Non-Surgical Facelift: What’s in a name?

Ask anyone what a facelift is and they can probably tell you.

But what about a nonsurgical or volumizing facelifts, a Liquid Facelift, a FavorLift, a Voluma Facelift or a Facelift in a Bottle?

What exactly are those? Are they all the same?

In the past, plastic surgeons treated the effects of aging with a facelift. But by removing so called “excess skin”, they left many with the telltale swept back or stretched face. Your face looked tighter but not necessarily younger.

These days doctors look at the effects of aging as made up of three parts:

1. Surface weathering and mottling due to environment and lifestyle
2. Sagging and bagging of aging skin
3. Loss of volume caused by loss of fat padding and decreased collagen production

All of the nonsurgical facelift treatments focus on restoring volume. They use various compounds like Sculptra, Juvederm, Restylane and Artecoll. The trouble is many people don’t understand the difference between the different products and use the terms interchangeably.

Sculptra or poly-L-lactic acid. It stimulates the body to produce collagen, giving you, in time, a fuller and more youthful appearance. Sculptra takes 2 to 6 treatments over a period of months for best effect. It lasts 2 to 3 years. It is excellent for restoring volume all over the face including the temples. This restoration puts the eyes and nose back into proportion with the rest of the face. This is often known as a Liquid Facelift or Facelift in a Bottle.

Teosyal, Juvederm and Restylane are hyaluronic acid gels. These are fillers often used to fill in deep wrinkles, which does improve appearance. In volumizing facelifts, the product is placed under the skin close to the bone where fat loss has occurred. This lifts the skins, smoothing it out and restores a more youthful appearance. The effects are immediate and recovery time minimal.

While hyaluronic acid occurs naturally in the body, Juvederm is a more purified form of hyaluronic acid than Restylane and consequently less likely to cause a reaction upon injection. These deep injection treatments go by such names as Voluma Facelift, Tri Site Bolus or as we call it, Instant Cheek Restoration. The effects last much longer than when used to fill expression lines or wrinkles up to several years.

Key issues to consider are the doctor’s technique and artistic eye. The practitioner must understand the 3d modelling of the face in general AND how to correct what ails YOU. Too much revolumizing in the wrong place can make you look “done”, if not downright strange. Improper placement can give the appearance of beads under the surface or make you look a bit cat-like.

Another issue that is rarely talked about is the gauge of the needle used for injections. Restylane SubQ (used in the Voluma facelift) is injected with a 16 gauge needle. Juvederm and Sculptra are injected with a much finer needle, a 26 or 27 gauge. A 16 gauge needle is big enough to leave a little scar. Using a finer needle also allows product to be placed in smaller doses in spots.

Here is the only video I could find on YouTube that shows Restylane SubQ being injected in the cheeks. It’s from South America and the quality is not great but it gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

This video shows a cheek augmentation procedure with Juvederm. Note the fine 27 gauge needle.

Many of the names you read about are used by doctors to personalize the treatment they offer their patients and train other doctors to practise. Don’t worry too much about a specific name. Do your homework and find out exactly what product the doctor is using and how they are injecting it.

Dr. Rose Jeans
Advanced Rejuvenation Medical Spa

Barack Obama is good for business

Even up here in Canada, we are feeling the excitement in the days leading up to the inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama.

I know several people, Canadians, who are in Washington for the inauguration.

This is such a historical event, such a beacon of hope for Americans and for the rest of the world, that I have only ever thought about it in social and political terms, never thinking that it related to my medical cosmetic practice.

However, I came across this article and had to share it with you: Cosmetic procedures pick up prior to Obama inauguration.

Washington, D.C.-area cosmetic dermatologists, and skin experts in other major cities, say despite the sagging economy, requests for quickie cosmetic fixes, such as Botox and microdermabrasion, have picked up during the last few weeks as people pretty-up for inaugural fetes.

What is so interesting about this article is that the effects are being seen in so many different states and that both men and women are having treatments.

Leslie Baumann, director of the Cosmetic Medicine and Research Institute at the University of Miami, in Miami, Fla., says, “We were swamped this week. Some were going to the inauguration in D.C. But I saw many going to inauguration parties in Miami.” Many are men in their 50s and 60s, Baumann says.

I can’t say that the inauguration has brought more clients in the door here in Burlington but I have noticed that many people seem more happy and optimistic as the big day approaches.

Best Wishes to the United States of America! Best Wishes to President Barack Obama!

Dr. Rose Jeans
Advanced Rejuvenation Medical Spa

Future Perfect: Here is something really new in facial rejuvenation!

This blogpost is reprinted from our newsletter of November 5, 2008. If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, please contact us at info@RestoringNaturalBeauty.com.

This is really cutting edge: Plastic surgeon Vincent Giampapa, MD, FACS has developed a new treatment to make your face look youthful called The Stem Cell Facelift.

It’s still in the experimental stages but looks really promising.

Stem cells are immature cells that can be directed to mature into a desired type of cell by giving the patient the right sort of growth factors.

We use stem cells in medicine after aggressive cancer treatments. The cancer treatment destroys the bone marrow so the patient may not be able to produce blood cells. Without white blood cells, the patient can’t fight off even the mildest infection. A stem cell transplant restores the patient’s ability to make blood cells in the bone marrow.

Imagine getting new fat and skin cells growing in your face. You could potentially erase years from your appearance.

We can expect to hear more about this treatment in the future.

Dr. Rose Jeans
Advanced Rejuvenation Medical Spa

Here’s why you need a reputable medical spa

When I saw this article, I was pretty shocked.

 

This reporter went to a clinic in England that didn’t have a doctor or nurse. She had an IPL treatment to get rid of brown sun damage. The red marks are burns.

What happened to her is this: her treatment was done at too high a setting for her skin tone. She mentions that she was tanned when she went for the treatment. The tan means she has more melanin in her skin, which means that her skin will absorb more energy from the pulses of light — that’s why it hurt so much and why she got burned.

She would also have been at increased risk of burns if the spa she went to had older equipment — places like this sometimes buy used medical spa equipment that is several years old. Newer IPL technology controls the pulse of energy delivered in each shot of light so that even darker skin tones are very unlikely to be burned.

 

Lesson #1: Make sure your treatments are done by properly trained people.

 

The reporter (as the patient) was reporting severe enough pain that she was asking the operator to pause frequently. The operator should have recognized that the treatment was much more painful than normal and turned down the energy level. The operator also should have recognized that the patient was tanned and so would need lower energy levels.

 

Lesson #2: Don’t persist with a treatment that is much more painful than you expected it to be.

 

The treatment was very painful. The reporter knew to expect the sensation of an elastic band snapping, which is how we all describe it, but this was much worse. She thought she would “tough it out” to get the results she wanted. Severe pain with a pulsed light treatment is a warning sign that the skin is absorbing a lot of energy. And that means burns could occur.

 

The good news for this woman was that she saw a dermatologist the next day and got treatment that healed her burns without scarring.

 

She went on to have IPL treatments in the dermatologist’s clinic that didn’t hurt and achieved a beautiful complexion.

Please make sure you are dealing with experienced, well-trained people when you seek out medical cosmetic treatments. If things don’t feel right, go somewhere else.

(This blogpost is reprinted from our newsletter of December 5, 2008. To subscribe to the newsletter, contact us at info@RestoringNaturalBeauty.com.)

Dr. Rose Jeans
Advanced Rejuvenation Medical Spa