If you think that surgical procedures are the only way to make yourself look better and more youthful, you’ll be happy that you’re mistaken. Restoring and making your skin look better and younger is more achievable than ever. Through simple injectable options like fillers and neuromodulators, you’d be happy that you no longer need surgery to achieve the same results.
Injectable options are by far one of the most popular cosmetic treatments available—precisely since all you need are a few injections. There’s no need for you to endure scalpels, incisions, and prolonged recovery time. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the popularity of injectables treatments such as filers and neuromodulators has shot up in the past five years.
Plus, these options are reversible, so you can always have them effortlessly undone if you do not like them. While injectables’ results aren’t as dramatic, they still refreshen your face in a natural-looking manner. You can tackle visible signs of aging without committing yourself to surgical operations.
There are several aging components, but most people want to tackle reducing wrinkles, enhancing skin tone and texture, and volume loss—all of which can be tackled through injectables. If you have any one of these issues, fillers and neuromodulators are the right options for you.
Nothing stops you from trying injectable options unless the purse is somewhat tight. Injectables can apply to anyone, no matter their skin color and ethnicity—except if you have a chronic skin condition. You may want to consult with a doctor first before proceeding with injectable options.
As long as you are human, want to deal with signs of aging, are healthy, and have the resources to spend, why not? But before you go and try out one, you might want to know how each of these injectables works and see which suits your interests. Let’s first begin with neuromodulators.
Neuromodulators are among the oldest, tried, and tested injectable cosmetic treatments you can find. This treatment can effectively reduce the effects of wrinkles and fine lines semi-permanently. Neuromodulators are commonly called Botox, Dysport, and Xeomin.
While there are different kinds of neuromodulators, their fundamental aspects are very similar, and they even use the same base formula, which is botulinum toxin. This is the same toxin that can cause muscle paralysis.
You might be wondering why such a potent toxin that can cause muscle paralysis is used for cosmetic treatment? While the idea of a toxin for cosmetics sounds generous, wait till you hear that botulinum toxin also has medical applications. Neuromodulators with botulinum toxin can help with various medical conditions, including excessive sweating, chronic migraines, and hyperhidrosis.
The reason why such a toxin is used is precisely due to its paralytic effects. Other neurotoxins can cause paralysis but are not as potent nor long-lasting as botulinum toxins. Don’t fret; the potency of the cosmetic treatment is, of course, diluted. Even if there’s a very small chance of the injection going wrong, you won’t get paralyzed.
Neuromodulators with botulinum toxin can make wrinkles disappear for the next 3 to 4 months, and it can reach even up to 6 months for some people. You may need repeated touch-ups every few months or so to stay wrinkle-free.
Two types of wrinkles exist, dynamic and static wrinkles, and neuromodulators deal with static wrinkles. You have static wrinkles because of facial muscle wear, so whenever you move your facial muscles—making facial expressions—dynamic wrinkles appear. There’s no getting around these wrinkles since you always move them to make a facial expression.
Facial muscle wear doesn’t happen overnight. Due to a lifetime of making facial expressions, these muscles inevitably wear themselves out and develop dynamic wrinkles. To stop dynamic wrinkles, you’d have to freeze them in place, which is to say, paralyze them.
Your provider won’t freeze your entire face, making you look like a doll. They will carefully balance aesthetics and efficacy, ensuring that wrinkles are diminished while you still look natural.
On the other hand, you have fillers, which can also tackle wrinkles, improve recessed scars, and plump skin thinness by volumizing the skin. They make you look younger and more supple—it doesn’t just tackle wrinkles. Depending on your needs and the provider’s skills, the results are natural-looking but impactful.
Several dermal fillers exist, but the most commonly used dermal filler formula is hyaluronic acid, a naturally-occurring acid.
Hyaluronic acid is a sugar molecule naturally occurring in most living organisms, including us. This molecule effectively binds and attracts water, making it the perfect lubricant and shock observer in the body’s moving parts such as joints and tendons. Meanwhile, in your skin, hyaluronic acid also maintains moisture and is an essential compound in collagen production.
Our skin can naturally produce hyaluronic acid and maintain collagen production in our skin, keeping it healthy, supple, smooth, and vibrant. But due to aging, these productions naturally decline, causing wrinkles and other skin blemishes. Wrinkles due to aging are static wrinkles, not dynamic ones; they are not caused by muscle wear but are due to insufficient collagen and hyaluronic acid.
Collagen keeps your skin’s framework intact, but if collagen is insufficient, the skin above collapses, causing creases you know as wrinkles, skin thinning, and uneven skin texture. So the solution is simple, find something that can replace the collagen framework, which is what hyaluronic acid can do.
Once hyaluronic is injected, it can help replace the insufficient collagen framework. Hyaluronic attracts water, so it plumps the skin the same way collagen plumps it. At the same time, hyaluronic acid improves collagen synthesis, and so when the hyaluronic acid is absorbed into the body, there is now more collagen to keep your skin healthy.
Hyaluronic-based fillers can last up to 6 to 18 months.
You can see why injectables like fillers and neuromodulators are becoming the norm—both address signs of aging effectively without suffering the effects of surgical procedures. If you are interested in injectable treatments, contact and reach out to our clinic, Botiki Medspa. We offer services that curate skin and aging concerns.
