So in the world of aesthetic medicine the main two tools in which we can rejuvenate
the ageing face are botox and dermal fillers. Botox is used for wrinkles caused by muscles
of expression, but what we want to talk about today is dermal fillers, and they replace
the lost volume. We lose volume as we age - in the cheeks, temple, chin - and hyaluronic
acid dermal fillers are used to replace that lost volume. I call it the syndrome of the
deflated balloon. Hyaluronic acid is something we have naturally in the face anyway along
with elastin and collagen, and it comes in the form of a gel. So it's a gel which we
inject into the areas of lost volume, and fillers like Juvéderm and Restylane are the
most famous hyaluronic acid fillers. We do this by injecting the hyaluronic acid fillers,
the gel, we are inducing new collagen and new elastin to be formed, we are reinflating
that balloon, rejuvenating the face, lifting cheeks, filling in areas of lost volume - therefore
rejuvenating the face on the whole.
So the procedure of dermal fillers is fairly simple
- the vials come in 1ml sizes and Restylane, for instance, has fillers like Restylane,
perlane, Juvéderm has Juvéderm volift, juvederm voluma: so we choose the specific filler for
the specific area we want to treat - we have thicker fillers, we have thinner fillers.
It's a tiny tiny needle and after cleaning the face, we target the area we want to treat,
and we gently and slowly inject through a thin needle the filler into the area we want
to treat. The treatment literally lasts 5-10 minutes, and as we're injecting, I like to
inject small boluses carefully and slowly, you know we don't very often use the cannula
because using the needle, we can be very specific in how and where we place that filler. As
we place it, we also mould it - it's a beautiful product which we can mould in the right way
that we want to mould it, and at the end of the procedure, we stop any bleeding that there
might be, and the patient can actually put minimal makeup on straight after the procedure,
and go back to work.
I am a doctor of aesthetic medicine so I use the needle, not the scalpel,
so what I'm amazed by with dermal fillers are the results we can achieve now without
the scalpel. So we can do all sorts of things and achieve all sorts of results which were
only possible through a surgeon's scalpel in the past - so for instance, the 'wow' treatments
at the Milo Clinic that we use which include filling eye bags - we can now get rid of most
tear troughs, dark circles and eye bags under the eyes. We can now straighten noses, so
we can literally - the most hooked of noses, with a dropped tip, or uneven noses after
rhinoplasties, we can even make beautiful with hyaluronic acid fillers. We can do the Nefertiti
neck lift, or the jowly areas which start drooping with time, we can refill that deflated
balloon and tighten the jowl. And moreover, we can actually do non-surgical facelift,
or 8 point facelift, where we can place careful boluses of a chosen filler in certain areas
of the face to tighten the face, lift it, rejuvenate it in a very very natural way,
and produce amazing results. The latest advancements in dermal fillers are the skin boosters and
the juvederm bolight, which is a bit like a medical mesotherapy where we put lots of
little boluses of filler all over like face, like a medical mesotherapy, and we cause beautiful
skin rejuvenation.
So what is great about all the treatments we've discussed today is
that the recovery time after these procedures is extremely short, and in fact for most patients
is from anywhere from 1 day to 7 days. The only side effects we commonly see are swelling,
and also some bruising, but these do go away very quickly with proper treatment - with
arnica cream and ice. On very rare occasion, and I've never seen this in my career, we
can get allergic reactions and infections after these procedures, but if they were to
happen in the hands of an experienced doctor, a course of antibiotics or antihistamines
will solve these problems as well with no worries at all.