I try all procedures on myself first, if I can.
You need to make sure your patient knows that you know what you're doing, and you're 100% confident.
My name is Janette Phan and I'm getting acne filler done today.
My skin journey has been challenging.
It's been about acne.
It's been about scarring.
It's been about overcoming self-consciousness.
And it's been a troubled one.
My confidence with my skin is constantly changing.
I think that as I've gotten older, I've gotten better at being able to take myself out of a low place.
I think that it's always been harder when I was an adolescent,
not feeling like you're beautiful,
not feeling like you had the porcelain skin that everyone expects Asian women to have.
I think my ultimate goal, in terms of my journey with my skin, is to feel fearless.
My name is Dr. Anna Guanche.
I'm a board-certified dermatologist.
I take care of a lot of celebrities out in Calabasas, California.
Dermatology schooling is a long, long road.
You have to get into med school and do really well because dermatology is the most
competitive residency right now.
Acne scarring filler is very popular.
That's another procedure that increases confidence.
A lot of people have a lot of emotion tied to their acne scarring.
Filler is made out of hyaluronic acid.
So it's like a polysaccharide, like a protein sugar.
And it's the same stuff that is in between all your cells.
We call that interstitial fluid, and it's the same stuff that's in your eyeballs
and in your joint fluid.
Basically, you're injecting an inert substance that you will not react to because you already
have that in your body.
My fiancee and I are actually taking our engagement photos in a couple weeks.
And so I think I would love to have this extra boost of confidence to feel like I don't have
to worry about my face and my scars on them.
I am a nerd when it comes to information.
Whenever I get something done, I usually do a ton of research,
and I come in ready to talk medical terms.
So I would love, love, love if the doctor kind of gave me a mini consult and talked me through
what she saw, what her thoughts were, what she was thinking and what her strategy is.
I think that's where I really feel confident in who's doing the procedure and why we're doing it.
The easier ones to correct are these, you know, sort of shallow ones.
Those are pretty easy in general for me to correct.
The ice pick ones I see on the other cheek,
those are a little tougher to fill.
Often, they have a pore associated with them, and I try to put filler
and it just comes right out of there.
But we'll try.
I've been doing my own Botox for years and my own filler.
I know how to put the needle into where it hurts a little bit less, just because of that
experience of knowing what it feels like.
I am probably most anxious about the needles.
When I start injecting, I'm looking at the needle, I'm looking at the syringe to see
how much I'm injecting.
I'm looking at the skin to see how it's reacting.
And at the same time, I'm looking at their chest to see if it's rising and falling the
way it needs to.
And I'll be like, "Take a deep breath."
And they'd go, "How did you know I was holding my breath?"
I'm like, "I'm watching you."
I think that it's going to be kind of scary having this needle poke around your face
and not being able to see what's going on and not knowing exactly what's happening
or what it's going to look like.
I think that's kind of terrifying.
We do the numbing.
We do a topical anesthetic.
We compound one that's really strong, so it makes the injections tolerable.
I'm going to inject Janette with a hyaluronic acid filler using the tiniest diameter needle
that I can with filler, which is 30 gauge.
Each of her indented scars will be plumped up with the hyaluronic acid filler.
And then we hold pressure on the area to prevent bruising and to reduce any bleeding.
I will switch sides, so I'll inject one side and as we let it settle down
and my assistant holds pressure on that side, I move to the other side.
I keep switching sides until I'm happy.
I'm pretty picky, so I'm gonna be looking very carefully to make sure that we filled
as many of the scars as we possibly can.
It's going to look a little bumpy and welt-y, because we have to put the filler so superficial
right under the skin where the indented scar is, so they don't look more smooth right away.
You did great.
You've got a great pain tolerance, it's awesome.
Amazing.
And so you don't have to do anything special, you can ice again this evening if you want to.
The swelling, a lot of it goes down by this evening, but it's going to get even better
over the following few days.
Wow.
I mean, I see a lot of the scars that I've been noticing, more filled in.
The transformation that I saw was nearly immediate.
I definitely think that I had preconceived notions about injectables and
those kind of beauty regimens.
I think that I have more of an open mind now to them.
I think there's nothing wrong with
having a procedure done, if it makes you feel a bit better and makes you feel a bit more
confident, makes you feel powerful.
I was happy after I injected her.
I thought a lot of her most noticeable scars, which were on her cheeks, had plumped out.
And even though they were welted, I can see through welts
because I've done so many injection treatments.
I was trying to stay so still for her so she wouldn't make a mistake, and she actually ended
up talking to me saying, "Most of my clients move around, they talk when I'm doing this.
It's totally fine."
And I was just so petrified to move.
I was staying just so still and not saying anything to her, and she's like, "Okay!"
I honestly expected nothing really to happen.
I think that some of my acne scars are pretty bad, and I didn't really think that I would
actually see a difference.
I thought, why not give it a try and see if there's anything that comes out of it?
And I think that my actual results were surprising to me, to actually be able to see a difference myself.
And beyond that, have other people actually notice it, too.
And don't go to any Botox parties or filler parties
or anything like that, because my issue with it is they don't have all the equipment they
need to dissolve if there was a problem, which is a rare problem, a vessel occlusion.
They need to have all the equipment there.
And what happens if you don't like it?
Who are you going to follow up with
if they just came to somebody's house and you have no office to go back to?
The aftercare with this procedure was super minimal and super easy.
Dr. Guanche literally spent a minute talking to me about it, and aftercare included icing
your face right after the procedure,
and, from her words, you're able to go to the club that night.
If I can allow people to feel a little bit better and a little more confident in whatever
way it takes out of all my 15 devices or fillers or Botox or whatever, then that makes me happy
because that's allowing inner beauty to come out, because you're removing insecurity,
you're removing something that's holding someone back.
Overall, I think this procedure definitely boosted my self-confidence.
I think that it made me excited to actually put on
makeup in the morning and get ready.
I think that, yeah, it's been a really positive impact.
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