Restylane: Stories

I am a 31 year-old woman with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Hypermobility type III, a connective tissue disorder caused by a genetic collagen defect. I developed deep, severe hollows under my eyes after rapid, extreme weight loss due to illness. (I lost 35% of my body weight,60lbs, becoming severely underweight. When I regained some weight, my face regained much of its volume, but I had a recurrence and lost the weight again. After a year with no additional gain, I decided to do something about my very skeletal appearance. I initially got .75 syringe of Restylane under my eyes, then had another .25 at a follow-up appointment a month later. (It probably would have looked better with a little more, but 1 whole syringe is a TON of filler for the undereye area and they wanted to err on the side of caution.) It did an amazing job of filling the deep, blue-black hollows and greatly improved my overall appearance.

I had some bruising (easy bruising is common in EDS) that lasted for a few weeks with a couple of injection sites (out of 10+), but were fairly easy to conceal. I had it done in April and still have a great improvement - I'm just starting to notice a reduction in the affect 7 months later. I occasionally get a little bit of tenderness at the inner corner of one eye when my eyes are really irritated by something, but it isn't really bothersome and wouldn't influence my decision to get it done again. (I have severe eye allergies and wear contacts, so they do get rubbed a lot.)