Fat Grafting To The Face
Fat grafting is a procedure where we remove fat from one area of your body that has excessive fat and transfer it to an area of your face that is deficient of fat. As people age, almost everyone loses fat in parts of their face. Some people will prematurely lose fat in parts of their face and it makes them appear significantly older than their true age. Significant loss of fat in a person’s face adversely affects their appearance. Young people with premature fat loss can be greatly improved with fat grafting.
All facelift and blepharoplasty procedures need fat grafting at the same time. Without having fat grafting done at the time of a facelift or blepharoplasty, the result will be less than optimal.
Fat grafting is done by making a ¼ inch incision in the abdomen or thigh skin and extracting the fat with a small cannula. The fat is then processed. Once the fat is processed, it can be injected into areas of the face with a small cannula about the size of a paperclip. Once injected, the fat has to get a blood supply from the surrounding tissue. Usually about ½ of the fat lives. The fat that that gets the blood supply will live for years. Thus, you have a long lasting improvement.
The common areas that we inject fat in the face are as follows:
- The sunken area under the eyelids
- Lips
- Mouth area
- Cheeks
- Buccal area
- Temporal area
This procedure is done in the office with IV sedation. People usually return to work in less than one week after fat grafting to the face.
Please view our before and after pictures on the website. It will give you some idea of how much we can help people.