Glad I Did It - Miami, FL

I feel that the Radiesse has done well in my NL folds. The creases are not back yet. But it seems that most of the volume in my cheeks it created is now gone. This is the point where the gel carrier dissipated and collegen should have started taking over. My body tends to absorb fillers more quickly than many other people (gift/curse situation if you ask me) so I think I'm going to try the Voluma in a few months. Next week I go for Juvederm in my lips and sides of my mouth. I hope it lasts longer than a couple months. This is way to expensive!

I'm 36 and have been teetering with the same 15lbs for many years. Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down and sometimes I'm in the middle trying to lose it. My weight shows in my face. Not a fat face, but it's the first place people can tell if I'm losing/gaining. My nasolabial folds have been increasing over the years (I noticed them at 25). Tried Juvederm while living in LA. I went to Tattoo MD in W. Hollywood for tattoo removal and read up on Juvederm so I tried it. It didn't last for me. So she suggested I try Radiesse and I did the research and decided to try it. It worked for me and lasted around 10 months or so. That was 5 years ago. So I live in Miami now and was tired of looking at the creases in my face. I now go to Tribeca Medaesthetics (Dr Shapiro) for tattoo removal (the BEST place I have ever been for removal, hands down) and decided I want to try Radiesse again. All of the horror stories on this site made me leary and rather nervous to try this again so I asked him 100 questions before we did it. He actually suggested we do my cheeks and just a little in the folds because when you lift the cheek it lifts the fold. I figured he is the Dr and I do trust him because he has taken very good care of me so far.
So we went with it. One syringe in each side of my face. It felt weird to have it put in my cheeks and you can almost feel it going in but it was not painful because he put lidocane in the syringe. It was Friday and now it's Sunday so I can tell you that the 1st day I was a little swollen and kept looking in the mirror to get used to it. But my husband didn't say anything (I didn't tell him I was doing it) besides how beautiful he thought I looked that day. I bought Arnica (anti bruising/swelling gel) as suggested by the receptionist and had a little yellowing in my left cheek but it's gone now. Now that the swelling is gone I like the look and may go for a touch up in a few months for 2 reasons: you can't really know what the effect is going to be for at least a couple of months because you have to wait for your body to start to produce the collagen from the Radiesse. And because it will last longer if you do the touch up earlier. Well..I also liked the way it looked when it was a little swollen because it took the attention away from my lower cheek/jowl region and gave me a really nice smile. He was spot on by telling me to do my cheeks to get rid of the folds, we needed very little in the NL folds. He used a very small needle there and "feathered" it in because it's an area that we use all of the time and if you put too much in there it will look as though you gained weight. He emphasized that we can always do more, and that going with less to start is the best way. I'm in marketing and he knows this and suggested we try Juvederm in the lips and sides of the mouth to bring them up as they are starting to turn down some. I'm going for my post radiesse appt this week and may try the Juvederm. Has anyone on here tried it in the corners of the mouth for this? I would love to hear back about your experience as well.