Whether you want to reduce the visibility of the lines around your mouth or add some volume to your cheeks to bring back a more youthful look, one of the first things people will tell you when you’re thinking about fillers is to choose your injector wisely. A trained and talented injector, such as a board certified facial plastic surgeon, can make injecting dermal fillers look easy. But, the truth is that a lot can go wrong if fillers like Juvederm or Sculptra are administered by someone without the required training or experience. To avoid potential mishaps, make sure you vet your injector carefully before you decide to work with him.
Incorrect Placement
Incorrect placement of a filler can lead to two types of problems. The first type of purely aesthetic. If your injector places a filler, such a Voluma, in the wrong spot, your results might not look quite right. For example, if the filler is placed too low or too high on the cheeks, instead of getting more defined cheeks, you might just end up with a puffy, overfilled face.
A much more serious issue can occur when the filler is injected into the wrong position. For instance, if an inexperienced person misses the mark and injects a filler into a blood vessel or artery, not simply beneath the skin, there’s a high risk for a severe complication. The filler can block off the blood vessel, leading to skin tissue death in the surrounding area.
Too Much Filler
Another potential issue with dermal fillers is that the injector doesn’t know the appropriate amount of filler to inject to the area and so over-injects a patient. When excess filler is injected into the skin, the result can be a face that looks too flat or over-stretched. Often, too much filler is used when augmenting the lips, creating an unnatural, puffy, "duck lips" pout.
It’s worth remembering that right after a treatment with fillers it’s easy for it to look as though your surgeon injected too much. Some swelling is common and can take about a week to subside. If after week, you still look puffy or feel that you’ve been overfilled, you can discuss your options for undoing the treatment with a surgeon.
Not Enough
Sometimes, patients have the opposite complaint. Instead of having too much filler injected into the area, their surgeon errs on the side of caution and underfills. Under-treatment isn’t exactly harmful, but it can make you think that fillers don’t work for you or leave you disappointed in your results.
In some cases, a surgeon might intentionally under-fill when treating a patient for the first time. The underfilling isn’t a result of lack of skill, but a result of the surgeon playing it safe. He might tell you to wait a week or so, then return for an additional syringe if you aren’t fully satisfied with your results.
The Wrong Filler
Injectors who aren’t properly trained or licensed have been known to use the wrong filler in patients. By wrong filler, they don’t mean using Restylane when a patient requested Juvederm. Instead, they mean using substances not approved for use in the human body, like automotive silicone.
There’s some misconceptions about silicone and its use as filler. Silicone is found in many medical devices, such as breast implants and grafts. But, it’s not FDA approved for use as an injectable filler. No reputable medical company produces a silicone injectable. If you see someone offering silicone injections for filling in lines or wrinkles or for adding volume, you can pretty much rest assured that the person isn’t a medical professional and that the silicone he or she is using isn’t meant to be injected into a human.
With so much that go wrong, it’s critical that you find an injector who knows what he is doing and who has the stamp of approval from a medical board. That’s why it’s also a good idea to work with a board certified facial plastic surgeon, such as Dr. Michael Schwartz. Dr. Schwartz more than 24 years of experience performing facial plastic surgery and has years of experience administering injectable fillers to the facial area. To learn more about your options when it comes to fillers and how to play it safe, call 561-228-5888 today.