Fat Transfer
Facial Fat Transfer
Why Choose Athré Facial Plastics for Facial Fat Transfer?
If you’re experiencing hollow, dull skin in the facial area, you might want to consider a facial fat transfer, where Houston facial plastic surgeon Dr. Raghu Athré can fill out features, add volume, and rejuvenate your face.
"Dr. Raghu Athre, MD is simply delightful! He and his wonderful staff make you feel like family!"
Facial Fat Transfer at a Glance
Houston's Trusted Choice
- Restore lost volume and enhance features: Add natural volume to areas like cheeks, lips, and temples for a more youthful appearance.
- Long-lasting results: Transplanted fat cells thrive in their new location, offering lasting improvements.
- Minimally invasive procedure: Facial fat transfer uses liposuction for fat harvesting and small injections for placement, minimizing downtime.
- Natural-looking enhancements: Dr. Athré uses precision techniques to achieve a natural and balanced result that complements your facial features.
- Boost your confidence: Regain a fuller, more youthful appearance and experience a positive impact on your self-esteem.
Key Takeways
- Non-invasive transfer
- Natural-looking effects
- Lasting results
About Fat Transfer
What is Facial Fat Transfer?
Your Own Natural Filler
A facial fat transfer is a cosmetic surgical procedure that extracts fat from areas of the body such as the abdomen, flanks or thighs, and injects it into an area that needs plumping, rejuvenation, and volume. Since the fat used is the patient’s own, a significant portion of the fat becomes permanent and eliminates the need for constant re-injections with other materials.
Fat transfer uses the overall same idea. Fat is harvested from the abdomen, flanks, or thighs. Following harvest, the fat is processed and micronized. It is then injected into the face using small cannulas and needles, similar to injectable dermal fillers.
The goals of facial fat transfer:
- Combat facial volume loss
- Restore volume of the face
- Promote new collagen and elastin growth
- Improve skin texture with respect to fine lines
However, facial fat transfer may not be ideal for those who:
- have certain medical conditions (discuss with Dr. Athré during consultation).
- have very thin body fat.
- have unrealistic expectations about the results.
Benefits of Facial Fat Transfer
Facial fat transfer in Houston offers a unique approach to facial rejuvenation, using your own body's natural filler to restore lost volume and enhance features. Here's a closer look at the key benefits that make this procedure so appealing:
Natural-Looking Results and Long-Lasting Improvements
Unlike synthetic fillers, facial fat transfer utilizes your own living tissue. This translates to results that appear incredibly natural and seamlessly blend with your existing facial features. Additionally, transplanted fat cells have the potential to thrive in their new location, offering long-lasting improvements that can endure for years.
Restore Lost Volume and Achieve a Youthful Look
Our faces naturally lose volume as we age, leading to sunken cheeks, hollow temples, and thinner lips. Facial fat transfer can address these concerns by adding fullness to these areas. This creates a more youthful and balanced appearance, restoring a natural vibrancy to your face.
Enhanced Features and Improved Self-Confidence
Facial fat transfer can subtly enhance specific features, such as defining cheekbones or plumping lips. This ability to customize the approach allows you to achieve your desired aesthetic goals. By regaining a fuller, more youthful appearance, you can experience a significant boost in self-confidence and feel your absolute best.
Minimally Invasive Procedure with Minimal Downtime
Facial fat transfer is a minimally invasive procedure compared to traditional surgical techniques. Fat harvesting typically involves liposuction, and placement utilizes small injections. This minimizes discomfort and allows for a faster recovery with minimal downtime, allowing you to return to your daily routine quicker.
Safe and Effective with Minimal Risk of Rejection
Because you are using your tissue, facial fat transfer carries a very low risk of allergic reaction or rejection. This makes it a safe and effective option for those seeking a natural and long-lasting approach to facial rejuvenation.
Fat Transfer Pricing
Facial fat transfer uses your own natural fat to restore youthful volume and contour to areas of the face that may have lost fullness over time. Commonly used to enhance areas such as the cheeks, under-eye hollows, and nasolabial folds, this technique provides long-lasting, natural-looking results with the added benefit of using your body's own tissue.
Patients should easily be able to return to work with makeup in 3-4 days after the procedure.
Fat Transfer
$5,000 Starting Range
- + Facility Fees ($1,500)
- + Anesthesia (Local $1,500), (General, $2,500)
Dr. Athre’s Technique for Fat Grafting
Fat grafting by itself is not a new procedure. However, the technique that Dr. Athré uses is special.
- Athre ALMI Fat Transfer Technique
- Special uses of Athre ALMI Fat Transfer
The History of Fat Grafting
Fat grafting is one of the oldest procedures
Fat grafting has been used to fill in voids primarily in traumatic wounds. The first major development in fat grafting came in the 1970’s with tumescent liposuction. Prior to that point, fat was cut out and simply shoved into a space to fill a void. Tumescent liposuction reduced the fat particle size so that fat injections became a reality. The original tumescent liposuction used a large cannula to harvest the fat, and the injected fat therefore had large globules. This created a lot of complications such as:
- Irregular contour
- Granulomas and scar nodules
- Lumps and bumps
- Variability in long term survival needing overcorrection
All of these complications made fat grafting a suboptimal solution to combat facial volume loss.
Treatment Areas
The Advantage of Facial Fat Transfer
What areas of the body can facial fat transfer address?
Excess fat is preferentially aggregated in certain areas of the body. Some of the primary areas of fat deposition include the abdomen, flanks, outer thighs (saddle bags), and the inner thighs. The fat that is deposited in a diffuse layer underneath the skin. The first step in our Houston fat transfer procedure is to determine the donor area for the fat. This donor area is injected with a tumescent solution. The job of the tumescent solution is to provide anesthesia, and make blood vessels shrink up to prevent bleeding.
Following the tumescent phase, liposuction is performed via a small blunt tipped cannula. This is the first major difference between facial fat grafting, and fat transfer for other regions. Facial fat grafting has to be performed with small cannulas to make sure the droplet size of the suctioned fat is small. This prevents the formation of granulomas and hard deposits of scar tissue when the fat is transferred to the facial tissues.
The actual volume of fat aspirated or suctioned out is anywhere from 30-85 cc (6-17 teaspoons). The fat suctioned out contains fat globules, plasma (a combination of blood and proteins), and a fatty acid/oil component. The aspirated fat is centrifuged. The oil component and the plasma component are discarded. Injecting the plasma component can artificially increase the volume that is being injected, and this fraction will be absorbed by the body. The oil component is discarded because it tends to cause inflammation and granuloma formation.
The remaining fraction is the pure fat fraction which contains fat cells, supporting cells and fat derived stem cells. This fraction is micronized into smaller particle sizes. The first fraction is the 2.4 fraction (milli fat). This fraction is excellent for structural fat grafting. An example of this is the temples or the pre-jowl sulcus. The second fraction is smaller and finer – it is the 1.2 fraction (micro fat). This fraction is finer and can be injected more superficially. Dr. Athre likes to use the microfat fraction right under the thin skin of the lower eyelids in the tear trough, and in the vermilion border to outline lips. The final fraction is nanofat. This is the fraction that has the stem cells. It is also the finest fraction. It can be injected into the skin in smoker’s lines, or microneedled into the skin to enhance the quality of skin.
H2: Ideal Candidates for Fat Transfer
The perfect candidate for facial fat transfer is:
Schedule a consultation with Dr. Athré to discuss your goals and determine if this procedure aligns with your desires.
Facial Fat Transfer Recovery
In stand alone cases, the recovery time for fat transfer is approximately 3-5 days
Athre ALMI fat transfer can be performed as a standalone procedure for volume loss or can be done in conjunction with other procedures. Most commonly, fat transfer is performed with face lift surgery or brow lift surgery to combat volume loss while re-suspending or “lifting” the fallen tissues.
In these cases, the downtime is related to the primary procedure – the face lift or brow lift. In stand alone cases, the recovery time for fat transfer is approximately 3-5 days. Patients can expect mild soreness at the donor site and mild bruising in the areas where the fat was injected similar to a facial filler treatment. Patients should easily be able to return to work with makeup in 3-4 days after the procedure.
Why Dr. Athré for Facial Fat Transfer?
A revolutionary improvement to world's oldest method.
Dr. Athré carefully harvests fat from a donor area, like the abdomen or thighs, and strategically injects it into the face to create a smooth, youthful, and balanced look. This minimally invasive procedure has a relatively short recovery period, with most patients returning to regular activities within a week.
Facial Fat Transfer FAQ's
See below for frequently asked questions about facial fat transfer.
Patient Review
"Dr. Raghu Athre, MD is simply delightful! He and his wonderful staff make you feel like family! Their friendly dispositions make it easy to forget that you are in a consultation! I would recommend Dr. Raghu Athre, MD to all of my family and friends."
