Hello, I’m Dr. Shel. I’d like to educate you about what happens to our face, as well as to the anatomy of our face, what causes wrinkles, and what you can do about it without looking “done up”.
So let’s talk about how do we age, the aging process, and what it causes on our face. To start with, what I always like to do, is look at my patient’s face from top to bottom and then even sometimes go down to the neck. What I like to do is look and see how age has affected their anatomy and their musculature.
So the first thing that you’ll see happening is when you have repetitive movements, if you’re stressed out, you’re mad at you kids, your spouse, you’ll start making those frowns and you end up with what’s called frown lines, your elevens or, in some peoples cases, the three lines over there. So when you start ending up with frown lines you also might be lifting your eyebrows all the time because you’re surprised, you’re getting really expressive in certain conversations so you’ll start getting those horizontal lines going across your forehead. Then you might be squinting, or hopefully smiling a lot, and you get a little crow’s feet. So when those things happen inadvertently, it really makes us look either stressed, mad, or sad, or just not relaxed. We want to look relaxed, we want to look refreshed.
When you have those things happening, the things or the products that you want to look at are Botox or Xeomin. These are both great toxins that actually will go in and relax those muscles by injecting those muscles and really going in and relaxing them so that you don’t make those expressions anymore and the lines really get softened.You don’t want to get so much Botox or Xeomin that you look frozen. You don’t want that, you want to look relaxed.
Now what is the difference between Botox or Xeomin? They’re very similar; they’re both toxins that act very similarly. What I do like about Xeomin is that it acts a little bit quicker, so you end up seeing results in perhaps even one to four days whereas Botox takes seven to 10 days. On the other hand Botox has been around very very long much longer than Xeomin so it really is a personal preference. In my mind and in my practice we use both and they both work very well.
So now lets go on a little bit lower in your face and what is going on with age there. well although collagen that used to be here has now dropped to here, creating what we call Nasal Labial lines.
The other thing that happens is we used to have nice cheekbones and really nice plump collagen here. It’s gone, it’s dropped because it’s just skin laxity, gravity, collagen getting older so most of us don’t have those nice cheekbones anymore and that youthful appearance is gone.
Then what happens is the collagen that used to be here is dropping further creating the marionette lines, which are the lines going down here, causing those frown lines and making us look sad when we’re not sad. It can also give you the jowls right in this area and all of that makes us look older or tired or just not like we want to look.
This is where your fillers come in. None of this can be corrected or should be corrected with Botox or Xeomin so make sure you understand the difference. This is where the fillers come in and you have many different options there are so many fillers on the market but I’ll talk about my favorite Fillers.
Voluma – Voluma is a fantastic FDA-approved filler that is the only filler to be able to enhance the cheeks and really to restore that volume in the cheek area. So when I’m trying to restore that volume, especially the lateral cheeks, I really like to use Voluma which will last most people up to two years depending on your metabolism of course. It’s very natural, it I really works well, and you’ll se an immediate correction with that around the cheek area.
Radiesse – I also like to use Radiesse in the cheek area right in the medial area and that has just done so well in my practice and patients just love it. It’s just like a quick lift me up and it’s just immediate gratification with both of those fillers and both work very well. Radiesse lasts anywhere from 12 to 18 months and some people 9 to 12 months depending on your metabolism again it’s very customized.
Juviderm – Next we can use Juviderm, weather it’s ultra or ultra plus. I also love Juviderm for certain areas of the face because it is actually something that you can use in the lips. So if you want fuller youthful lips, but not look like you have duck lips, that would be a great filler in the right hands. The reason I say in the right hands is because I’m sure you’ve seen people that might have had too much filler in their face where they look chip monkey or their lips look kind of duck lippy. You don’t want to look like, that you want to look natural, you want look refreshed, you want to look like yourself.
Juviderm and Radiesse can both be used in the Nasal Labial folds, marionette lines.
Only Juviderm should be used in the lips. Radiesse should not be used in the lips. Around the cheeks my favorites are Radiesse and Voluma. You can also use some of the fillers around the cheekbone to re-sculpt things, but again, those are at advanced techniques and really should only be injected by advanced injectors.
So, thats a little summary on the difference between the injectable fillers as well as the toxins. So again to review injectable fillers my favorites are Voluma, Radiesse, Juviderm. and the top synths are Botox and Xeomin.
If you feel like this is something that you would like to educate yourself further about, go to my website read about it more or ask for a complimentary consultation and we’ll be happy to contact you, or, just give us a call and we’ll be happy to educate you further.
