Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[music] Hello, I’m Dr. Neal Schultz
[pause]
and welcome to DermTV.
The reason that people have filler treatments is to help correct lines and
wrinkles, but unfortunately, as we get older, our lines and wrinkles get
deeper. As people keep having repeated treatments, sometimes they ask me,
almost half-jokingly, “how many years, or how long can I keep having these
treatments?” The answer is very simple you keep having them until they stop
doing what you need them to do. But, as long as they’re working for you,
you can continue them, month after month, year after year. Provided of
course, you are not allergic to the filler material, and the fillers we use
today have a very, very low incidence of allergic reactions. The way the
fillers work, is by helping to replace the lost collagen, in elastic tissue
and fat that causes our skin to sag and to form lines and wrinkles. And,
the way that they work, really involves by putting the material under the
skin, and pushing the skin up to correct the line and wrinkle. As opposed
to a surgical procedure, like a face-lift, which works by pulling the skin
back, pulling rather than pushing. Well, at a certain point, filler can no
longer push far enough, or you can’t get enough filler into the skin, to
either bring the line up, or to prevent the skin above it from actually
rolling over it. When that happens, that’s when it’s time for a surgical
procedure. Now, there is one other instance where you have to stop doing
filler, because it is just not going to accomplish what you want it to
accomplish. And, that is when you have a very large series of fine lines
that are almost parallel. And then you have intersecting lines, it’s almost
like a tic-tac-toe board. We call it cross-hatching. And, when you have
hundreds of fine, cross-hatched lines on your cheeks, it is not realistic,
it is not practical, to fill those, or to correct them with filler. So then
it’s time for a laser procedure, and lasers work by removing the top layer
of skin causing tightening underneath, and causing you to rebuild your own
collagen everywhere, and that is what fills in those cross-hatched lines
and wrinkles.