Gotham Magazine Features Dr. Jacono’s J Spa Medical Spa

Information about J Spa Medical Spa in Great Neck, NY

What Is a Medical Spa?

Everyone loves a good day spa. These facilities are geared toward excellent personal care, allowing visitors to relax, enjoy, and above all, destress. Day spas are best known for their anti-anxiety offerings: massages, aromatherapy, acupuncture, and even reflexology.

Day spas also offer beauty treatments that focus on rejuvenating the body. Facials are an excellent example of this. Practitioners cleanse and exfoliate the skin with an array of products. They also get rid of blemishes like blackheads and whiteheads. Another great treatment is a mud mask. It exfoliates the face, cleanses the pores, and hydrates the skin, leaving you with a silky complexion.

Put simply, day spas are a wonderful option for those looking to kick back after a long day, week, or even month. However, people should be aware of a more promising, beauty-focused option: medical spas.

For the uninitiated, a medical spa is a combination of an aesthetic medical center and an ordinary day spa. It offers the best of both worlds: relaxing treatments and nonsurgical medical services that enhance and rejuvenate beauty. In recent years, medical spas have become extremely popular, and have in certain cases replaced day spas altogether.

The biggest differences between traditional day spas and medical spas are the treatments they offer. Medical procedures that can’t be performed at a day spa can be completed at a medical spa. At the same time, medical spas offer any and all treatments that a day spa typically does.

Unlike day spas, medical spas must be affiliated with or run by a medical doctor. However, this does not mean that every treatment is done by a doctor. Usually, they are performed under the supervision of a dermatologist or plastic surgeon. 

“In short, a medical spa is just like a day spa, but more involved,” says Dr. Jacono. “It offers more run-of-the-mill treatments, like facials, masks, and body scrubs and wraps, but also offers more complex procedures. These include chemical peels, laser resurfacing treatments, and even Botox and fillers. You really get the bang for your buck!”

What Are Typical Medical Spa Treatments?

Although medical spas offer everything that day spas do, they allow patients to choose from a much larger array of non-invasive medical procedures that only doctors, and estheticians are licensed to perform. Procedures like these boast more dramatic, longer-lasting results.

One perfect example of a medical spa treatment is the chemical peel. This is a topically applied formula that triggers controlled skin shedding. Chemical peels stimulate the growth of new, stronger cells, which leads to healthier skin. There are many types of chemical peels, each using a different active ingredient. In addition to rejuvenating the face, they treat certain skin conditions.

Microdermabrasion is another wonderful medical spa treatment. It exfoliates the skin by removing the outermost layers, revealing glowing deeper tissue. This minimally invasive procedure can also reduce the appearance of wrinkles and treat mild to moderate sun damage.

Medical spas also offer micro-needling. This cosmetic procedure uses small, sterilized needles to prick the skin. The purpose of this is to stimulate the production of collagen, a compound that smooths and firms tissue. Microneedling is normally used on the face and can reduce acne, scars, dark spots, wrinkles, and even enlarged pores.

As effective as the aforementioned treatments are, the most popular tend to be injectables. The most common of these are Botox and hyaluronic acid fillers, both of which treat wrinkling and other unwanted signs of aging.

Botox is a chemical that, when injected, blocks chemical signals from certain nerves that cause facial muscle contraction. It is made from botulinum toxin, a neurotoxin that has been approved for safe cosmetic use. In small doses, it temporarily relaxes muscles that cause wrinkles, thereby smoothing the face. It lasts between 3 and 4 months, though in some cases, it may last up to 6 months.

Botox has been used for many years and has become one of the best-known aesthetic treatments on the market. The vast majority of medical spas use it as a tried-and-true treatment.

In the same vein as Botox are facial fillers, though their operating chemical is hyaluronic acid (HA). Hyaluronic acid is a naturally occurring compound in the body that acts as a joint lubricant. When injected, though, HA adds volume to areas of the face. It quite literally fills in wrinkles, lines, and troughs, shaving years off the appearance. It also lasts longer than Botox—between 9 and 12 months—and is therefore more cost-effective.

“I am proud to offer a variety of medical treatments at my practice,” says Dr. Jacono. “As the owner of J Spa Medical Spa, I have made it a goal of mine to promote safe, healthy consumption of treatments that have been proven to rejuvenate the face. It is exciting to offer my patients such great options.”

With so many wonderful choices at medical spas, why not try out one for yourself? Only good things can happen!