Mona S. Foad, MD

Volbella is a hylauronic acid filler using the Vycross technology from Allergan.  Swelling occurs because hyaluronic acid attracts water producing swelling.  I always make patients aware that they may have some swelling in the first 24 hours, and that this should go down.  If your swelling is concerning, I would reach out to your health care provider to be seen and you may consider oral prednisone to decrease immediate swelling. If you are not satisfied with your final results, you can also have the filler dissolved with hyaluronidase, an enzyme that dissolves the hyaluronic acid.  I hope this helps!

Dr. Mona

You can get great results correcting pigmentation with your everyday skin care. Epiquin Micro is a prescription skin lightening cream with 4% hydroquinone that we offer in our office. Epiquin will even skin tone with a bit of retinol and antioxidants Vitamin C and E with twice daily use. Another great option is a series of chemical peels for quick results to even skin tone and texure, and even give your skin a collagen boost. 

There are a lot of ways to combat the signs of aging these days.  In order to understand what to use we have to understand how and why we age.  Traditional face or neck lifts can help with the laxity that we develop with time due to loss of collagen and elastin, as well as loss of our facial framework including bone loss, cartilage and fat loss in the face.  

Unfortunately, surgical lifts do not address textural change or pigment change due to sun damage and time.  Options to address this crepiness and pigment damage include skin care, peels, non ablative fractional resurfacing such as Fraxel, ablative resurfacing such as CO2 or erbium lasers or the no downtime procedure called Thermage, which helps to tighten skin laxity and can improve crepiness by stimulating collagen production.  Talk with your doctor about what options are best for you.

Latisse is FDA approved for hypotrichosis of eyelashes, otherwise known as short or sparse eyelashes. To understand how it works you should understand that hair has 3 phases: a growing phase, a resting phase and a falling out phase.  Latisse helps to lengthen the anagan phase (growing phase) of eyelashes so that instead of falling out after a short growth phase, eyelashes will continue to grow before falling out.  I have seen this work very well in chemotherapy patients.  What a wonderful option to offer patients. 

We do bith treatments in the office and do them together. I usually do the DeepFX first to target deeper wrinkles, crepiness on the cheeks and areas of concern such as lines around the mouth or eyes.

The Deep FX goes deeper and helps stimulate collagen so your results will continue to improve. I then usually go over the whole face with the Active FX to help with concerns such as pigment, fine lines and to give he face an overall healthier appearance. By adding the Deep FX to your treatment you will add 2-4 days additional healing, but your results will be better and longer lasting.

Accutane is a vitamin A derivative that is a very effective treatment for severe cystic acne or for people who are not responding to other traditional acne medications. The typical course is between 5-6 months, requiring monthly visits to your dermatologist.

Side effects include dry lips, dry skin, dry eyes, muscle aches and pains, nose bleeds and risk of increased triglyceride or liver enzymes, sp proper monitoring is important. Although the most significant side effect may be the risk of sever birth defects, requiring women to use 2 methods of birth control, within one normal menstrual cycle long term risks of birth defects are not an issue. The FDA instituted the IPledge program within the last few years to more closely monitor this medication