I'm a 45 year old woman. My doctor recommended 16 vials of sculptra for me to get best results. Is this normal or excessive?

Hi Cstecki.  As a rule of thumb, we use something called "Decade Dosing".  That means if you are in your 40's you are in the 5th decade of life and generally would need about 5 Sculptra vials, one for each decade.  With that said, thin patients may require more, but we have never used more than 6 vials of Sculptra in a 6 month period for any of our patients at any age.  16 sounds very high.  To see our Sculptra results for our Orange, CA patients, click on the link below.  

Sculptra is a great product that can diffusely add volume to the face over a series of treatments. I think 16 vials seems somewhat excessive. I will typically recommend, on average, 1 vial per decade of life as the total amount of vials you need to get a reasonable result. In your case, without seeing your face, you would be between 4 and 5 vials spaced over 2-3 treatments. If you have had 5 vials over a 2 month period, you should be seeing some result at this point. I hope this helps.