Botox and fillers as an alternative to cosmetic surgery

Most of us have heard of Botox but not everyone knows the versatility of this treatment. If you’re thinking of getting it in time for your wedding, we’ve got some essential advice for you from Botox guru Dr. Dan Dhunna, the Michelangelo of Botox We headed to Dr. Dan’s Harley Street clinic to find out more.

Hi, my name is Dr. Dan Dhunna I’m actually a GP by trade, but the last 10 years I’ve been involved in medical aesthetics. I’m an advanced cosmetic doctor, having trained many, many people all around the country. And I’m also country ambassador for Allergan, the manufactures of the Botox brand, Juvederm and Voluma. Botox is a very powerful drug, and when injected appropriately it relaxes facial muscles to give a very pleasant, relaxed, confident look.
I’m about to treat Polly, who contacted me. She’s a working mum with a very young baby and she’s come all the way from Glasgow today.

The older that I’m getting, I feel as if I’m starting to look drawn and tired and just, my face seems to be falling and I want to give it a lift, make me feel better. My self esteem is right down low.

Polly has a lot of acne scarring and she’s been troubled by acne as a young lady and it really has affected the confidence significantly. She told me that there’s days when she gets up in the morning and she can’t bear to even look at her reflection, she can’t even bear to go to work and it’s very, very important for her to keep up her daily lifestyle.
It’s actually brought her to tears on many, many occasions. I’m going to be using Juvederm Voluma which is a volumising filler from the makers Allergan. It’s a very soft, gentle filler but it has huge lift potential.

I want to be fresh looking and I don’t want to be turned down so much. I’m so excited.

We’re going to do some Juvederm Voluma and pick those cheeks up. It can restore some of the contour face, make you look less tired. And then what I think I’m going to do is I’m going to finish up a little bit of Botox just to freshen up the upper part of your face and just hopefully lift the eyes a little bit.
You won’t see that straight away, that’ll take a little while to develop but it might also be an idea just to put a little bit of advanced Botox around the jawline. That will just help tighten things a little bit and work really, really nicely with those new cheeks that you’ve got, okay? “

Okay fantastic.

We’re going to restore the portions in Polly’s face and give her back that youthful look. I’m just gonna drop a little bit of anaesthetic just here, okay? Okay. All right just relax for me. You may feel just a little tiny sting. What we’re trying to fill is actually this sort of section here. And if we were to fill that section, this will actually lift.
And if that is actually lifted, you can actually see how that pulls that up. All right?

Fantastic,

All right?

Yep.

We’re going to be using a micro cannula, okay, and it’s actually a blunt needle sounds terrible but actually it’s not at all. Okay? So we put a little bit of dental anaesthetic just to numb the surface of the skin, but I do need to make a little pilot hole, a little entry point do that now you really shouldn’t feel that at all.
I’m going to take that little needle out and make just a little, little entry point where I’ll be able to feed my cannula very gently into that, and that will be able to sort of cover quite a large area. You feel that?

No.

What I’m going to gently do now is I’m just going to very gently inject some product. And as I’m injecting, the product, Juvederm Voluma, has actually got some built in anaesthetic so it’s going to start numbing the area out.

I can’t feel anything, there’s no discomfort, there’s no twingies, nothing. I find that when I got Botox the last time. It was quite painful, I was flinching a bit. But this I don’t feel one bit.

Wow.

It’s absolutely brilliant.

What I’m also going to do is put a a little bit just around the eye. Just give me a strong smile? There you go, so you can see that contraction all the way across there, so I’m just going to soften that up. And again, that’s going to open the eyebrow a little bit from the outer portion I’m just going to deposit some Botox just here.

I had some Botox before on my frown line and I had some fillers here. I didn’t think it would work that great for me. didn’t think it gave me the result I was looking for.

I’m jut going to inject a little bit of Botox along this jaw line. And we’re done.

I’m going to put a lovely cooling which is an enriched ice mask which is all the way from from Switzerland.

There we go.

Oh, wow. Oh that looks so much better.

Earlier in the show Polly went to see Dr. Dan Dhunna for her acne scarring which had always made her very self-conscious.

I feel as if I’m starting to look drawn and tired.

A couple of weeks later Polly was back at Dr. Dan’s clinic for a checkup. Let’s see how she got on.

I had some fillers, cheek fillers. I had some fillers on my left I also had some Botox here on the sides and at the top and some fillers under there.

Botox as a brand has been around for about 10 years of so, but the actual protein has been around since the 1950s. It was originally used to relax excessive facial muscles involved in eye squints and bepharospasm the eye muscle. Treatment in Canada in the late 80s, in the 90s, actually led to its use in relaxing overly expressive facial muscles which can lead to such lines a crow’s feet and frown lines.

I feel great, I feel a lot more confident. A lot of people have noticed that I looked younger and healthier and not so tired and drawn out so no I feel really good now. I used to get dressed to go out and I as I’d go downstairs and catch myself in the mirror and I wouldn’t go I would just say right I am not going out cause I felt I looked pretty bad in myself so I would just took my jacket off and just stayed home. So hopefully now no more.

over time we have actually developed the Botox brand further. Allergan, international manufacturers of Botox have spent a lot of time and research research and developing the brand. What we now realise is the versatility of the Botox protein.

Some treatments, such as Botox injections have got a bad rap in the UK because unlicensed, untrained, unexperienced practitioners, both medical and non-medical are unfortunately treating patients but also practitioners in the industry don’t seem to understand the artistic nature of medical aesthetics and of treatments such as Botox injections.

The result is that they end up with patients that look very, very stark you end up with a sort of Stepford wife look, everyone looks like they’ve come of the conveyor belt. I truly believe that treatments such as Botox and filler injections are very much 80 percent art and 20 percent science. Last time I had it done actually had my thumb to squeeze when it was sore, you know I took my hands away, because I don’t need to because there’s no pain, it’s so good.

Juvederm Voluma does have longevity for up to eighteen months. Obviously some people break down that product a little bit early and some people break that product a little bit later. But certainly one would hope you’d get a good 12 months longevity out of this, if not more.

I’m really glad I got it done. I know that a factor would be worrying about what people think of me, but you know what actually I feel confident.

The benefit of it is marked by patient satisfaction globally, worldwide. Those products are licensed all over the world with huge satisfaction rate.