Cheek Augmentation: Stories

Okay I am back again..It has been four and a half months since my surgery ..at 11 weeks I had to have surgery on the right side of my face because the cheek implant was coming through (I had suffered all that time with this happening) The doctor opened up that side inside my mouth and cut off some of the implant to make it smaller and then sewed it back up only to have the sam thing happen 7 weeks later....The right side was not taking this imp;lant due to the fact that I had two holes in my right side of my face and he had tried to put something over that before he put the implant down on my cheek! Also both implants were way too large for my small face and looked ridiculous! Both of them have now been taken out and I already feel so much better. Now I have to play the wainting game to see what my face will look like down the road after all of this trauma. Will I need some fat grafting or will I need to have something else done so that I can look good?? I do not know at this time...all I know is that thank God with the the fact that I am super healthy from the way that I eat and exercise and with the Power of my Mind I was able to prevent anything worse from happening....I am staying positive that there will be a happy ending!! I do not want to have bad karma but I feel that I should get something (at least my money back) -for what will be 6 months of time away from working and moving forward in my life!?!? I know one thing that I learned from all of this and that is to make sure that you go with your GUT FEELING )(I did not) and also to say a prayer and ask the POWERS TO BE that if this is not the right thing for you to do then to make sure you get a sign....I have done this in the past and it definately works!!! Hope all of the info is of benefit to you.....peace out!

In my last post I mentioned that I was 3 weeks out from my cheek implant operation...and actually it has been 4 weeks....I did want ro also mention that when I had my operation...the doctor put in one pair and decided that they were too small so he took those out ansd then put in a larger pair....I was awake and I felt that he was being too rough with my face.....after the surgery my face looked so bad that I swear everyone was shocked..I had two black eyes and they were almost completely shut by the 2nd day my mouth was black and blue all the way down to my neck and my lips were actually black. The doctor told me that he found out theat I had two holes in my cheeks so he put in something that he uses for rhinoplasty there so that nothing from my sinuses could leek out ....I told him later that I had been in an abusive relationship a while back - so possibly that is why I had those holes there - (from being hit in the face by my ex-boyfriend). Doctor conferred with that. Any way I am still fighting off what seems to be a small infection on the right side all though it appears that rthe swelling is going down very slowly on that side de to what I mentioned up above inb my last posting about using MMS to kill off the bacteria and infection...I am also a healer and every day I use my healing techniques and believe this visualization is also what is saving me from going through that horrendous operation.......I will post more as I continue with my healing....chipmunk

It has been 3 weeks and I have gone through hell! For me it has been one of the worst experiences of my life! A lot of pain and suffering and mostly the worrying about getting an infection. The doctor made the incisions through the mouth on the right side too close to my teeth so I could not evrn brush my teeth on that side ....so I did get an infection. But I am a fighter and I decided I did not want to go through surgery every again (worse than my full face lift in my case) So I got on the internet and began to look up alternative methods and discovered Jim Humble's MMS which is a solution that turns into oxygen in your system and kills all pathogens bacteria and has been know to heal cancer Malaria and even HIV ,,of course the big pharmaceutical companies do not want you to know about it here in this cuntry because it only cost about $11.00 for one years supply but it knocked down my infection and is slowly working it out of my system. Check it out on youtube if you want ...How to use Miracle Mineral Suplement - Jim Humble and you will get the story on this and all of the work they are doing in Africa and Mexico....Any way this is a long drawn out situation and I know that I would not have undertaken it if I had known what I was going to go through.....I feel at this stage that I am Okay to go out into public with sunglasses on but otherwise i am still too swollen.... chipmunk

I am a very healthy vibrant 60 year old who had no cheeks naturally and so I decided to have cheek implants (incisions through the mouth) it has been 6 days and it has been really tough...lots of bruising, eyes almost completely shut, lots of swelling and lots of discomfort/pain due to the fact that the doctor intitially put in one set during the operaton and and then decided to go larger, so he then put in a medium size - so perhaps that is why my outcome after the surgery was more traumatic. I wished that I had not undertaken this especially after hearing that I will look like chipmunk still for at least 3 months!! I am icing face every day several times, and doing fresh fruit smoothies, home made vegetable healing soups, gargling with MMS - all in the hopes of increasing my immune system and then doing healing meditations...I hope to speed up my recovery by doing this! everyone I will let you know how it goes......chipmunk

I am really sorry to say this. But it seems that your surgeon has very poor aesthetic judgement perhaps from lack of experience.
The reason I say this is because there are only a handful of people who can get an improvement with the large terino malar shells from implantech.
Most people are best of with mediums.
With cheeks like you had, XXL malars are too large. Your surgeon should have never used such large implants in the first place which would have saved you all the suffering the past year.
Hope your revision goes well.
Take care , wish you best of luck.

Well these days, you may want to consider fat injections / transplantation as well as dermal fillers to see if that can give you the look you want. The main complication with the cheekbone implants (aside from the obvious potentional but rare infections that can effect any implant anywhere in the face post-op) is that the nerves they cut to insert them may not growback fully or re-connect fully. This could result in a crooked/lopsided movement of the mouth when speaking or smiling. For a perfect example of what this looks like, just go look at Greta Van Susteren speak on her news shows. She obviously has nerve damage or paralysis in the face that causes to have that lopsided look. Highly doubtful this is from implants in her case (probably genetic or something) but that is the look you COULD end up with. In most peoples cases the nerves come back to reconnect fully. In my case they did for the most part. This is one of those operations where you want a highly competent and experienced surgeon doing the surgery. You want a surgeon who's done A LOT of these.

I am considering permanent cheek implants... to lift my face and give me back bone marrow loss... I have high cheek bones but feel the saggy line is now making me look old... Just want my old appearance back. I am 45...so it's not like I am 22 saying I don't like myself.. not at all... Are there many complications and pain with this procedure...or would you recommend botox

This is a year old now (orig post was summer 2009). So - any updates original poster? Did the swelling go down and you're happy, or did you take them out? Just to confirm what many have said - cheek implants cause A LOT of swelling. You're looking at 4-6 months just to START seeing results. And the final result will be in 6-12 months. I didn't think I looked 'normal' with mine until about 6 months afterwards, and by 8-9 months they really started to look awesome. It took almost 18 months before I didn't 'feel' them anymore as being in my face. Prior to that at night depending how I slept on my pillow I would get some pain/discomfort if I my face was lying directly on the implant. These are are a long haul recovery project, but well worth it, for me anyways.

I agree with LFlowns. You have PERFECT cheekbones. I would pay a lot of money for a face like yours! I think you should get them REMOVED if possible.

What were you doing getting cheek impants in the first place.. Your before photo is absolutely beautiful I know I cant see your eyes.. but your lips and cheek bones were gorgeous!! what made you decide to get cheek impants when your before cheeks looked stunning!

I had a similar surgery and it took 6 months to see the new face. actually, the total difference and the last one was after 12 months... so please wait :)

Please give it another 4 months before all the swelling is gone. That's how long it took me. I was swollen like a cantalope for the longest. Be patient and see if it's ok for you. If not, you know what to do.

I assume at 3 weeks, you still had a lot of swelling. Now that the swelling is gone, you should do much better. Are you?