{"id":5275,"date":"2021-11-19T07:37:37","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T12:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skinlyaesthetics.com\/?p=5275"},"modified":"2023-02-18T17:20:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T22:20:54","slug":"what-are-diy-fillers-and-why-should-you-avoid-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skinlyaesthetics.com\/what-are-diy-fillers-and-why-should-you-avoid-them\/","title":{"rendered":"What are DIY fillers and why should you avoid them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent months there has been a rise in botched DIY lip fillers. This DIY \u201clip filler\u201d trend started a few years ago when people were trying the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge<\/a> in which people would insert their lips into a shot glass or other suction cup type tool, suck, and wait for their lips to swell up to an extremely unsettling plump. This challenge resulted in various injuries, heavy bruising and severe swelling.<\/p>\n

While there are quite a few methods used for people to achieve a bit of a plump without needing the injections, such as a quality lip plumping balms that involve nothing more than a few harmless ingredients such as capsaicin to slightly irritate your lips, in recent years people have been opting for more extreme measures to enhance the size of their lips at home or at clinics that offer a non invasive lip filler approach – the hyaluron pen.<\/p>\n

During the Coronavirus pandemic, people were stuck inside, forced to do a lot of things for themselves. This included cooking, baking, hair cuts, nails, and more. It seems that being in lockdown influenced some people to take drastic measures to maintain the appearance that they had been used to, to the point that people were doing their own personal mole removals<\/a> and as this article suggests, DIY cosmetic treatments. While most professionals are back in business at this time, this trend continued to grow, expanding over various social media platforms with video tutorials<\/a> on how to give yourself a lip filler. While observing one of the YouTube tutorials<\/a> on how to use a hyaluron pen, Dr. Schwarzburg, owner of a popular medical spa located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Skinly Aesthetics<\/a>, was disconcerted at the unprofessional manner and misleading information that the aesthetician in the video was sharing with her audience.<\/p>\n

The hyaluron pen can be easily purchased online<\/a> and is available at certain non-medical day spas that advertise the treatment as a non-invasive and safer alternative to a traditional injectable lip filler. Unfortunately consumer reports and emergency room visits prove otherwise, as there have been increasingly negative reviews and complaints on the treatment and its results, in addition to an official warning<\/a> by the FDA to avoid these needle-free devices stating that \u201cThe FDA is aware of serious injuries and in some cases, permanent harm to the skin, lips, or eyes with the use of needle-free devices for injection of lip and facial fillers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to the rise in reports of botched lips secondary to hyaluron pen treatments, there has been a lot of buzz<\/a> on the treatment, giving the whole idea of the hyaluron pen bad press. The hyaluron pen has been used on other areas including the forehead, nasolabial folds (also called smile lines), marionette lines, and frown lines between the eyebrows, though the most frequently spoken about treatment area, especially when it comes to the buzz about botched results, remain to be the lips.<\/p>\n

Below is a detailed description of what the hyaluron pen is, how it works, and why the FDA and countless physicians warn against it.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the real deal<\/h2>\n

Before we start going over all the details involved in the hyaluron pen, let\u2019s discuss the original treatment: injectable lip fillers<\/a>. How do lip fillers work? What are the pros and cons, and how much do they cost?<\/p>\n

The first equivalent to modern injectable lip fillers was invented at the beginning of the 19th century and consisted of injectable fat, also called fat grafting. While this treatment was originally intended to reshape uneven lips caused by tuberculosis, it triggered a long path of trial and error leading to the injectable lip fillers we have today. You may still find some clinics that offer a fat transfer to the lips, however, due to its unreliable results that often end up migrating, lumping, and settling unevenly, it is typically no longer a common practice.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, liquid silicone began to make its mark in the world of cosmetic enhancements, but was disapproved by the FDA<\/a> fairly quickly (in the 1990s) due to the adverse effects associated with the injection of liquid silicone, including severe pain, scarring, tissue death, permanent disfigurement, silicone embolism, and sometimes even death. Keep in mind that nothing has to be FDA approved in order to still be legal, meaning that liquid silicone injections are still available in select clinics, though the injection of liquid silicone is heavily frowned upon by most medical professionals.<\/p>\n

Today, the global gold standard for dermal fillers in the lips are hyaluronic acid based dermal fillers. They have been approved by European regulators in the late 1990s, but only saw first FDA approval <\/a>in April, 2004.<\/p>\n

What makes hyaluronic acid based lip fillers injected through a needle or a cannula the gold standard? They are the safest type of filler you can get, and here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n