Permanent Facial Fillers/Implants

Solid Silicone Implants – in contrast to liquid silicone fillers discussed above, solid silicone implants have had an excellent track record with minimal adverse reactions or side effects. These medical grade pieces of silicone are contoured to enhance the chin, cheeks and nose. When placed in a pocket under the soft tissue, against the bones of the face, these implants give excellent results.

Porous Polyethylene Implants (Porex) – are used in a similar fashion to silicone, but have some unique qualities. Because of its porous structure, tissue grows into the implant making it less mobile, that’s good most of the time. However if you decide to have the implant removed it makes it next to impossible to remove it. For most patients deciding on a particular implant, I always advise a silicone implant.

Why would someone choose to have one of these implants?

In contrast to the temporary fillers described above, enhancement of the chin, cheek or nose is designed to alter a persons appearance as opposed to rejuvenate it.

Chin augmentation is used to correct a weak or small chin (described as when the tip of your chin projects forward less than base of your nose on side view). As a result of the enlargement of the chin, several key relationships on the face change. The size of the nose will appear smaller. If you are one of the many people wthl a weak chin, a chin enlargement will make the nose appear smaller. Another benefit is for those with a poorly defined neck – this is when the angle between your neck and lower jaw is less than ninety degrees. As the chin is enhanced the neck will appear better defined. It is for these reasons that chin implants are a very popular procedure.

Cheek augmentation is used to alter the face in several ways. First, for patients with long, narrow, rectangular faces, cheek implants can be used to add width to the middle part of the face, thereby making the face appear more oval. For patients with flat cheeks, just below the eyes , cheek implants can be added to create a more cherubic,fuller, three dimensional face.

Nose implants – can be used to reconstruct noses that are depressed because of trauma or previous surgery.Some ethnic noses have a deficiency of projection of the middle of the nose or at the base of the nose. Nasal implants can be used to build up a nose with some loss of tissue at its base..