Significant weight loss is a life-changing accomplishment, but it can sometimes leave behind loose skin and a hollow face. Thanks to facial fat rejuvenation, you no longer have to let that diminish your joy in your new body.
Double board-certified and fellowship-trained plastic surgeon Dr. Jonathan Grant offers an innovative way to use extra fat for good: Facial fat grafting.
Dr. Grant provides the highest standard of care in Western Washington, ensuring beautiful results tailored to your needs in our Mt Vernon practice.
This blog explains how weight loss affects the face and how fat grafting can help.
Why Does Weight Loss Affect Your Face?
Unfortunately, we can’t control exactly where the fat disappears as the pounds drop away — often, this leaves people who’ve lost a lot of weight with thin cheeks, mild skin sagging, and a lack of jawline definition.
After carrying some extra weight, the skin stretches out, losing its natural elasticity. So, when you lose weight, your skin can’t snap back quite as well as you’d like.
Facial fat grafting is an excellent solution to address these concerns, restoring lost volume and redefining your facial contours.
The Facial Fat Grafting Process
Facial fat grafting uses your body’s fat to rejuvenate your face. Here’s how it works:
- Liposuction: Dr. Grant removes unwanted fat from a donor site, like the belly or thighs. Anywhere you have lingering small pockets of fat can work as a donor area. He uses tumescent liposuction for this process, which isolates and firms the fat cells for easier extraction.
- Processing the Fat: The harvested fat is purified in a sterile surgical area using a centrifuge system to ensure the highest quality cells are used.
- Injection into the Face: Dr. Grant strategically injects the processed fat into areas that have lost volume.
Benefits of Facial Fat Grafting
The benefits of facial fat restoration are:
- Natural Results: Because the fat comes from your body, it settles seamlessly into your facial tissue.
- Permanent Improvement: While some fat cells are reabsorbed during healing, the remaining fat provides long-lasting results.
- Dual Benefits: Removes unwanted fat from other areas of your body while enhancing your face.
- Improved Skin Quality: Fat transfer can also rejuvenate the skin for improved texture and tone. Your fat contains stem cells — the body’s most powerful restorative cells — that promote healing and regeneration.
Is Facial Fat Grafting Right for You?
Facial fat grafting candidates should have enough excess fat in a donor area for liposuction. You also need to be in good general health and have realistic expectations about the results.
If facial fat grafting isn’t right for you, we offer other treatments that may help restore your appearance. For example, dermal fillers like Juvéderm® and Restylane® can improve volume for the short term (up to 18-24 months based on injection area). However, facial fat grafting lasts longer.
Facial Fat Grafting in Mt Vernon, WA
If you’re ready to rejuvenate your appearance after weight loss, call our office at 360-336-1947 in Mt Vernon, WA, to schedule your consultation.
