What to Fill and Where: The Best Use for Every Injectable

What to Fill and Where: The Best Use for Every Injectable

Facing early signs of aging can be tough. You may be feeling discouraged by the simple fact that wrinkles and lines are beginning to form, and these feelings are often compounded when you realize that you don’t know where to start when it comes to getting rid of them. There are topical treatments, surgeries, injections and peels that all claim to fix your concerns. To help ease this confusion, we’ve put together a guide on the types of injectables you may encounter and the signs of aging they were designed to combat.

Relaxers

Wrinkle relaxers like Botox or Dysport are one of the most common types of facial injectables. These injectables are formulated with a protein called botulinum toxin, which sounds potentially harmful but functions merely to relax overworked facial muscles that cause lines and wrinkles. Relaxers are intended to target moderate to severe wrinkles, particularly those known as frown or worry lines that appear between the eyebrows or across the forehead.

These wrinkles get their name from the fact that they tend to appear when you make sad, angry, worried or frustrated facial expressions — you may furrow your forehead or contract your eyebrows. If the facial muscles you use to make these expressions are overused over time, they can stay tensed and leave a worried or stressed look on your face even when you are in a good mood. A precise injection of Botox or Dysport into the affected area can allow these muscles to relax, eliminating the appearance of lines in the process.

Fillers

However, not all lines on your face are caused by muscles. Some occur when your skin begins to lose its volume or elasticity, resulting in cracks rather than bunched-up furrows. Others occur when repetitive facial motions cause your skin to become lax or permanently folded. These wrinkles can appear anywhere on your face or neck — they include transverse lines across your forehead, crows’ feet, fine lines around your lips and deeper folds between your nose and mouth. Filler injectables, most notably ones formulated with hyaluronic acid like Juvéderm XC or Restylane, are designed to treat moderate to severe wrinkles of this type.

Hyaluronic acid is a substance that occurs naturally in the body and skin, typically in tissues that take up space between your cells or your muscles and bones. It functions as a plumper and lubricator, giving parts of your body a fullness that otherwise wouldn’t be there. Adding it back into your skin with an injection helps restore this fullness, smoothing lines by filling in the gaps that cause wrinkles. These formulas tend to be flexible and adaptable, so they work best for areas that need to move freely with your facial expressions and don’t require heavy-duty structural support.

Volumizers

Volumizers, on the other hand, can provide that heavy-duty structural support where it’s needed. Some companies that make fillers also create modified versions of their fillers that are meant to fill in areas with more severe volume loss, but others, like Radiesse or Aquamid, are specifically formulated to be thicker, less elastic and resistant to migration. If you have hollows under your eyes or cheekbones, deep scarring or a sagging jawline, injectable volumizers may be able to help.

These kinds of injectables contain a range of active ingredients, but typically include substances like hyaluronic acid that are naturally-occurring and unlikely to cause an allergic reaction. Many of them are also formulated to stimulate collagen production in the area of the injection, which helps stabilize the injected materials and reinforce volumizing effects. If aging is causing your face to thin to a degree that makes you look older or unhealthy, a volumizing injectable may be right for you.

If you aren’t sure if injectables are right for you or if you want to learn more about your options, you should start by scheduling a consultation with a plastic surgeon — at Advanced Aesthetics Plastic Surgery Center, we are always prepared to help you find the right treatment. If you are seeking treatment in Atlanta, Georgia or the surrounding area, call Advanced Aesthetics today to schedule your first appointment.