It's a common misconception that because dermal fillers are metabolized by the body over time (and therefore require touch-ups to maintain the effect), if you simply stop receiving injections, the filler will eventually dissolve on its own, but this is not true. Different fillers tend to dissolve naturally at different rates. Most hyaluronic acid fillers used on the lips, jaw and cheeks, including Juvederm and Restylane, are metabolized after 6 months to a year. Sculptra can continue to work on the face for up to two years.
In my medical practice, I dissolve the filler daily with an enzyme called hyaluronidase. The vast majority are for people who have had filler injected elsewhere. Why do I see so many people who need it? For several reasons. There are many providers who give injections with different skills and different backgrounds.
These include nurse injectors, doctors who engage in fillers as a “secondary job to their primary medical specialty” and injectors who don't have as much information about the types and techniques of fillings required around the eyes as an oculoplastic surgeon does. This will decrease in 48-72 hours, depending on the area and the amount of filler required to dissolve, however, it will take up to two weeks for the entire fill to completely dissolve and settle naturally. In this post I describe which fillers can be dissolved, how the enzyme that dissolves the filling works, and what data is available in the literature to talk about the safety of this procedure. Because the dissolution fill is “off the label”, there is no manufacturer's guide to how much to use to dissolve HA fillers.
Often, a small superficial lump on the lip can dissolve quickly, however, larger nodules or extended areas of integration of the filling break down into sections, where one may feel that the filling has disappeared in some areas, while still being seen in others. The term rheology refers to the properties of the filler and physicians choose fillers for different applications based on these properties. Before you receive your first filler injection, you may want to know how soon you'll see the results, how long your results will last, and how long it will take for the fillers to dissolve if you don't like the results in the end. Some injectors prefer to wait a few weeks after the dissolved filler has completely dissipated before re-injecting, but if inversion of the filler is simple, Dr.
Once the filler has completely dissolved and has settled after two weeks, you can inject the filler into the area again in a manner correct and subtle. Before and after dissolving the under-eye filler for a swollen area due to the wrong type of filler (Voluma) placed too superficially. In addition, the filler is quite soft and mobile for the first 48 hours after treatment, so there may be some compression of the filler around areas of greatest muscle contraction or if a patient swells much after treatment, this can also cause some compression or movement of the product. There are cases where it is necessary to dissolve the filler before surgery or to redo a refill with a clean slate.
