Dermal or Facial Fillers Treatment
What conditions can be treated with Dermal or Facial Fillers?
In the face, subcutaneous fat and tissue is lost from the outer part of the face, allowing the skin to wrinkle and move with gravity. This means that the cheeks move downwards giving ‘jowls’ and lines appear, particularly between the nose and corners of the mouth.
The lips themselves lose volume and get thinner.
In the hands, loss of subcutaneous tissue and dehydration mean that the back of the hands show more veins and tendons – giving a ‘boney’ look which is associated with age.
The other areas that are affected, but less noticeable, are the neck and the décolletage (or cleavage area).
About Dermal or Facial Fillers
One of the major advances in medical aesthetics over the last decade has been the understanding of the effects of the ageing process of the face and skin. It has been shown to be largely down to dehydration and volume loss.
Although creams and ‘moisturisers’ claim to rehydrate the skin, unfortunately they do not do so directly. The skin is impervious to water going in, otherwise when we had a bath, shower or went swimming we would swell up with water going into our tissues!
What these creams and moisturisers actually do is to put an oily layer over the top of the skin, trying to reduce the amount of water lost by sweat and evaporation.
If we want to add volume back under the skin to return to a more youthful look, the only way to achieve this is to physically put something into the areas that need volume and hydration – a process of ‘filling’ the volume loss.
The commonest and easiest way to do this is by using dermal fillers.
Dermal fillers
There is a very large variety of dermal fillers available in the world. However, in modern UK medical aesthetics practices, there are really only two sorts that are used. The first is hyaluronic acid injections (ie. Restaylane® Laresse® etc) and the second is Poly L Lactic Acid injections (Sculptra™). Both of these work in completely different ways and are used in different situations so we will discuss them separately.
Hyaluronic acid fillers
Hyaluronic acid is a naturally occurring substance in human tissue. It attracts and holds water and so, the more hyaluronic acid that is in a tissue, the more ‘plumped up’ and younger it looks. There have been studies that show that baby’s skin has 60% hyaluronic acid and this decreases throughout life – with smokers and sun-worshippers decreasing at a faster rate. In addition, studies have shown that the more hyaluronic acid a person has, the younger and more attractive they appear.
At the present time, there is no way that we can make the body produce more hyaluronic acid. Therefore, the only way to get more hyaluronic acid into the areas where needed, is to inject it.
Companies such as Q-Med have spent years perfecting hyaluronic acid that can be injected into or under the skin of the face, lips, back of hands, neck or décolletage. There are different forms of the hyaluronic acid depending on what areas need treatment and what effect is required.
Hyaluronic acid fillers are particularly useful to treat the nasolabial folds (the lines from the nose to corners of the mouth), the lips and a special form called Vital for the backs of the hands and neck.
As hyaluronic acid is a natural substance, it slowly gets absorbed by the body meaning that its effects tend to last between 9 and 18 months. One of the other advantages of hyaluronic acid is that if a patient does not like the effect, they can be removed by a simple injection of an antidote. Therefore a permanent ‘trout pout’ cannot be caused by using these substances.
Sculptra™ - Poly Lactic acid
Sculptra™ is a completely different sort of filler. Rather than attracting water, like hyaluronic acid, Sculptra™ causes an irritation under the skin that makes the body produce more collagen.
In contrast to the hyaluronic acid fillers, Sculptra™ not only gives a filling effect, but due to the collagen production, also causes a tightening and a lifting.
Therefore Sculptra™ is not injected under the wrinkles and folds, but is injected on the outside of the face around the temples, cheekbones and then cheeks, not only replacing volume that has been lost due to age but also providing a lift – effectively being a ‘non-surgical facelift’.
As Sculptra™ relies on collagen production, its effects are only seen slowly. Generally, clients need three sessions on average, each one being four to six weeks apart. The full effects are then only seen some three to six months after the last injection.
Although the effects only appear gradually, recent studies have shown that they last at least four to five years following treatment.
If you would like to know more about LipoSonix at Absolute Aesthetics, contact us on info@absoluteaesthetics.co.uk or Tel: 01483 477 189.
