Cynthia Cote, MD

I've been to this doctor twice for Botox, and each time had a great experience. Treatment areas: forehead, 11's, crowfeet, Anguli Oris muscle and bunny lines. Office was comfortable, and staff were very welcoming. I will continue to come here for my touch ups.

After doing my research on Bellafill and Dr. Côte, I decided to jump in with both feet. I also looked at the money I had spent on temporary fillers. Yikes. While a little on the expensive side, I figured that if Bellafill could give me what I was looking for on a permanent basis, I was worth it! I had Bellafill injected in my temples to begin and plan on getting more in my mid face.

I had silikon 1000 a few years ago and for the most part liked it fine, wanted some more fullness so asked my doctor about getting juvederm. I had called ahead to double check if that would be something I could use having already had silikon and was assured it was fine. When it came time for my appointment Dr. Cote and her associate Gloria spent a lot of time explaining why they thought juvaderm was a bad choice for me and that I should get bellafill instead. I questioned this but they were very convincing. They told me juvaderm was temporary and might not "play nice" with the silikon I already had. Also because it was temporary and you had to get repeated injections it caused scarring in the lips and so a permanent filler would be best. I said okay. She said because it was permanent she might want me to move my lips and smile etc as they made adjustments and so it was agreed not to numb me in any way. Well I had not eaten yet that morning and between the pain and low blood sugar had a vaso vagal reaction. I awoke from passing out (maybe a couple minutes) and the associate Gloria was watching after me while my Dr. treated another patient in the next room. Dr. Cote came back and they finished my lips, I IMMEDIATELY had a HUGE bubble in my lower lip that was very obvious. I had to point it out and ask what it was and they exclaimed how odd, we didn't even put filler there! They said it was swelling and to give it a few days. Well a few days passed and it got bigger, and was obviously filled with fluid. I went back twice in one week and they filled it with saline trying to "burst" what they claimed was a cyst. I did a ton of research and realized it was not a "cyst" per say but a mucocele. Now my getting a mucocele I believe was just bad luck, the needle caused it but people get them from getting hit in the mouth too. However, the fact that they didn't know WHAT it was until I explained it, and tried to blow it up with saline 2x (totally ineffective for a mucocele, just caused me bruising and I think scar tissue) is not good. Originally they were going to send me to an ENT to treat it, at my expense mind you, but I found a home remedy for it and did it myself. (Not for the faint, you basically burn a hole in your lip) Now Dr. Cote was more then willing to try and treat it after I sent her a bunch of links from medical pages for how it is done and I appreciate that but I had already burned it by then. While assessing the mucocele issue during follow up I pointed out my lips were uneven. While I was passed out and recovering one side had swelled so much she erred on the side of caution (a good thing IMO) when doing the remaining side so it was a bit underfilled. She comped another syringe of bellafill to even it out. After all this (having been so concerned with the GIANT bubble in my lip) I finally brought up that I had weird little squiggly lines in my top lip just under the skin. These were not there before she put filler in me and I find them very noticeable especially with lipstick on now. Looks like I have a scar or blister. Dr.Cote agrees they were not there before and knows she caused them but she can't explain what it is! She said maybe inflammation and we have given it time but it hasn't changed AT ALL. She offered for me to come in and she can camouflage around the bumps with collagen but that is so temporary and does not fix the problem, or she can try and dissolve them but that can dissolve my own tissue as well and to be honest I am scared to have her do any more work on my lips since I don't think she has enough experience. I doubt everything I was told about her being an expert injector with years of experience. It seemed the whole time like the associate Gloria was teaching her how to do the lips with Bellafill and I read later on yelp that another person had a bad experience with Gloria pushing Bellafill at a different Dr.s Office so I almost wonder if Gloria might actually work for the makers of Bellafill traveling from one doc to another teaching them how to use it??? Anyway, now I have scarring and hard lumps from the mucocele in my bottom lip, and weird white bumps and squiggles in my top lip from ??? something unknown. I truly don't think this was because of the silikon or the bellafill, I really think it was Dr. Cotes lack of experience and bad luck. She is the nicest most lovely Dr. but I wouldn't recommend her. In fact the rest of my complementary syringe is still there for me to use in either lips or face but I am too scared to have her do any more work on me. The reason I say not sure instead of no is if I had gone to another Dr. I might love my lips right now.