My Face Seems Round and Too Big One Week After Facial Fat Transfer, Is It Swelling? (photo)

It is pretty normal to be bruised, swollen, and generally look like a monster for the first two weeks after a full face far graft surgery.  By week 6 or 8 you will generally be much much happier with the result and then by month 4 you will be telling the doctor that none of the fat survived (although that would also not be correct).  So try to relax and heal from your recent surgery.

You certainly will have a significant amount of normal swelling this soon after surgery. This should dissipate with time so I wouldn't have anyone try to remove fat this early. Also, not all of the fat grafted survives so you'll find that the ultimate result will be much less than your current appearance.

In these early stages of healing, sleeping with your head elevated at least 30 degrees can help with bringing the swelling down.

Give yourself time for the swelling to go down and the expected volume resorption to occur. It is natural to lose about 50% of the volume that was initially injected in the first several weeks following the procedure. It is common to overcorrect in anticipation of the natural loss of the volume that is being injected. That along with the fact that much of the fat is being deposited under the muscle on top of bone creates a lot of swelling. I would give yourself about 4-5 months before you have a more accurate picture of what your final appearance will be.

Dear patient

Your appearance is to be expected so soon after surgery. I would suggest that the final appearance would be at 12 months post surgery when you will no longer lose any grafted fat.

At just one week after your facial fat injections, you look exactly like what one would expect...full and round. And this is how you should look as the injections do cause some swelling and the amount of fat injected is always more than what will eventually survive. The time to critique your results will be 3 or 4 months after surgery when the final fat survival will be evident.

I promise that you are swollen just 1 week after facial fat grafting. It is too soon to know how much is swelling and how much is fat. Share your concerns with your surgeon. Actually, you don't look bad at this time. It will improve.

Although I prefer to augment the cheeks with cheek implants or fillers like Perlane or radiuses...this question needs to be addressed to the MD that did your fat transfer as only he/she knows where and how much fat was injected.