I am looking to get my cheeks done, and I noticed that the fat injections are a lot cheaper than implants. I was told they last up to a year. If I get the injections and I lost weight at any time, would my body dissolve that fat? My normal facial structure is long and shallow-faced.
If you take fat from the abdomen or thighs and inject it into the face, it will still behave as it would have from its original site. In other words, if it would lose volume with weight loss when it was in the abdomen it will still lose volume when it is in the face.
The opposite is also true. I have seen pictures at a national meeting of a patient with fat injections into the lower lids who gained 50 lbs and looked like a Japanese gold fish!
While there is a variable amount of loss of the grafted fat after injection, I think it is still a very good option for volume enhancement, especially in the face. That being said, I often Radiesse to address just the type of concerns you have, and the advantage of it is that you don't need surgery, it can be done in the office, it looks very natural and will last a year or longer.
It's worth discussing this option with your surgeon and seeing what his or her thoughts are, but I think it works very well.
Fat injections are a great way to volumize the face. The survival of the fat is largely dependent on the technique that is employed. Once the fat finds its own blood supply it will survive as it did where it originally resided. Research has shown that we are born with the same number of fat cells in our body and the fat cells that we have get larger and smaller based on what our weight is. When the fat is placed into the face, typically it is believed that the cells are donor dominant. This means that the fat is likely to follow the behavior that it had where it came from originally.
When you lose weight, you will lose it everywhere. There are some areas that you will lose more than others depending on the activity. But, in general, you are likey to lose it everywhere in a symmetric manner. The same principle applies to the grafted fat in the face. But, because you have transplanted more fat cells to your face you will always have more fat in the area that you have transplanted more fat cells.
Based on research that has been done, the greater number of fat cells in your face will still give you more volume in those grafted areas. But, you will have less volume with weight less proportionate to the amount of weight that you lose.
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