Restylane™

What is Restylane?
RESTYLANE® is a gel that is injected into the skin in order to add volume to lips and lift up wrinkles and folds. RESTYLANE® consists of hyaluronic acid, which is a natural substance already present in your body. Once in the skin, RESTYLANE® works by creating volume. Some dermal fillers are derived from animal substances. The hyaluronic acid in RESTYLANE® is non-animal.

How is a treatment performed?
During treatment, the crystal-clear RESTYLANE® gel is injected into the skin in tiny amounts with a very fine needle. The gel produces volume under the wrinkle, which is lifted up and smoothed out. When enhancing lips or facial contours, RESTYLANE® adds volume and shape to the treated area.

What causes lines and wrinkles?
The dermis is the skin layer responsible for the skin's elasticity and resilience. The dermis functions as the skin's support structure, containing collagen, elastin and biological substances whose main function is to hold moisture in the skin. One of these substances is hyaluronic acid. As we age, the amount of collagen and hyaluronic acid decreases and the elastic elastin fibres become looser and tend to gather in formations, creating wrinkles and folds. However, age is not the only cause of wrinkles. Smoking, sun bathing and pollution damage the structure of your skin, irrespective of age.

How long will the treatment session take?
Treatment with RESTYLANE® is a very quick and easy process. As no pre-test is needed, the treatment can be carried out immediately. A treatment generally takes 30 minutes. The time differs somewhat, depending on the correction you wish to have performed.

What can be treated?
RESTYLANE® can be used for smoothing out folds and wrinkles, lip enhancements and shaping facial contours. The most common areas are the glabellar lines (between the eyebrows), the nasolabial folds (from the root of the nose to the angle of the mouth) and the lips, altough other sites can also be treated. Very superficial or very deep wrinkles may be difficult to correct. Please consult your physician for an assessment.

Does it hurt?
Most people find the injections relatively painless. They may prick a little. If you like, a topical anaesthetic can be applied to the area being treated prior to your procedure. When enhancing the lips, alocal anaesthetic injection is often given.

How soon will I see the results?
The results can be seen immediately.

What will I look like after the treatment?
Immediately after the treatment, you can expect slight redness, swelling, tenderness or an itching sensation in the treated area. This is a normal result of the injection. The discomfort is temporary and generally disappears in a few days. After a lip treatment, the lips may become swollen and look somewhat uneven. This can persist for a few days (up to a week). If the discomfort continues, please contact your physician.

Can RESTYLANE® be removed?
No However, RESTYLANE® dissolves naturally with time. If you feel uncertain about the desired result, you can choose to have the treatment done in steps on different occasions.

Can RESTYLANE® replace surgical procedures?
No. However, RESTYLANE® is sometimes used in conjunction with surgery to fill out wrinkles that cannot be removed by surgery.

What should I think about before I have a RESTYLANE® treatment?
Look at yourself in the mirror and think about the result you are expecting. Try to convey your expectations to your physician before the treatment and ask him or her what is possible.

Are there any side-effects?
The rate of reactions to RESTYLANE® is very low. However, after the treatment some common injection-related reactions may occur, such as swelling, redness, pain, itching, discoloration and tenderness at the injection site. These typically resolve spontaneously within a few days after injection into the skin and within a week after the injection into the lips. Other types of reactions are very rare, but about 1 in 2000 treated patients have experienced localized reactions thought to be of a hypersensitive nature. These have usually consisted of swelling at the injection site, sometimes affecting the surrounding tissues. Redness, tenderness and rarely acne-like formations have also been reported. These reactions have either started a few days after the injection or after a delay of two to four weeks, and have generally been described as mild to moderate and self-limiting with an average duration of two weeks. This text does not contain all the information known about these products.

How long does the effect of a RESTYLANE® treatment last?
The length of time the effect of a RESTYLANE® treatment lasts is very individual and depends on many factors, such as the structure of your skin, lifestyle, age, the degree of perfection demanded and the injection technique of the practitioner. Experience indicates that touch-up and follow-up treatments will add to the duration. Most people choose to have a new treatment within a year after the treatment of wrinkles and folds and within 6 months after a lip enhancement.