Many Rounds of ArteFill and Very Lilttle Change - San Francisco, CA

I had the worst possible experience with Artefill and still working on getting my money back, finally after many many emails and letters her insurance company contacted me, but not till I was going to pass my file to a lawyer. I am permanently damaged but I have met someone with worse damage than me.

Read my reviews of this product and injector. Scary that we are exposed to supposed professionals where we feel safe enough to commit to this filler. This was not done in a Motel 6 hotel room. My file is going to FDA next, I have contacted them about my experience. The Medical board has also said I should file a complaint against the injector.

IGC, I am so sorry to hear this! I feel lucky now that the worst that happened to me was nothing. Good luck on your journey. I hope this gets resolved, and that something is done to help your appearance. Appearance is very important in society (career, dating, etc.). I agree with you that the public should know. I had researched Artefill online, but found only good reviews. Perhaps the doctors like Scott Mosser pay for online sites to only show good comments about them and about new products like Artefill. These practitioners should take more responsibility for patient care. And products should be better tested, particularly the permanent ones.

Sorry about you situation. I just had a nose job(1 syringe) and face lift (5 syringes) and I look like 10 years younger. I'm 39 years old. My concern were sagging on my face, smile lines, and nasolabial folds. My doctor lifted my face and injected Artefill (5 syringes for both)on both sides of my forehead. My face is now much smaller, chin is sharper, and lines around my mouth are not as deep, and it has eye-lift effect! My doctor lifted my face at first to create "foundation" and move to lower part of my face so that she doesn't have to use much Artefill to fill in my wrinkles. Make sense, right? I was on a diet because my face looked big compared to the face when I was young. I thought that I could get the small face back if I lost weight. It wasn't about my weight but was all about sagging/aging. I'm very sorry that you've lost so much money but I believe it is possible for you to gain a happy result with the right doctor.

Thanks for you candid remarks. I'm so sorry this has happened. The opinion I sought here (still in the process of finding the right doc) wanted to do up to 20 viles of artefill. Sounds pretty caustic considering it's permanent. I'm in the Edmond/OKC area.. if anyone knows of a really exceptional doctor in my area. Thanks for sharing your experience. It's made me leery of shelling out so much money for so much artefill, not knowing what the results will be. I know he takes it slow... but still. My heart goes out to you! Thanks again for sharing!

I had Artefill injected over a year ago and it was incredible. Fortunately the doctor himself took time to carefully explain the pros and cons as well as what results to expect. Dr. Romano in San Francisco comes highly recommended after my experience! He did every injection procedure by himself for me. Very skilled.......

Hey Zondi,

I kind of got scarred after reading the reviews and asked for my money back hehe. I am going to get another opinion from another doctor. I've heard of Dr. Romano I've had my radiesse done before by Dr. Mabrie in SF but now live in O.C thinking I might even have Dr. Mabrie do my artefill eventually.
Can I ask what areas you got it done? and how does it look now after one year. As well as how many injections you had.

This does sound very unusual. Artefill is only 20% actual product - the other 80% is bovine collagen.
The 20% of PMMA (the permanent spheres that remain in the skin) is meant to create a collagen response.

May I ask your age? Collagen production capability slows with age and the older we get, the less likely we are to "respond" as expected.

But I would assume you would have had this much product injected over a fairly extended period of time, so there should have been an indication it was not working well after the first set of injections.

You might consider asking the surgeon to have the company which makes Artefill, Suneva Medical, investigate your situation. It's not impossible that the product itself was defective or had an improper ratio of PMMA to collagen. The doctor will have all the lot numbers of the syringes used in your treatments so there can be some exact followup.

Placement depth is important in results. Nasolabial folds are notorious for swallowing large amounts of fillers and not showing much results.

But I'm assuming from your payout that you had 15 to 20 syringes and unless there is facial wasting going on from immune deficiency or illness, it would seem you would have a fairly substantial appearance improvement.

Just to clarify - the Artefill spheres remain in the skin. The bovine collagen degrades in 2 to 3 months.

Generally during that time period new natural collagen forms around and between the PMMA spheres so there is a gradual additional improvement in the first 6 months.

Again, facial wasting, weight loss or age can prevent expected outcomes from Artefill or any filler. If none of these are an issue, then for certain there should be some communication between you, your surgeon and the company.

Hi San Francisco,

Welcome to the community. I'm sorry you didn't get the results you were looking for. You might want to check out the answers to the question, "Does artefill work in cheeks" in our Dr Q&A it might help. Please keep us updated and thanks for the review.

Thanks,

-Britt

$20,000...as in 20k? Twenty thousand dollars? That seems excessive. Who is the doctor?

Yes 20k. The more I learn, the more I see that the amount injected and price is way out of line.

In terms of who the surgeon is, this is somebody in San Francisco. I am still hoping he will be fair.

Hello San Francisco,

This is my first time signing in to this forum. But I think you should get a second opinion, even though doc's dont comment much on each others work. But you could get an idea of what you should expect. I hope you dont get those side effects over time that some others got.

In terms of the investment, I agree that seems very steep especially compared to the other prices listed here. I think you should talk to him directly about the problem. Most of them are reasonable and want happy patients. Hopefully he will give you a discount maybe even for volume.

Please keep us posted,
Sharon

I had approx 2000.00 put in there....mariontes and hollows on cheeks. My plastic surgeon only hires RNs for his business. It was about 3 years ago. I remain very pleased...except one of the hollows is starting to come back now...but have lost about 10 lbs since then. Is your doc certified? For real? Google the heck out of him because that's a lot of artefill and something should've happened for you. Unless you have severe wasting syndrome (AIDS patients). This blows my mind. You may have a little lawsuit on your hands....and I would research and pursue. Maybe he didn't even use artefill...maybe it was just saline! Did you receieve an intial skin test? That would've been mandatory to prove you were not allergic to the bovine substance in it....if he didn't give that....then I would wonder even more. You neeed to investigate. Sounds like a scam to me. Although he couldve faked the skin test with saline also. This stuff happens a lot!!! There are a lot of imposters out there? Ever had any other work done by him? Blessings.