To say that injectable cosmetic treatments are popular completely understates the reality. In truth, they dominate the aesthetic treatment scene, adding up to about 10 million procedures annually, ten times more than the top five plastic surgeries combined. Botox® Cosmetic is perhaps the best-known injectable, but it’s far from the only one. Dermal fillers approach wrinkle and line reduction differently, providing plenty of options when you’re ready for a younger look.
Tiffany Su, MD, and her team at Skin Shop medSpa in Houston, Texas, take aesthetics seriously, knowing the connection between appearance and wellness. Choosing a medical practice for your cosmetic procedures assures safe, informed treatments. The Skin Shop medSpa team is highly experienced, making it practice the right choice for aesthetic enhancement. These experts help you sort through your best options, whether Botox, fillers or a combination of both.
Regardless of the root cause of your wrinkles, aging skin aggravates their appearance. As you age, you lose collagen, an important component of your skin’s middle layer. It nourishes and supports skin, giving you that smooth and youthful look you once took for granted. Your skin sags and becomes less elastic, revealing the flaws that start below the surface.
The muscles you count on to communicate expressions are one source of facial change. Muscles alternate between relaxed and contracted states. As you get older, some of these muscles stop relaxing completely. Instead of neutral expressions that mirror your feelings and moods, they remain partially contracted. This is especially a problem on your forehead, at the worry lines between your eyes, and the crow’s feet beside your eyes.
Botox is a neuromodulator strategically injected at key spots, allowing semi-contracted muscles to relax completely. Rather than carrying tension forward, these muscles smooth out, along with the skin over it. These dynamic wrinkles disappear as your injection takes effect.
Not every line or wrinkle stem from muscle contraction. Many of these result from aging skin sinking into voids in the support layers. There’s nothing active about the process. Your skin simply collapses into these nooks and hollows.
While dermal fillers are, like Botox, injected under the skin's surface, they approach the wrinkle issue passively, using gels based on substances already found in the body. Often chosen is hyaluronic acid, a substance that attracts and holds moisture for skin nourishment, among its many jobs in the body.
These filler gels even out the gaps in your skin’s support layers, propping up the surface skin while restoring lost volume. Once again, the skin on your face returns to a more even, smooth appearance.
Since Botox and fillers approach different jobs differently, using these treatments together could be an ideal way to meet your aesthetic goals. The best way to determine what’s right for you is to consult with the team at Skin Shop. Request your consultation online or call our Houston, Texas, office at 713-701-1717.
