Keith

A Good Result Requires Patience and a Highly-skilled Injector

I am still convinced that it is more about the skill and experience of the Sculptra injector than the product itself. How could you explain how my (very gifted) facial surgeon was able to achieve a 100% success rate (out of thousands of patients). I now have to go to Switzerland to have it done because he's dead. There are so many inexperienced and unskilled Dr.s stateside who lack sufficient knowledge of the product. Scuptra is tricky; definitely not for a doc that does it 3x a week. You need to find someone who has been doing it every day for years. Good luck finding one here with that kind of experience. Unless you've had very noticeable loss of volume in your face, stay away from Sculptra- it's not for you. These allegations of it being "attacked" by your own immune system are a bit overblown and scientifically unsubstantiated. More likely the result of a poor quality injection. Kooie and others will argue this point for enternity but I can assure you that their injector had not been using this product extensively. There are probably less than a dozen docs in the U.S. that really understand they complexity of Sculptra. Do your research if you want a good result- skill and experience are absolutely critical with Scuptra.

njgirl, What analogy are you talking about? What is it that I have not thought out well? Are you responding to my posts because you are not making much sense.

Kooie, Thanks for posting back. I guess when you started insinuating that I was some kind of stealth spokesperson for Sculptra and/or some fake happy-go-lucky poster, I kinda lost it! I would reckon that I've had more Sculptra injected into my face over the last eight years than anyone else on this site, so I did take some pride in describing and sharing my very positive experience with you all. Having said that, you can see how unsuccessful I've been in locating a doctor stateside to replace my wonderful (but now dead) surgeon from Paris. I am not concerned about my immune response to this product. I get your point well, but I have already had so many vials put in me that if I my system was going to react negatively, it would have done so by now. What I AM becoming increasingly concerned about is how few doctors out there really know what they are doing in regards to Sculptra. If an 8+ year veteran with now FDA approved on-label use (but still have to pay full off-label price) is having trouble finding someone super-excellent to go to for "refills", I can't imagine the virtual impossibility for average, everyday, off the street Joe/Josephine to luck up in finding a good injector. I was lucky. I think being HIV+ with facial lipoatrophy minimized my risk factors. Then I had someone so completely familiar with the product, he devoted the last 10 years of his facial surgery practice exclusively to Sculptra injections. Even with all his experience, he still handled it like it was Kryptonite. He'd tell me over the years his frustration with the sheer arrogance of the dermatologists and plastic surgeons that would come to a 3-hour(!) training and not pay nearly enough attention to the details, risks, and complexities associated with not injecting it EXACTLY where and HOW it is supposed to be laid out. Off they'd go with their licenses to "fill in holes", as my doc would lament. If it were left up to his standards, there would probably only be a half-dozen people in the world qualified to touch this stuff. I don't know which ones are, but I have yet to find one that I'm willing to risk my face with and I REALLY need the stuff!

Kooie, You can read my posts over and over again and you STILL are not able to understand my point of view. My doctor killed himself. I am looking for a doctor to replace him. I have yet to find a doctor I am willing to risk my face with. I am now at a critical point because sooner than later my face is going to revert to my pre-Sculptra "I have AIDS" look. Are you so blind with anger that you can't comprehend that some people on this planet have had a good experience with this product? I have acknowledged over and over and over again in my postings that I had an extremely gifted facial surgeon. My point, that you obviously find absolutely impossible to understand, is that if you had MY doctor instead of the idiot that messed you up, you wouldn't be posting on this site or any other because MY doctor never would have given you Sculptra under YOUR eyes in the first place. I do not blame YOU for having a disfigured face. How OUTRAGEOUS for you to think that I think it is YOUR fault! Is it MY fault I had a positive result? Of course not.

Dear Kooie, I think you are misinterpreting what HKKitty is trying to point out. The fact that you have been disfigured by a doctor is extremely unfortunate but I can assure you HKKitty is not anything more than a regular cosmetic procedure patient like the rest of us. Not a doctor or sales rep, either. I doubt her stock portfolio contains a single share of Dermik. Neither does mine for that matter. As I have said in many of my postings, I was extraordinarily lucky to have found a gifted facial surgeon who knew this product inside and out. He knew the volatility of this substance and treated it with extreme caution every time he touched my face with it(14 times over 8+ years). In response to your remark about being charged the same amount no matter how much a doctor injects in you; I must say in my experience, sometimes I got 3 vials, usually 2, and occasionally one. The price varied accordingly. My guess is your situation involved a convergence of events; #1 An inexperienced injector,(just because you do it a lot doesn't mean you necessarily know what you are doing) #2 Bad decision on his part for injecting it into the preorbital areas (only good for people like me with pronounced fat loss and again only by an extremely experienced doctor) #3 Not thinning out the product when he made the bad decision to put it under your eyes. #4 Probably not reconstituting Sculptra at least the day before injecting it into you.(the powder MUST be plunged and thoroughly mixed at least a day before and up to 72 hours in its suspension then it must be shaken AGAIN prior to injecting) #5 Not going deep enough with the needle (I always had two big black eyes for a week or two after the 8 times I had my eye area injected-did you get black eyes, too?) HKKitty seems like a lovely lady. Do you REALLY want to start a cat fight with somebody named Kitty? LOL