the patient will have to undergo the recovery and the treatment of a surgical procedure, the company will pay for repairing the problem.

It is important that when anyone undergoes any procedure, he or she should ask about the risks and the possibilities of complications.

As a former patient, I did this at least seven to 10 years ago when it first came out, and it was a procedure with minimal downtime and great results.

Dr. Carlos Wolf is a partner in Miami Plastic Surgery and is board certified. Email questions to him at Cwolf@miamiplasticsurgery.com.