Fat transfer remains a valuable option for patients desiring a more natural improvement in facial contour and fullness.
Why?Â
Fat transfer uses your own tissue as a graft to improve facial volume and contour. Often patients are seeking facial and dermal fillers which provide temporary improvement at a significant cost with side effects such as delayed swelling or an unnatural look. Fat transfer is an alternative that reduces these complications (although it has it’s own risks ). Fat can be transferred into the cheeks, cheek bone area, temples, eyelids, lips and lower face (marionette lines).
How?
Fat is harvested from your abdomen or hips using local anesthetic It is then processed and transferred to small syringes which are used to inject the fat into the desired areas. The procedure can be done under local or general anesthesia depending on patient and surgeon preference.
Fat is transferred as a graft. This means it does not have its own blood supply, and the expectation is that it will develop its own blood supply in order to become permanent. Some of the fat will not survive. Typically patients can expect 40 – 50 percent of the fat to survive the transfer process. Once the fat has taken, the result is permanent. This is in contrast to most dermal fillers which are temporary. In general, fat that does not take simply disappears. Rarely, it can form lumps or calcifications.
Learn More.Â
Contact us today and schedule a consultation with Dr. Zeff to determine the best approach to provide natural correction to facial volume loss.
Lip lines are one of the more common complaints in our practice. Here’s our recommended treatment plan to best get rid of them.
Successful lip line treatment is multimodal. This means no single treatment will provide the correction desired but rather a series of treatments will be required to obtain the best result. Lip lines are best addressed with (1) Filler, (2) Botox® or Dysport® and (3) Resurfacing.
Wrinkle formation is a complex interaction of structural tissue support and muscle pull on the tissue. Filler addresses issues of structural support. New fillers such as Volbella® and Restylane refyne® are specifically designed to provide this support in areas with significant movement such as the mouth. Filler is placed directly in the lip lines and underneath them to return the support that was present in youth. In our practice we frequently use Volbella® in the aging lip. This product spreads uniformly with low risks of lumps and does not provide excessive volume to the lips. Additionally, the water attracting nature of Volbella® provides an almost internal lip gloss. Volbella® can last up to a year after injection. Patients who are interested filler to the lips should avoid any medication that can increase bleeding risk. Patients should also do this on a day when they do not have any special events planned – lip swelling can last for 48 hours.
Botox® or Dysport® block muscle movement around the mouth. Muscle contraction is the predominant reason for lip lines. Injection around the mouth is difficult and requires experience. Small amounts of neuromodulators are needed to have sufficient effect and reduction in wrinkle formation. Patients fall into two categories with respect to the treatment: love it or hate it. Some patients feel as though it affects the way they speak, making them self conscious. Typically, neuromodulators last approximately 2 to 3 months around the mouth.
Resurfacing removes the top layer of skin but more importantly stimulates collagen production in the dermis. This collagen production reduces wrinkles and provides structural support much like filler. Microneedling is the least aggressive while a phenol peel and fractional laser are the most aggressive. More aggressive treatments result in more impressive results but have longer downtime.
Ultimately, all three treatments, filler, neuromodulator and resurfacing should be used in combination to treat pesky lip lines. Schedule your consultation today to meet with our surgeon to discuss your treatment plan.
The procedure typically takes no longer than 10-15 minutes. Since the swelling and bruising is minimal, there is very little downtime following the treatment. The results of Volbella often last for up to 12 months. Call our office to schedule an appointment with one of our specialists.
