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FDA Approved ‘Hand Fillers’: Know All About Them

You must have heard of folks having gotten fillers injected right into their faces for a fuller and youthful appearance, free of wrinkles, but now people are getting fillers injected onto the back of their palms. And what’s more? It comes FDA approved. The Food and Drug Administration has recently approved ‘Restylane Lyft’ a hyaluronic acid based filler, to be used exclusively for hands; making it the only hyaluronic acid based injectable gel which has FDA approval, employed to be used on an area which is not the face.

Fillers for hands are used and applied as any other standard filler in other places of the body, to bring about a rejuvenating effect and giving more plumpness to the area, which has lost its youthfulness over time. When we age, we lose a lot of collagen and elastin, and with the skin getting thinner you may have noticed the tendons and veins in the hands stick out more prominently. It’s what people tend to associate most with aging.

Fillers plump the back of the palm to make these veins and tendons less visible. Most plastic surgeons say that their clients reason that their ‘aged’ hands give away their real age, as they don’t match with their face, hence, the demand for hand fillers.

Fillers for the hands aren’t new

Off label fillers have been utilized for a long time now, and that includes for the kinds for hands too. Aging hands seem to be one of the top most worries that bother a lot of people, and this number of worried poeple is a lot more than you might think.

Doctors have, previously, tried to use patients’ own fat to make up for the loss of volume on the hands, as they feel that keeping their hands looking pump and young is like a journey of attempting to look and feel better about themselves as they age. Some patients also feel that if they don’t work upon or actively address the parts of their body which are most visible to others, they might get ‘stuck’ or left behind, as the world moves on around them.

To that effect people have also undergone sclerotherapy, a procedure which requires injecting salt solution directly into the veins to essentially ‘kill them’ so that they stop protruding out of the skin. Turns out they needed those veins to be ‘alive’ after all! The things we do in the name of beauty.

How do these filler work?

Different providers use fillers in various different ways. Some doctors make use of multiple dosed injections in micro amounts between the tendons, while the others may administer a single large injection at the center of the overturned palm and then maneuver the filler to the direction in which it needs to travel and deposit itself once it’s underneath the skin.

In either of the two cases, the skin is first numbed, mostly with a topical anesthetic and/or ice. Next, the skin is hoisted up (making it look like a tent) ― pinched up ― and then the injection is given into that area above the muscles and tendons in the hand.

Some essential details to note

After the short procedure, some swelling and bruising may be seen, but there should be no pain or stinging feeling, unless the hand has not been numbed properly. How long the effect of the injection lasts varies by doctors’ claims, some say it lasts 9 months to about 2 years, others said that it usually lasts for about 6 to 10 months. It has to be noted that the fillers naturally dissolve in the body after approximately a year, and hence, you would require regular touch ups to maintain younger looking hands.

How much would all this set you back by? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Most doctors charge around $1,000 for the initial few sessions, with follow-ups and touch ups costing you more.

Why is the FDA approval such a big deal?

For both doctors and patients, the FDA approval for the particular drug is a relief as both parties are aware that is effective, and more importantly, safe for use. With the FDA approval, there will also be an established safety standard and regulation of the said drug, so that off-label and unregulated use of it may reduce and cease eventually. Because of the nation-wide approval, more practitioners can also administer the fillers, further bringing down the cost of the procedure, meaning that more people can reap its benefit.

For anyone who may be considering getting these fillers injected onto their hands, it is best that they go to someone who is proficient and qualified rather than some quack who would charge you substantially less. After all, your hands do reveal a lot about you.

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