In today's case study, Dr. Lamperti reviews a patient's facial rejuvenation treatment. He used dermabrasion to remove deep upper lip wrinkles and then placed Radiesse filler to improve the appearance of creases around the mouth.
A common concern among patients who come to see me wanting to improve the appearance of facial aging is the presence of prominent lines and creases around the mouth and lips. Especially troublesome are the vertical lines that form on the upper lip with time. These can becomes particularly prominent in those who are current or former cigarette smokers.
Case Study: peri-oral wrinkling treatment
Let's take a look at a patient of mine to see how wrinkles around the mouth can be treated.
The patient above came to me wanting to lessen the appearance of the prominent wrinkles around her mouth, especially the vertical creases on her upper lip.
Importantly, she wanted to focus her treatment to non-surgical options that could be done in the office setting.
Combining Dermabrasion with Radiesse skin filler injection
In this patient's case we decided to combine upper lip dermabrasion with radiesse skin filler injection to improve the facial volume loss and deflation around her lower cheeks and pre-jowl area. It is important to understand that we're talking about medical grade dermabrasion (that I perform myself), not the more superficial treatment of micro-dermabrasion that is more commonly done by aestheticians. The treatment itself was done using an injection of local numbing medication in our office procedure room.
Dermabrasion involves using a spinning diamond tipped device (a medical grade Dremel tool if you will) to gradually sand off the outer layers of skin cells. New skin lining then grows in the area and fresh collagen is formed thereby creating a more smooth appearance.
The series of photos above shows my patient both before and 6 months after her treatment. You can see how her upper lip is now much smoother in appearance and her lower cheek and prejowl region have a much softer look. Here's a larger view of the after photo:
You can see what a differennce combining dermabrasion with Radiesse soft tissue filler can make!
