The Vampire Facelift
THE VAMPIRE IN THE VAMPIRE FACELIFT
Vampires? Well this has caused quite a stir! Vampires to the rescue for your aging face. Vampires are talented, but can they do a facelift?. Interesting, indeed, because there are many who do believe that vampires really do exist. It is really not as bad as it sounds; actually, it is both more natural and less scary.
What it comes down to is a simple way to achieve facial rejuvenation without surgery. Your own blood is extracted and essentially utilized in a smart high tech manner for facial rejuvenation. Importantly, the material specifically is called “platelet rich plasma” or as it is commonly known as PRP. PRP is rich in growth factors and stem cells and other healing elements. PRP is developed by removing samples of blood from the individuals’ blood stream and then processing it by spinning the blood down and removing most of the blood elements except for the important platelet rich plasma component. PRP has been successful in the treatments for restorative procedures such that occur in orthopedics such as rejuvenation of tendons, ligaments, and joints. Recently, there are studies to rejuvenate a damaged heart as well. Why not rejuvenate our aging face? Many well know athletes such as Kobe Bryant have had PRP injections for acceleration of healing of orthopedic injuries. Research continues in a very positive light that it is quite promising in the athletic world as well as with the surgery world and wound healing.
When it comes to the vampire facelift, the PRP is injected in a manner similar to filler injections. There is a keen desire to reduce wrinkles during injection, particularly facial wrinkles and to enhance the youthfulness of the skin. The more material injected, the more the potential benefit. So, the answer to the question of what is a vampire facelift is that there really isn’t a vampire, but there is removal of blood from the individual patient by medical personnel, which is much more reasonable than using a vampire. The blood which is concentrated into PRP is essentially one’s own blood elements providing rejuvenation, which makes this a more desirable natural therapeutic treatment.
For best results, PRP is often times combined with fillers such as hyaluronic fillers such as Juvederm®, Restylane®, or Voluma®, which are some of the most commonly utilized fillers. See http://www.facialbeauty.com/spa-aesthetic-services/fillers for a resource. Fillers can be utilized by themselves and in the past, have commonly been utilized in conjunction with Botox treatment, but now, PRP plus fillers has become common and successful combination for facial rejuvenation.
Further, the vampire facelift is essentially not a true traditional “facelift” of course, as there is no true lifting or repositioning of soft tissue and sagging skin as comes with a surgical facelift. However, the word facelift suggests rejuvenation which valid in the case of a vampire facelift, as it can restore the youthfulness of an aging face.
Overall, PRP is an exciting restorative medicine medical technology whose limits have not yet been discovered in facial rejuvenation, or in other medical arenas. Certainly in the area of facial rejuvenation and facial plastic surgery, PRP has become a nice adjunct. Importantly, the overall success has been shown to be modest, but yet satisfactory and conceptually worthwhile since it is such a natural technique. Recent experience has suggested that many newer patients are attracted to this technique due to its natural autologous characteristic. This is a simple procedure that will provide simple and at best modest improvement. However, importantly in the future, there may be more research that will extend or enhance the benefit, and perhaps even more vampires will be coming to the forefront to achieve the goals that many of us have to look and feel better.
David Q Santos MD FACS
Facial Beauty
You only Younger
FacialBeauty.com
425-227-4000