First Experience with Fillers - Walnut Creek, CA

I found a new injector after browsing on realself; her name is Cynthia Silorio at EliteMD in Danville. They have a very nice facility, clean and modern equipment. It was a different experience... at first I showed her the lopsidedness, she was a bit hesitant at first and suggested I go back to my first provider but I told her I had been 3 times already and needed someone else to have a fresh eye... She saw the problem and set expectations, and the lopsidedness is fixed! She also injected some under the corner of the left side of my mouth to lift it up. Once she did that she had a half syringe of Juve left over and offered to even out the job on my lips; she carefully injected to create the 'white roll' that was missing on the bottom, and evened out the top lip. They look great now! After the injections were done they gave me this Arnica product called Sinecchi; you take a capsule immediately after the injections and then 3 more every 6 hours. I liked this a lot better than the granules. She remarked that I was a 'bruiser' so not much I could do except take the Arnica and use my Vitamin K cream twice a day.

I want to talk about the use of Lidocaine in the injection protocol. My first provider injected lidocaine on all the sites before the filler; my second injector did not. Her rationale is that Juvederm already has lidocaine in the filler mix; and also extra injections mean extra risk of bruises and believe me I would much rather take a millisecond of pain while the needle is inserted than an extra bruise to nurse over a week or two, not to mention the risk of discoloration... well she is right; my face and lips only had slight swelling, just 2 small bruises on my face and my lips are a little bruised. This compared to the Frankenstein face I had the first time, not to mention the icky side effects I had from all the lidocaine that was shot into my face. I will never accept lidocaine injections again, they aren't necessary for me and I will happily trade a little pain for less bruises. This completes my Juvederm review! Hopefully it will help others who are considering this treatment.

I was excited to have this appointment happen and hopeful it would be my last round of fillers for this first experience. I have some hollowing around my nose that creates shadows I used to always attempt to minimize with concealer. At my last appointment she injected a lot of filler around my left nostril and it had a definite 'lifting' effect which I was really happy with. This time I showed her what she did on the left side and asked her to even it out on the right side of my nose, I also asked her to finish off my marionnette lines properly as the sagging was still apparent when you looked at my profile. She felt around the filler on my left side of my nostril and seemed to understand perfectly what I wanted. Well it didn't go so well... she injected another bunch of filler on my left side (which I was perfectly happy with to begin) and hardly touched the right side ?!? Then she filled my right marionette and barely touched the left one; at mid point she let me have a mirror and I told her to add more on the left side, she said uh-huh and ignored me. Now my nose is even more lopsided than before (see pic). She abruptly decided she was finished and left the room without handing me a mirror to get an approval. I could see it right away that my nose was lopsided and my left marionette was still apparent I don't understand why she didn't. Now I am left with lopsided nostrils, a hollow around my right nostril only and my left marionette that still needs to be touched up. I made an appointment for a laser facial in a month and she said oh we can see if you need a touch up then. Well I can tell you that I am fed up of going through the healing process and managing bruises (I bruised again this time I have concealer in this pic it's actually very purple). I don't think it's appropriate to inject a bit at a time and have to go through the process multiple times; if I need 2 syringes just say so and do it now... or at least let me choose to add more if I'm not happy... I never got the choice. I am going to find another injector to fix my lopsided nostril and left marionette hopefully next week, I need to get this over with.

It's been 4 weeks and all swelling/pain/stiffness is gone except for a small spot in the left tear trough, near the nose; it's not constant pain, only when I press down on it. The 'swelling' near my lip on the left side is almost gone, I am ok with how it looks at the moment. The discoloration through the tear troughs has lightened a bit and pretty much disappears under makeup. I can smile normally and I don't feel the need to massage any of the filler. It's a bit strange though; sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and I feel it is just perfect, and other times I can see a little drooping around the mouth still. Has anyone else experienced this, is it the filler swelling at certain times of the day? This will be my final update for these rounds; I will update again after my next follow-up derm appointment on 2/27.