Patients are born usually with an excessive amount of fat and when we examine newborn babies, we observe not only body, but an access of facial fat that creates a plump appearance of the face. At times patients can, as they mature, can lose facial fat, or by heredity, can acquire certain conditions where there is an access amount of undesirable amount of facial fat.
In an instances where there is a loss of facial fat, there are procedures that can replenish the lost facial fat using a variety of materials. Some of these materials are the patients own fat, taken from another part of the body and transferred to the face. Other materials are synthetic and are inject able and some of these materials are such things as liquid silicone, and a material called Sculptra. An example of a patient who lost facial fat at a very early age is shown with the advantage of having replenished the lost fat by using the patient’s own fat. Other examples are of patients who have retained excess hereditary fat are shown. Some of these patients also have simultaneous skeletal or boney from work weaknesses of the facial bones and are ideal candidates for a combination of removal of excess facial fat simultaneous with building up the facial boney structure to convert unattractive appearances into a very dramatic improvement in an attempt to contour the face and create facial beauty.
These procedures are performed at Newport Beach Center for Surgery either under a general or an ivy sedation type of anesthesia. These are relatively simple procedures to perform. Contouring the cheek fat is a procedure that was discovered by Dr. Brennan some years ago and is a very popular procedure to eliminate excess fatty tissue of the mid face or cheek area. The excess fat of the area under the chin can also be contoured and removed through a procedure that is called liposuction or lipo-contouring. This is performed through a very tiny incision under the chin and the excess fat is removed through a liposuction technique so as to eliminate the excess fat and to create a better underlined contour. Examples are shown of a variety of patients who have been improved through a combination of these procedures.
The procedure is typically done on an outpatient basis. After a very short recovery period, the patient is discharged from the outpatient center, to the care of a responsible adult and the patient is seen in the office the morning after surgery for a routine check. Complications in this type of surgery are extremely rare and limited to possible bruising, swelling, delayed healing, and scar formation. Scar formation is extremely unusual for this type of surgery, for it is performed through incisions that are strategically placed in normal anatomical creases and never exceed one centimeter in length. As a result, the patients have the benefit of the surgery without any tell tale visible scar formation.
The results of this type of contouring, whether it is adding fat, removing fat, with or without facial implants, is a permanent result.