Many men and women who are experiencing signs of aging think that they’re caught between temporary solutions like BOTOX® injections or more intensive surgical techniques like a facelift as their only options. In truth, microfat grafting might provide just the right balance between these two extremes. With an impressive ability to rejuvenate your appearance, microfat grafting offers a new solution for helping you look your best with a natural filler that will not be rejected.
The key thing that makes people look older is sunkenness, hollowness, appearance of bony margins and loss of softness in the features. It’s natural to lose volume as we age, making us start to look like our parents by the time we hit our early 40’s. Good bone structure helps mask the aging (like strong cheekbones and jawline), but facial fat loss is inevitable.
How Facial Fat Grafting Works
As we age, our skin thins from exposure to the sun and the “soft layer” of fat between the skin and the muscle thins. This layer acts like a slip, allowing the muscles to animate without creating wrinkles. As we age, the skin and the “slip” layer thin and the expression muscles in our face create permanent creases in the skin.
Dermal fillers can “plump” some areas, but if placed too close to the skin they can look unnatural. Microfat can naturally restore the “slip” layer between the surface and the deeper layers. In the face this is between the skin and the muscle, in the hands it is between the skin and the veins.
Microfat grafts require expertise to achieve attractive results, and may require more than one session. There are several different ways to harvest fat, and Dr. Ditesheim prefers water-assisted liposuction (WAL) as it is gentler to harvest and yields excellent quality of fat.
The Benefits
Microfat grafting uses fat from your own body to enhance your appearance in a way that looks completely natural. With subtle amounts of added fullness, the procedure is renowned for its ability to restore vitality in patients with frown lines and other deep facial creases. Additionally, fat grafting can shape the cheeks or chin and enhance the lips.
- Fat grafting works to immediately add volume
- Unlike most filler products, fat grafts last for many years
- Fat grafting can make your results look more natural
Microfat grafting can be used alone, as an injection (no cutting) procedure, or combined with procedures that enhance facial features such as eyelid or facelift surgery. As fat grafting adds volume to places that appear sunken or wrinkled, features can be smoothed and augmented as needed to create a more youthful appearance, delivering long-lasting results without significant surgery or synthetic dermal fillers.