Artistic planning is critical to having the desired result:
One’s facial balance can be artistically enhanced by using his or her own fat cells expertly injected. After carefully planning out treatment for each patient’s uniquely optimal face shape, Dr. Sullivan uses injections of their own specially treated healthy fat and the associated stem cells to smooth out, add volume to, and refine the areas of the face that will most benefit from the enhancement. Sometimes the areas that require additional volume are the result of deflation that has come with the aging process.
What gives this procedure by Dr. Sullivan such a high patient satisfaction rate is the artistry with which it is done and the way the fat injections are used. It’s an art not easily explained or taught but easily recognized nonetheless as a natural-appearing enhancement.
Anatomy of the aging face
The face is classically divided into three primary portions: the upper face, midface, and lower face. Age-related changes affect each part of the face, but some areas are impacted more obviously than others. The skin loses its laxity, thins out, and begins to sag; the cheeks may lose volume and become more hollowed or gaunt; excess tissue frequently accumulates under the eye, the jowls, under the chin and the jawline loses definition.
Occasionally, fat injections can be done alone if the patient is very young and still has really nice skin elasticity, but for older patients with less-than-ideal skin elasticity, or with under-eye puffiness, fat injections may need to be combined with a blepharoplasty or facelifting and contouring. Fat injections as well as synthetic injectables alone can lead to some areas appearing too full and puffy.
In other cases, fat injections can be incredibly powerful in giving the face the shape that the patient desires.
Reshaped and rejuvenated: An example of results
Fat injections for facial rejuvenation can create a natural look that in our experience has been very long-lasting. Take this patient for instance: Improvements were apparent immediately after the procedure, and the postoperative follow-up results clearly show lasting improvement in the lower third of the face at both the 1-year and 3.5-years after surgery.
