What are Dermal Fillers?
Injections which fill out lines and wrinkles, sunken cheeks and weak chins; also used to reshape noses or lips.

Skin starts to sag and wrinkle naturally with age, as underlying fat and collagen diminishes. Injecting dermal fillers into the skin plumps it up, makes it firmer and smoothes out lines and wrinkles. Dermal fillers, for example Restylane, may be based on hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring substance widely used in medicine. Other types are made with collagen, produced from cows' skin. Newer types of filler with other ingredients claim to have a longer lasting effect, but aren't widely available.

Skin starts to sag and wrinkle naturally with age, as underlying fat and collagen diminishes. Injecting dermal fillers into the skin plumps it up, makes it firmer and smoothes out lines and wrinkles. Dermal fillers, for example Restylane, may be based on hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring substance widely used in medicine. Other types are made with collagen, produced from cows' skin. Newer types of filler with other ingredients claim to have a longer lasting effect, but aren't widely available.

What can Dermal Fillers do?
Frequently used to fill out the lips, dermal fillers are also highly successful in reducing crows' feet, wrinkles around the lips, nose and mouth, and lines on the cheeks and forehead. They can also plump out hollow cheeks, reshape the chin or nose tip, or fill acne scars.

What happens during treatment?
Before treatment itself begins, the face is sometimes numbed with a local anaesthetic cream or injection. Fillers are applied under the skin with a series of injections – a mildly uncomfortable process, with injections close to the lip or nose the most likely to be painful.

Treatment takes up to one hour, and many people go straight back to normal daily life afterwards, although if a large area is treated it can take a few hours or even a day or two to recover. There may be slight bleeding where the needle was inserted, plus mild bruising or redness which will disappear in a few days. Repeat treatments are needed every six to nine months to maintain the appearance.

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