Fat Grafting Procedures:
- Injectables are substances injected into your body to soften facial lines, fill in depressions, highlight facial features, and now replace fat lost due to aging. There is a dizzying array of injectables available today. I can hardly keep up. The oldest and most widely known is collagen, immortalized by Goldie Hawn’s lips in the movie, “First Wives Club,” and collagen is still available. However, there are now newer and different substances that can provide even greater enhancement. We use Restylane, Juvéderm and Sculptra for fillers, and of course we use a lot of Botox!
- Fat transfers are a different process. Fat transfers are done using your OWN fat. The advantages are obvious. Rather than paying by the teaspoon, you can go by the pound. Your own fat is readily available, and is removed from any part of your body where you have extra fat, using a small cannula and then transferred to almost anywhere on your body you desire. The fat does stay where I put it, and it does last. I have performed well over a thousand of these fat transfers – it really is one of my favorite procedures. I have been performing this procedure since 2000, and know from personal experience that the grafts do last predictably. Since fat grafting is safe and reliable, and the fat remains in place and can last and last for years, what are the down sides? The bad news is fat grafting is a surgical – albeit minor – procedure done under local anesthesia like at the dentists’. It is associated with lots of swelling and bruising and lumps and bumps because the needle used to inject the fat is fairly large, and I have to make hundreds of passes to thread the fat in. Sort of like piping thin lines of frosting in a lattice pattern under the skin. Fat grafting is not a precision outliner like Restylane, Juvéderm or collagen, but more like adding stuffing to a Build-A-Bear stuffed animal.
- There are other advantages of fat grafting. Fat turns out to be an excellent source of stem cells. These are cells that can turn into any type of tissue. It has recently been discovered that human fat tissue has a higher concentration of adult stem cells than any other tissue in the body. In fact, adipose tissue contains more than 1000 times more stem cells with the same volume as bone marrow. 500 ml or about one pound of fat can yield approximately 200 million stem cells. The transplantation of these stem cells MAY be the reason fat grafting results see such clinical improvement by providing more blood supply, causing more collagen production and slowing facial skeletal atrophy.
- Under the eyes and around the cheekbones, fat grafts can be amazing. If you look under your eyes, the lower lids may have both bags, and also a valley or indention near your nose. This is called a tear trough. And like a trough, it creates a dark shadow under the eyes that is difficult to camouflage, and gives a gaunt, tired look. Filling in this trough, and then highlighting your cheek bones, can give not only your eyes but your entire face a refreshed look. See my results under eyelid lifts. However, here are some results with only fat grafts, combined with other procedures – mini facelifts, Restylane, etc.
- View our Fat Grafting Before and After Photos.