Facial Fillers – Future Forward by Dr David Loh

For the price of an economy-class ticket to London, you could get yourself a fresher and more youthful-looking face if you were to visited your aesthetic doctor and had some Botox and fillers injected into your face. That is something we all know. But what most people do not know is how much advancement the field of Facial Aesthetics has undergone in the last 3-4 years. If you think that aesthetic doctor will simply stick some fillers into your naso-labial folds (the folds beside your nose), then you are quite mistaken. A whole new thinking and approach to rejuvenating faces has taken hold in the world of Aesthetic Medicine.

“Fillers have become an art form where doctors sculpt and contour faces to enhance beauty in already beautiful faces. Mastering this will distinguish you from the rest of the pack.” This was the message that Dr David Loh had delivered to 40 of the more advanced injectors from Singapore and Malaysia at The Botox and Fillers Masterclass, which was held in Kuala Lumpur in May 2012. Dr David Loh is better known as the Allergan appointed trainer for Botox and Fillers since 2006.

Traditionally, fillers were used only to make lines shallower. These days however, they can be used to make faces that are flat or broad appear shapelier; or faces that are angular to appear softer. Small chins can be made more prominent; and flat noses more projected. And the list goes on. Even the approach to treating lines has changed. Fillers are used to prop up skin in surrounding areas to stretch out lines like the naso-labial folds without ever injecting into the fold itself. This is the latest approach to using fillers as a sculptor’s tool which new doctors are taught these days. And where fillers ere once a dull and boring cousin of Botox, it now takes center-stage as the most impressive and the most instantly gratifying aspect of any encounter with aesthetic doctors.  Not surprisingly, it has had a major revival in popularity in the last 3-4 years.

Fillers rank a close second after Botox as the most popularly requested non-surgical aesthetic treatment on the face. Some 200 million treatments were carried out in the USA alone last year. If you take into consideration Europe, South America, China and the rest of Asia, the number would be phenomenally astronomical.

One could erase 10 years off the face without even missing a day’s work and without any discernable marks. The lunchtime aesthetic makeover was born, thanks in a large part to fillers and botox. “The worldwide aesthetic enhancement industry is now a serious multi-billion dollar industry and fillers have always been a crucial part of this phenomenon, although in recent years, it has as taken on a much more prominent role with the new techniques of facial sculpting and contouring. These new techniques are now the core curriculum for the training of new doctors,” explains Dr David Loh.

But the journey of fillers does not end here. While techniques will no doubt continue to improve, materials will also become longer-lasting and also safer. Today, aesthetic doctors are sculpting faces and shaping skin in such a way that lines stretch out even without a single drop of filler material injected into it. “In the future,” Dr Loh added, “we will probably be looking at how to predict the effects of aging and using fillers to prevent it altogether. Already, studies have shown that fillers alone can stimulate the production of collagen just by their presence in the skin and stretching the skin.”

The future for fillers in Aesthetic Medicine is promising and exciting. The industry is witnessing the beginning to an end of all the problems with inferior quality products that have plagued filler facial enhancements in the past.  Fillers are seeing a revival because of the new approaches to sculpting and contouring faces. Undoubtedly, newer and better injection techniques will continue to be introduced in the future, which will transform faces more naturally and for a longer time.