Cosmetic Treatment -- Injectable Procedures

Hyaluronic Acid Based Fillers:

Our skin feels the effects of gravity and becomes more elastic over time.

The lines and grooves on our faces become deeper, more apparent and don't seem to snap back the way they used to.  You may have noticed things like crow's feet  -- a furrow between the brows or laugh lines, the nasolabial folds that really aren't very funny.

Our lips become thinner, start to droop at the ends and even non-smokers develop little radiating lines from them.  In the past, purified bovine (i.e. cow) collagen injections were used to plump up these grooves with fairly pleasing results.

However, many people had terrible allergic reactions to bovine collagen even after a test spot was done.  Also, the collagen would break down fairly quickly, necessitating more treatments and expense.

This was true especially in areas of more motion, such as the lips, or nasolabial folds.  With the introduction of hyaluronic acid based fillers such as Juvederm and Restylane, much of the allergy issue is eliminated.  The results are longer lasting, sometimes lasting up to a year or more.

Hyaluronic acid, or H.A., is naturally a part of our skin, just as collagen is.  It lends the suppleness and thickness of our dermis and becomes much less plentiful as we age.

Laboratories can create H.A. that mimics our own and is the chief property in these fillers.   An important property of H.A. is its ability to hold many molecules of water.

It can hold more than 500 times its weight in water which makes it an ideal plumping agent as opposed to collagen.  With time, as the water unbinds itself from the H.A., the molecule actually retains its shape, resulting in the molecule  remaining at its same height and bulk.

This is why H.A. fillers are longer lasting and more satisfying in most instances than collagen.