Filler was something I knew I wanted to invest in when I had the disposable income. I got filler in 2019 and the results were amazing! It's crazy when you actually see your bone structure transform it feels like a pretty affordable endeavor.
At the time, I wasn't using it as an "anti-aging" treatment, more of a way to enhance beauty (we'll talk about that in a little).
There are two reasons why people get fillers. To improve their bone structure and overall beauty and aesthetic; and for anti-aging purposes to replace volume that has been lost.
Using it for the latter is a massively slippery slope. I think it’s better used as the former and it has to be used sparingly for the latter. Filler can replace volume to some extent but it doesn’t mimic fat or collagen at all. It isn’t as elegant as the matrix of fat and collagen.
You may have seen it on social media when injectors show you in vitro what it looks like, it looks lumpy, even when you massage it out in vivo, it's not the type of substance that can be perfectly even. Therefore, under more youthful skin that is thick and buoyant, filler imperfections are disguised. But under aging skin where the matrix has begun to degenerate, it is way more noticeable. That’s why it looks “lumpy” in cases where women use it as their only, and go-to, anti-aging method.
If you were to break it down into a percentage, filler should make up about 10-20% of your anti-aging strategy. 20% would be high! This is why; The dermis and epidermis are breaking down, losing laxity; which is to say it’s losing that bounce that tightness. Putting filler underneath that is not going to correct that tissue. And when you don’t have that laxity in the skin, you’re going to be able to see a lumpiness very clearly and evidently.
My aesthetician here in Miami explained skin a great analogy to me, she says; think of your skin like a bed: the mattress is the dermis and the sheets are the epidermis. So you can see those are two completely different structures that make up the same thing and they both break down independently and require different types of treatments to restore them.
Filler is not a restorative treatment it is an architectural treatment. And that’s why when it’s your only card, you play, you look bad and lumpy.
Filler also accumulates in the face, therefore it’s not great to use all that often. We’ve all heard that filler disappears after a year or two years whatever and that was what doctors thought originally, but now we know that’s not exactly true. The effects do certainly look different after a year or so but at least some of the substance stays in your face, and the more filler you get, the more it accumulates. A doctor on TikTok said he discovered this when giving a facelift. The patient hadn’t gotten filler in years but it was as if it was fresh in her face and storing in her fat.
As it accumulates, it adds weight to the face, the face becomes heavier, more saggy and weighed down.
A red flag for me early on was the consistent recommendation of “filling the midface” for every concern. It didn’t look good, but it was the go-to for every injector I visited. If you were to go for filler because you don’t like your smile lines, doctors recommend filling the midface. If you don’t like your under eye, doctors recommend filling the midface. If you don’t like your jawline, doctors recommend filling the midface. It’s a one trick pony… These are obviously not great solutions because imagine if you just continued to fill the midface. I understand the reasoning they say this, but I do not understand the logic. Logically it always seemed like a horrible idea to me. This is why women have those unnatural looking cheeks.
As we start to age, we lose volume in the midface which causes all other issues, so like I said I get the logic. But the issue is, filler does not perfectly mimic what we are losing in the midface so it looks unnatural when overdone. Filler for this use case needs to be supplemental, not primary.
If you’re getting filler and you’re experiencing signs of aging, you need to be seeking out procedures that change the structure of the dermis and the epidermis, which we can talk about in another episode. But one example, is a bio-stimulator.
Bio-stimulators are injectables but they are not filler. They are essentially fertilizer for your fat or collagen. These injectables help to change the structure of your skin and are way more natural looking because of that.
So I think filler can be used maybe once every five years to kind of tweak the bone structure or add a bit of volume, but fillers for anti-aging are minimally effective when used alone and should not be your go to anti-aging solution.
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