On Monday, August 30th, Rhonda Foley (certified national trainer for Allergan Institute) flew in from Omaha for an advanced masters training session for lip augmentation. Her trip was sponsored by Allergan, the makers of Botox, and the Juvederm series of fillers. Rhonda has extensive experience in aesthetic medicine and came to our office to share some advanced techniques in lip and perioral enhancement with fillers.
I truly love my facial aesthetic injection practice and continue to strive to provide the best results for my patients. The last two years (excluding COVID), I have had masters class trainers come to my office to help keep me at my best. Each of the two years before that, I traveled to Chicago to participate in Dr. de Maio’s invitation-only master classes for aesthetic physicians. Although I have almost 30 years of experience with fillers, I also know I can always learn more to further improve my techniques.
Our morning with Rhonda Foley went extremely well! We had selected four models who were interested in lip and facial rejuvenation and enhancement. Rhonda and I had a very enlightening discussion even before we got started, and although we both treat many of the same areas around the lips and mouth, she fills the areas around the lips first to provide support to the mouth and then enhances the lips last. The results for the first three patients were clear, as the whole lower third of their faces looked incredible after I had injected them using this new strategy.
The first patient we treated has been coming to me for Botox treatments for several years and had worked up the nerve to have her lips enhanced. Rhonda showed me a way to enhance the upper aspect of nasolabial folds (the ‘parentheses’) and the middle layer of the upper and lower lip while also providing numbing to the lips without distorting the tissues like local anesthesia injections can. We ended up using two syringes of Juvederm just on the supporting structures and one to her lips. She was extremely pleased with her results and had very little discomfort.
The second patient was the mother of one of my staff members. She had never had any injectables and was very nervous and quiet. She was treated to Botox on the lines of the sides of her eyes and in between the eyes. She had no forehead wrinkles at all, and when asked to elevate her eyebrows, they raised again without wrinkling the forehead skin, so she did not need Botox there. We treated her cheeks with Voluma to provide a nice projection to her lateral cheekbones and fill the indentation in front of the jowl area. It was able to reposition some of her facial soft tissue that had descended with time and gravity. We completed her rejuvenation with Juvederm injected into the perioral and lip area. She is also very happy and can’t wait to return in two weeks for a follow-up with full makeup on to really reveal the rejuvenation.
I had seen the third patient in a consultation the week before and recognized a difficult lip to enhance, so I recommended she wait to be treated until our advanced lip training day so I could glean any fine points Rhonda could add to give her an even better result. This patient had very thin lips with transverse lines in the lower lip that would require a moderate-to-significant amount of fill, and she did not want significantly larger lips. Rhonda helped me rejuvenate her lips in a novel way, by layering a fuller bodied Juvederm Ultra deep, and Volbella very superficially, as this filler integrates into the tissue very well, smoothing without adding excessive volume. The injections worked wonderfully. I used a routine Botox procedure in her ‘crows feet’ (smile lines) and 11’s between her eyes, but her forehead required a change of standard technique. I injected high on the forehead and laterally, and did a Micro-tox type of treatment, just in the skin, to the remainder of the forehead to maintain function of the muscles that elevate the eyebrows. She appreciated the time, effort, and thoughtfulness put into her treatment!
The last patient was a very cheerful, mature college student that had talked with her parents about wanting to try a lip filler. With their approval, she came in for a fuller look to her lips rather than being significantly bigger. Before filling her lips, I placed Voluma deep on her cheekbones in the “Top Model Line” (TML, as de Maio refers to it). This subtle but amazingly small amount of filler added a dimension to her cheeks that were able to complete the balancing done including her lips and eyes. Her youthful lips needed no surrounding support and we used Juvederm to provide just the right amount of fill and fullness she was looking for.
During our session with Rhonda, I learned at least 4 new ways to enhance my technique in facial rejuvenation with Botox and fillers. Not only did she help improve my results, we are also able to enhance your lips with less discomfort. We will be posting the four patients’ before and after photos very soon to let you see the transformations for yourselves. Please call my office to make your appointment for facial rejuvenation (309-663-1222) or go online at drpoulter.com to contact us and learn more about my practice.
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