Why would anyone get their fillers dissolved? They’re the number two aesthetic treatment worldwide! Millions of people are queuing up for fuller cheeks, contoured features and plump, shapely lips.
However, some celebrities are rocking the boat by deciding to get their filler removed, encouraging us to re-evaluate our attitude towards this procedure.
I’ve never felt comfortable with very large lips, but thanks to celebrity role models and social media stars, overfilled lips are becoming the norm. I’m glad to see people challenging the trend, with Love Island star Charlotte Crosby making the headlines by having her lip filler chemically dissolved. She put a question mark over the value of excessive lip fillers, while cosmetic doctors are exploring the risks of overfilling.
For example, Dr Harris deliberately draws attention to the distortion caused by overfilled lips and cheeks. He believes that too much filler leads to ‘alienisation’, with features enlarged outside the normal range for the individual in question.
However, it’s not always an unscrupulous doctor or an excessive treatment that leads to these strangely exaggerated results. Many people forget what they looked like before treatment and return for more or the substance takes longer to dissolve than we originally thought. The patients believe that they’re in need of a top-up while it’s still in their system, leading to a double dose of filler.
We all think about our appearance. Low confidence is often the motivation to have an aesthetic treatment such as dermal fillers, as it helps us to embrace how we look. However, cosmetic treatment has been linked to an extreme preoccupation with appearance, known as body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). People with BDD spend a disproportionate amount of time obsessing over minor or imagined flaws. This can be enormously upsetting, so it’s no surprise they turn to cosmetics to try and fix the problem.
It’s a difficult issue for us practitioners to identify, especially as fewer than 10% of patients with BDD are satisfied with the results of their treatment. They move on to other practitioners to correct this perceived problem or their anxieties transfer to another area of the face or body. Their constant quest to fix the flaw leads to distorted, overfilled features.
Now, not everyone with overfilled features is suffering from BDD. After all, we all worry about our appearance to some extent and BDD is the extreme end of the spectrum. In my practice, I tend to see patients who are delighted with a filler treatment, but quickly forget what they looked like before the procedure. They want a more discernible difference, so they come back wanting another treatment.
It’s easy to see how people’s faces become overfilled, especially as fillers may last much longer than we think. Alice Hart Davis, a beauty journalist and author, discovered that 35ml of dermal filler is still present in her face, even though we expect it to have dissolved naturally in less than two years.
Not at all! They help millions of people to look youthful, including me! However, we do need to take care.
In my clinic, I limit the amount I’m prepared to place at one time, assessing my patients via ultrasound to determine if any filler remains. This helps me decide if it’s suitable for them to have more treatment or whether I should direct them to an alternative, of which we have many. When I do conduct treatments, I tend to use Juvederm, which creates wonderfully subtle and natural-looking results.
Are you interested in dermal fillers? Visit our website for more information or contact us to book a consultation.
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It still boggles my mind that fine line and wrinkle treatment, using botulinum toxin, can be so effective! More so, it amazes me that over the decades that I have been offering this treatment, more uses keep emerging. From helping depression to boosting skin health, the treatment options available to my patients keeps on growing!
However, the downside can be having to return multiple times a year, which isn’t great if you don’t like needles! So here are some top tips to help you extend the time between your visits…
Making sure your doctor/dentist/nurse practitioner is experienced will go a long way to ensuring you get the right areas treated appropriately. Some patients are regularly recalled by their injector to get ‘top ups’ but, in my opinion, this shouldn’t be necessary, unless it’s the first time you have been treated by the person.
Of course, your body isn’t always predictable, so occasionally you may require adjustments to your fine line and wrinkle treatment after a few weeks. Having regular ‘top ups’ will make Botox® less effective for you, so it’s important to avoid them if you can.
Consider not using face scrubs, masks or toners one week before your treatment. These can alter the chemistry of your skin by causing inflammation, which may result in your fine line and wrinkle treatment being less effective.
Ask your injector about other brands that might work for you. After many decades, new botulinum brands have now been developed, each with their own characteristics and benefits. This means that, if your regular treatment with the Botox® brand isn’t working as well as you’d like, your injector now has other brands they can try to see if they give you better fine line and wrinkle treatment results that last longer.
Any experienced doctor/dentist /nurse will be able to discuss the alternative brands that are available and give their advice on whether they may be helpful to you.
In a study by Koshy JC et al. (Journal of Drugs and Dermatol 2012 Apr;11(4):507-12), researchers found that zinc and/or phytase supplementation boosted the effects of botulinum treatments by 30% on average.
‘Surprisingly, the results showed that in over ninety percent of the patients studied, the zinc/phytase combination resulted in a remarkable improved responsiveness to treatment of blepharospasm using the same amount of botulinum toxin as previously used’, said Soparkar, M.D., Ph.D., an oculoplastic surgeon. ‘The toxins seemed to have a greater effect and last longer. Potentially, this could mean using less toxin, offering patients financial savings, greater safety, and more consistent results.’
Remember that this requires some planning, as studies have shown that you have to start zinc supplements 4 days prior to treatment for them to have any effect!
Now you know my top tips to get the best results from your fine line and wrinkle treatment, it’s time for you to get yourself booked in! You can do so quickly and easily on our website. You can also find all of our contact details on this page in case there are any questions that you would like to ask.
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There’s no doubt that injectables like fillers and Botox® are the most effective line-reducing treatments available. Others might help to some extent but they will never achieve what injectables can. Furthermore, these treatments, in the right hands, are very safe and almost painless. The proof is in the sheer number of people who have been treated worldwide! Allergan reports that, as a brand leader in the field of dermal fillers, they recently achieved a major milestone for their key brand Juvéderm with ‘100 million syringes of their product delivered globally’. Isn’t that incredible?
Some of you might be reluctant to try injectables for various reasons. You might feel scared about ‘losing’ your expressions or you’re worried that you won’t look natural and that others will know you’ve visited a clinic… or are you just scared in general?
Rest assured, safety is my top priority when treating my patients. I like to see myself and my team as ‘gatekeepers’.
Gatekeepers, like us, keep you safe and won't recommend a treatment that's not in your best interest, so there’s no danger of you looking ‘overdone’. If a treatment isn’t right for you, we’ll say so! It’s not just about the look though, we also make sure that you’re in the right headspace. The only reason to undergo any of our procedures is because you want to. Don’t ever forget that! Accountable to our registered bodies (the GDC and HIS), we have to act within clear clinical and safety guidelines or risk getting struck off.
In order to be a gatekeeper, you must be properly trained. I have a Level 7 postgraduate OFQUAL qualification in injectables and I’ve been a dentist for years! What’s more, at No. 4, we have fantastic knowledge and experience - Su and I have over 60 years of clinical experience combined (we know, we don’t look old enough)!
The most important thing when choosing your clinic is to make sure the practitioners are fully qualified. The experience never hurts too though!
You should always expect the best!
Good gatekeepers will always give you all your options and give you time to make your decision as to whether to have treatment or not. We’re not saleswomen, we’re beauty practitioners! We will always conduct a thorough consultation and get to know you first. If injectables don’t suit your medical profile, lifestyle or expectations, we will let you know. After all, we don’t just deal with treatments, we deal with people.
It’s also important that you know you will receive good aftercare. You shouldn’t have your treatment and get kicked straight out of the door! You need to know how to best maintain your results. We’re always on hand to offer advice on which products will suit your skin and my team always want to ensure that you’re happy with your results. In short, you won’t get away from us that quickly…
If you want to get rid of lines and wrinkles, injectables are the best way to do so, but only when you're being treated by experienced, caring professionals.
The first thing to do is book in for your consultation, you can do this easily online. If you’re not quite ready for that, it may be helpful to get to know our clinic better, you can learn more about us on our website or by following us on Facebook and Instagram.
