• Video
  • Sculptra Helps Your Body Produce More Collagen, Naturally
{{ showTranscript ? 'HIDE' : 'SHOW' }} TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Buckingham Center video library. Today we are going to talk about a product called Sculptra, otherwise known as poly-l-lactic acid. Sculptra is one of the facial fillers along with hyaluronic acids and calcium hydroxyapatite. The hyaluronic acid products or otherwise known as Perlane, Restylane, Juvederm, Belotero, those are some of the different products that are in that class. The calcium hydroxyapatite product is otherwise known as Radiesse, so Radiesse and Juvederm and Perlane and all of those fillers work because the filler itself actually creates volume so you come in, you have a line or a fold or a shadow that you want to have it filled in, the product goes into that, creates volume, you walk out, you have your result and then the product slowly degrades over time where you have to repeat it.

Sculptra works a little bit differently from the standpoint that while the particle that you are putting in is absorbable, the particle itself is not what takes up and creates the volume. The volume is created because the body as it's absorbing the particle, actually lase down collagen and creates volume so the way Sculptra works is that you introduce the particle, the particle gets absorbed and then the volume that it produce happens over time, which is about a four to six week time period through the production of collagen that the body creates for itself.

The upside of this is that rather than having another foreign body in your system that's creating the volume, you are creating the volume by your body actually creating collagen. The downside of this, however, is that it takes multiple injection sessions to achieve that volume and there's a little bit of variability from patient to patient as far as how much collagen they'll get out of each injection session. On average, it takes three sessions to achieve the volume that would make most people satisfied with their outcome, although some people only need two and there's a certain subset of people that might need four to five depending on the volume loss that they have and the amount of collagen production they get from each treatment.

Now typically if somebody has an isolated area that they want volume correction like in nasolabial fold, the Marionette fold, we would recommend something like Juvederm or Radiesse to achieve that. Sculptra is typically recommended for people who have what we refer to as pan-facial volume loss or volume loss that's throughout the regions of the face and it's a great product to do that because it's economical. You can put a lot of product in and get a lot of bank for what you are spending to get that accomplished. You come in, you get the injection done, you can look in the mirror immediately and see about what we are trying to achieve but the next day when you wake up all that volume's going to be gone because it's just basically the water that the product has mixed with and over the course of about four to six weeks, you'll start to see some volume from the product and the body building collagen where you'll come in and get you second session and we repeat that, your third session and then at some point you'll look in the mirror and go, "gosh! This is looking not how I wanted to look" and so you'll basically be done and then the advantage of it is that the product lasts somewhere three and five years.

Typically by three years, you are starting to get some recurrent volume loss and come in but typically it's just doing a touch up or adding a little bit more, not necessarily a whole series of injections because all of it's gone away. Now the other advantage to Sculptra is that because you are building collagen, some of the areas of the face such as the cheek which are real difficult to introduce a very fine filler into, you can take the fine lines that present in this region and actually get some improvement in those because you are building overall collagen in the skin and not necessarily filling individual wrinkle.

The other place we use Sculptra, especially in place for people who can't tolerate downtime, so the other treatment that we utilize for pan-facial volume loss is doing things like a fat transfer. Now the advantage of a fat transfer is that it's a onetime procedure, that it has great longevity and you can use it everywhere. However, the disadvantage is that it is a surgical procedure and it does have recovery time. For people who have pan-facial loss who can't really tolerate downtime, Sculptra is a great alternative. If you are interested in learning more about fat transfer, there's another video on the site that I'll refer you to do that but if you are looking for no downtime, good longevity, building collagen procedure, Sculptra a great option.

Sculptra Helps Your Body Produce More Collagen, Naturally

Dr. Edward Buckingham explains how Sculptra, a product used for volume loss in the face, actually gives your body a boost to produce more collagen and rejuvenate your face.