Over the previous decade-plus, filler has too usually been used to attempt to obtain unrealistic targets, whether or not it’s the ever-present megalips or a misguided “liquid facelift” with its hallmark overstuffing. Board-certified New York Metropolis dermatologist Jessica Weiser, MD, believes that is the primary purpose she and her friends are actually confronting throngs of “overfilled, doughy, distorted faces,” she says. 

Board-certified dermatologist Paul Jarrod Frank, MD, sees his justifiable share of filler fatigue in New York Metropolis. “Not less than two sufferers a day will are available in particularly for reversal,” he says. “I’m going by way of bottles of Vitrase [hyaluronidase] a day in my workplace. It’s not a once-in-a-blue-moon, you’re-looking-for-it-in-the-back-of-the-fridge sort of factor.” 

He hyperlinks the uptick in filler reversals and revisions to the rising “commoditization” of filler injections: A sure phase of “med-spa tradition is about ‘what number of syringes can I promote to sufferers?’” he says. “[Some of] these [injectors] have little or no coaching and are incentivized by just one factor: cash.” 

Who’s dissolving their filler — and why?

As we reported earlier on this collection, extra filler not solely creates an odd aesthetic, it may possibly result in lymphatic channel obstruction and fluid accumulation, restricted muscle operate (which may trigger strained expressions), and completely stretch gentle tissues over time, based on Ben Talei, MD, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. 

However dissolver isn’t the unique area of the overdone. Medical doctors additionally use it to appropriate lesser offenses, like tear troughs left puffy by a misplaced gel and, much more prevalent, the difficulty of lip filler migration.

Olivia, 29, started getting her lips stuffed after graduating from school. “I all the time knew I had skinny lips, however it wasn’t till my pals [and I] began moving into lip kits that I noticed it was very troublesome for me to fill in my lips with the product,” she says. “My pals had fuller lips, so I did really feel overlooked and started questioning what was improper with my lips.”

When Olivia moved from Florida to New York in 2019, she booked an appointment with Dr. Frank, anticipating a routine top-off of lip filler. As an alternative, he beneficial an all-out reversal. “Whereas I used to be glad to have fuller lips, I by no means actually seen how they have been trying till I spoke to Dr. Frank,” Olivia remembers. He identified areas the place her filler had strayed out of bounds, distorting her lip line, and he instructed dissolving the filler to revive her pure form and set up a clear slate. (Olivia had been getting her filler at a health care provider’s workplace, not a med-spa, again in Florida.)