Under-Eye Fat Grafting and How You Can Benefit
Welcome to Los Angeles, the city of the beautiful people. If you are not feeling quite as beautiful as many of the residents, that’s okay. There are certainly many residents here that were not born perfect either, and after a few surgeries by award-winning L.A. plastic surgeons, they melded into the crowd.
If you would like to look younger, fresher, thinner, or just a little more perfect, there are many surgeries that can help. Some of these surgeries focus on the body while the rest focus on the face. One particular Los Angeles facial cosmetic surgery that is gaining ground is the facial fat transfer. It is most often used to pad the under-eye area where people tend to lose fat as they age making their eyes look tired and worn. If this surgery interests you, here are a few things you should know about facial fat transfers in Los Angeles.
Where the Fat for Fat Grafting Comes From
More and more patients are using their own body fat to sculpt. The reason for this is three-fold. One, the patient’s body will not reject its own fat. Two, enough fat has to be removed from one area to adequately fill the under-eye area and do touch-ups later on, meaning that you are doing a small bit of body sculpting on fuller areas of your body to fill out your under-eye region. Three, you have an endless supply of all-natural facial filler clinging to your hips, abdomen, buttocks, etc.
The use of one’s own body fat for grafting is nothing new. It actually started well over a decade ago when abdomen fat was used to create much fuller, poutier lips. As the injected fat technique was refined, plastic surgeons began using the body fat of each patient to fill out other areas of the face or body. Now your own fat can be moved to just about any body part to create the ideal look.
How Long Fat Grafting works vs. Other Facial Fillers
Fat fillers for the face in Los Angeles are preferential to artificial fillers. The body can reject the artificial fillers, or worse, cause health problems that require additional surgery. With facial fat transfer Los Angeles patients find that they have less swelling, less down time, and very little maintenance is required. In fact, most fat transferred under your eyes stays there for up to three years, more than almost any other area of the body. Your eyes could look well-rested and youthful for up to three years.
With other facial fillers, the fillers are either absorbed, or broken down by the body after a few months to a year. More permanent fillers that are too hard and too rigid are too obvious, and have been in disuse by most plastic surgeons for some time now. Other fillers that were used in the past have been taken off the market because of the risks they posed. Given the better results and greater safety of fat grafting, it is easy to see why this has been the choice of many patients for the last few years.
Where Your Fat Is Re-Injected
When you are looking at grafting fat in the under-eye region, a needle filled with your semi-liquid fat is injected along the lower lid at specific points. Your lids are numbed, of course, and you may be given a light sedative to ease your nerves. (The sedative will not knock you all the way out, but instead makes you less tense and less reactive to a needle coming close to your eyes.) Some plastic surgeons may put you all the way under, but given that this is a very basic procedure, it is not common to do so.
The fat sinks into and settles into the tissues below your eyes. They may be puffy for a few days as a reaction to being poked with the needle, but ice packs generally help reduce that puffiness. The surgery requires less than a full lunch hour to complete, although you generally will not be able to see well to return to work until a day later, and you are advised to avoid driving for two weeks.
The Fat Transfer Face Lift
Face lifts are such invasive things, or at least they used to be. Now the fat transfer face lift Los Angeles patients beg for is one of the least invasive procedures. Fat is harvested from an area of your body and then injected into every crease, wrinkle, sag, and other obviously aging feature in your face. The result is a smoother, plumped-up, lifted face that only required several pokes with a needle rather than incisions and stitches.
You can have your whole face done and not just your under-eye areas. Since the additional time in the surgical chair operates just like an outpatient visit for the under-eye procedure, a lot of patients request the fat transfer face lift Los Angeles surgeons report. In the fat-harvesting stage, a little extra fat is harvested, which is a nice benefit to choosing to do the whole face lift.
If Not Your Fat
Let’s say that you are an incredibly fit person and fat on your body is just not harvest-able. If that is the case, there is an alternative. Fat donated by an identical twin may be used. All fat fillers for the face in Los Angeles are purified before being used, which means that donated fat from your twin is just as safe as your own fat. In any Los Angeles facial cosmetic surgery, only fat cells identical to your own can be used, so only yours and your twin’s fat are used.
Relocating the Fat in Your Own Face
This is less common than using donated fat from your twin or the fat from another area of your body. However, patients can request facial fat transfer Los Angeles surgeons say from the patient’s own face. Extra fat from under the chin or from full cheeks might work. Ask your surgeon about your fat graft options during your appointment.
