Are Facial Dermal Fillers Safe?

There have been some reports recently of dermal fillers injections that have gone wrong. As these injections are growing in popularity – they’re now almost as popular as Botox – it seems the right time to lift the lid on fillers and give you some tips to avoid potential pitfalls.

It’s a fact that our facial structures loose volume as the years go by. As a result the skin develops ever deeper lines and starts to sag, changing the shape of the face as ‘jowls’ appear. Fillers can restore some of the lost volume and so reduce the appearance of lines and give a more youthful shape to your face. When done expertly the effects are quite impressive and it’s easy to see why the procedure is becoming so popular.

So what are the problems that are filling up the column inches in our newspapers and magazines? The first thing to be aware of is that fillers fall in to 2 categories: temporary fillers and permanent fillers. Permanent fillers are relatively new and seem to be where the main problems are today.

Temporary fillers are made of collagen or hyaluronic acid, both of which are natural substances which can be reabsorbed by the body. This means their effect wears off after a year or so, which might sound like a problem, but this means that any ill effects are likely to be temporary and, in fact, the filler can be dissolved or removed if anything goes wrong. The only drawback of temporary fillers is that the client will need to attend for top-up injections periodically.

Permanent fillers are also based on collagen or hyaluronic acid but include synthetic particles and gels that won’t be absorbed by the body. This ‘breakthough’ may sound appealing but there are concerns that the client will be left with an unnatural look when the shape of their face changes over the coming years.

There are also concerns that not enough is known about the long term effects of some of the newer brands. In the US , there are only 6 fillers approved by the Foods and Drug Administration (FDA), who carry out stringent long term tests before a product is brought to market. By comparison, there are over 100 in the UK with its much more lax standards. It has even been claimed by Which? magazine that the Americans are using us as a testing ground before allowing products to be used in the US .

And then there’s the question of the training and skill of the practitioner. Because of the lack of regulation, anyone can set themselves up to inject fillers, even the permanent ones, into unsuspecting customers. The Department of Health has looked into tighter regulation through the Healthcare Commission. However it changed its mind last year and has asked for voluntary self regulation from the industry itself, with this new approach being led by the private health industry’s body the Independent Healthcare Advisory Services (IHAS). IHAS has now said that there’s little that can be done unless another agency, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), classifies fillers as medicines. This would mean they would be regulated, like Botox, under they Medicines Act and would only be administered by licensed medical practitioners. At the moment though there doesn’t seem to be any political will to make this happen so it’s very much a case of ‘buyer beware’*. Here are our tips for ensuring a successful fillers procedure:

Have the procedure carried out by a doctor
Ask to see their training certificates and testimonials from happy clients
Find out whether the filler is temporary or permanent. Question whether you really need a permanent filler.
You might be told the filler is ‘semi-permanent’. Find out what this means and why it’s being recommended.
Ask who manufactures the filler. Big names such as Allergan, Bio-Form, Q-Med and sanofi-aventis will have had extensive trials.

*Filler procedures at SkinGenesis clinics are carried out by Dr Nyree Whitley and Dr Bret Claxton. They use Allergan, Bio-Form and Q-Med products.