Usually, it takes around 20 units between the eyes and from 8-30 units in the forehead. For the crowsfeet the average is 8 units on each side. Bunny lines around the nose usually take around 2-8 units. For the lip lines, 2-6 units. For downturned mouths injections in the lower lip / chin area usually requires 4-8 units. Basically, you just have to multiply the number of units by the cost per unit to get what approximately you’ll be expecting to pay. Botox typically costs around 10-16 dollars per unit. When you use more botox the cost is usually less and doctors usually have a sliding scale and the price goes down with more units used per client.
How much does botox cost?
June 24th, 2009Extra skin between the eyes and solutions to it
June 24th, 2009This extra skin is a consequence of reductive type of surgeries. When you age, you lose volume and this contributes to the extra skin. Upper eyelifts / blepharoplasties take away skin and that usually leaves skin elsewhere. It won’t end. A better way to rejuvenate the upper eyelids is to volumize the whole area. This will require fat grafting and on occassion facial implants.
The extra skin between your eyebrows is a normal part of aging that can be accentuated with reductive type of procedures. This area may need to be filled in to plump up the deflated state. This will fill in some of the wrinkles and excess. There are doctors out there that can think outside of the box to give people a more younger and natural appearance.
Fat injections are another fantastic way to fill in loss volume. The YoungVitalizer is my technique of volumizing the face using a persons own tissues to volumize the face. This amazing technique can be used between the brows as well. I incorporate my internationally acclaimed theory on facial beauty with the YoungVitalizer to get the best and more natural results.
Botox and shaping the Jawline through injecting the Masseter Muscle
June 24th, 2009I usually use 20 to 30 units of botox in the masseter muscle to decrease the prominence of it. The results can be that the muscle becomes less prominent and jaw area become less pronounced and the lower third of your face become more slimmer. Botox in the masseter muscle has been shown to last longer when used in this area.
Instead of 3-6 months, people have benefits for up to 6-9 months in some studies. The charge for botox ranges from 9-16 dollars per unit. The other way to shape the lower third is to take out bone through the mouth which is a much more involved procedure.
Age spots and how to prevent them
June 24th, 2009Avoiding sun is essential and other options can help. What you can do to lessen them is to try a combination of Retin A, hydroquinone, and hydrocortisone to prevent further darkening of your skin and actually make the sun spots lighter.
During this application, you can use a number of different things to make the spots better such as intense pulse light, lasers, Active FX /CO2 resurfacing, and microdermabrasion. Some of these treatments can remove some superficial layers like microderm and superficial peels and help the topical medications go deeper to work on the cells and decrease the pigmentation.
More significant resurfacing will also help reduce the spots by removing them like co2, and deeper chemical peels. IPL can treat deeper pigments that even the co2 laser may not be able to reach. Sunscreen is essential that blocks uva and uvb light. And, physical blocks such as hats, and different screens during driving and at home can physically block sun from reaching your skin.
Age spots can be reduced through many means
June 24th, 2009
Age spots can be removed and reduced with lasers and intense pulse light. CO2 resurfacing can take most sun spots away that are at a certain depth. Deeper spots can be removed with different lasers such as ND YAG, Intense pulse light, alexandrite, ruby lasers.
CO2 resurfacing has some down time and you might need up to a week or more to recover. The other lasers have little downtime but may need multiple treatments and sometimes does not completely remove the spots. One thing to realize is that these spots can come back if you don’t take care of your skin. For less invasive approaches, sunblock that blocks uvA, and uvB, topicals like retin A, hydroquinone and hydrocortisone can help but are less effective and take a long time to see results.
Chemical peelscan also help in different degrees. The optimal treatment will different depending on what type of skin type you have, whether you are Caucasian, Asian, African american etc.
Age spots, Melasma and Ethnic Skin
June 24th, 2009Age spots and melasma can be treated althought it is a difficult thing to treat. IPL’s, and all types of resurfacing can improve the appearance of these conditions. IPL treatment can affect deeper pigment. Sometimes the cooling will protect the more superficial pigment and hence this can stay within the skin and also prevent penetration of other lasers.
Sometimes you need to combine very superficial peels or resurfacing to the mix to improve more superficial pigmentation. Very light co2 resurfacing can also be used to decrease the more superficial pigmentation. Also, light peels and even microdermabrasion can help your skin pigmentation by allowing the topicals you are using to penetrate deeper into the skin to affect the cells that are dispensing the pigment into the surrounding skin cells. I would also add a topical steroid to the mix of your other topicals. Stronger topicals can also be used as well to help the situation.
Long term treatment of depressed scars and options
June 24th, 2009
You can have long term improvement in some acne scars. For depressed scars, a strong chemical peel using a toothpick can help raise the depressed scars/pock marks. Also, this can be done with the co2 laser.
The other way to improve those scars is just to incise them and remove the scars and carry out a reclosure. This new incision can then be resurfaced with a chemical peel or laser to improve the appearance of the new incision. This can be done all throughout your face. It takes a lot of work but it can be done and a noticeable improvement can be accomplished.
Here is a live demonstration video of an Acne Treatment Procedure.
Thanks for reading,
Dr Young
Dr Youngspecializes in Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington
Fillers and their use in depressed scars
June 24th, 2009Fillers are a temporary way to fill in depressed scars. Restylane can last about 6-9months, and radiesse 1-2 years. Fat can be another option to fill in scars and can last many years like 10 years give or take a few years when done right. In my experience, using temporary fillers gives one only modest results and most people are left desiring more improvement. Other ways to lift the scar include subscision technique where you use a needle to lift the scar up so that it sits level with the plane of the rest of the skin. This can be done in conjunction with laser resurfacing. Other ways to lift up the scar is to use biopsy instruments to incise around the depressed scar and this is then lifted up into the right plane. Another way is to cut the scar out and follow this with resurfacing.
There are multiple options to improve your acne scars
June 22nd, 2009
There are multiple ways to improve your scarring from acne (Dr Young from Seattle Washington). You want the simple answer. Yes, there are a lot of lasers out there but most simply put lasers are used to take away the top layers of the skin to remove the scarring and then what happens is that your skin cells deep within your hair follicles grow out and “resurface” your face and skin. The newer fractional lasers essentially manipulate your skin deeper to cause skin tightening to help improve the wrinkles such as Fraxel and Deep FX. Lasers are just part of the treatment. You want to either have a co2 or erbium laser. Co2 allows more aggressive treatment.
All of the other names are just company names for either the co2 or erbium. Just ask your doctor to tell you what laser it is and the most important is knowing the wavelength and the name that is associated with the wavelength. Sometimes it requires other procedures for certain type of scars. Some of your more depressed scars require surgical excision or subscision where you use a needle to elevate the depressed scars so that the depressed area is more level with the rest of the skin. At times, this entails cutting around the whole part of the depressed scars to allow it to elevate. Laser resurfacing after this helps with the healing. Here is a live demonstration video of an Acne Treatment Procedure.
Thanks for reading,
Dr Young
Dr Young specializes in Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington
Fraxel Repair and Acne Improvement
June 22nd, 2009This discussion was directed at a question on why fractionated lasers haven’t worked on a particular person’s acne scars. Fractioned lasers will gradually improve your scars. It also depends on how your scars look. Some scars need to be excised first before they actually can get really better. Other times require subcision techniques which require you to use different instruments, such as punch biopsies or needles to elevate depressed scars so that they match the surrounding levels of the skin. You may need more significant approaches for the scars such as co2 resurfacing as well to get the results that you really want. Also, some scars require excision and closure and further resurfacing to improve them. Here is a live demonstration of my use of a fraxel co2 laser.
Thanks for reading,
Dr Young
Dr Youngspecializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington