All fillers serve one primary function. They replace volume (fat) that everyone loses as we age. Gen­er­ally fat loss begins to occur in our early 30’s but envi­ron­ment (sun exposure) and health habits (smoking, drinking & drug use) can cause a faster onset of fat/volume loss.

The more fat we lose the more the face begins to take on a less youthful look. The face typ­i­cally loses the largest amount of fat in four primary areas. The areas at the sides of the nose called Nasolabial folds which develop lines that can be very deep, the cheek & temple areas, lips and the areas under & to the side of the lower lip which cause a person to look a bit unhappy.

Other areas can also be injected as every person ages dif­fer­ently and we can lose fat in other areas as well. The picture below depicts the most common areas treated on the face with fillers

If patients desire the longest lasting cor­rec­tion and want to rebuild the most Col­la­gen & Elastin pos­si­ble, we use Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) in con­junc­tion with fillers. Another pop­u­lar media term is “The Vam­pire Face-lift”. Well, that’s what this is… PRP contains large amounts of dif­fer­ent types of growth factors which when injected and over time, rebuild Col­la­gen & Elastin fibers. By com­bin­ing PRP & fillers you receive the best of both world in an imme­di­ate cor­rec­tion as you use your own bodies natural ability (with PRP) to re-build the most Col­la­gen & Elastin pos­si­ble.

Hyaluronic Acid (HA) based fillers which include Resty­lane, Juve­d­erm, Per­lane and Belotero which on average last 6 months to a year and Calcium hydrox­y­la­p­atite (CaHA) filler which is known as Radiesse which last 12–18 months.

Let’s examine HA based fillers first. The two most common are Resty­lane and Juve­d­erm are both excellent and offer about equal results. They are used pri­mar­ily for lip aug­men­ta­tions and to round out the volume below the lips as well.

A common question is how many syringes of fillers will I need? The answer as you would suspect varies greatly patient to patient. One patient may just need a few syringes to correct the Nasolabial fold areas while another patient may need that plus their cheeks, jaw­line & temples.

We have many tools at our disposal but like all tools they need to be used by someone who knows best how to use them. Cheryl Gian­grante, ARNP, is an out­stand­ing injector that has received numerous com­ple­ments from her patients she has injected over the years. Yes you can prob­a­bly find someone less qual­i­fied to inject Botox and fillers but what will you get back when looking in the mirror.

We don’t just dabble in medical aes­thet­ics. It’s all we do each and every day of the year. Many physician & dental practices have added Botox & fillers to augment their practice incomes. Injecting Botox and Fillers is a medical art form that should be done by properly licensed, ded­i­cated, trained and skilled practitioners.

When you do something full time, all the time you tend to get very good at it. Settling for anything less could result in poor results or even facial deformity and injury.