Can you put fillers in the upper face?

The short answer is yes, you can, but very rarely. And the longer answer is really to do with what’s happening in the area.

So over time, when we have repetitive creasing and moving of the muscles here, the skin starts to fold and it almost looks like a scar.

So the primary cause of these lines, number one is some sun damage over time, and number two is repetitive movement that makes those muscles stronger and they get bulkier and they start to crease.

So the simple solutions are wear your SPF every day. You can do things like retinol, which is vitamin A, you can use vitamin C and those ingredients will help the skin.

Also you can do things like microneedling with a skin pen to help ease out those little lines. But the most effective treatment is looking at what the cause of it is, and that’s repetitive muscle movement.

And what’s the muscle treatment?

That’s botulinum toxin.

I work in Dublin and in Ireland. You have to see a doctor or dentist to assess you for suitability for botulinum toxin and then they have to administer the treatment themselves. They can’t delegate that and rules vary in other jurisdictions.

So an effective treatment is to come in one little pinch here for this muscle proceeris, which is bringing the brows down and in, and little pinches here for corrugator, which are creasing and causing those eleven s’s or vertical lines over time.

Then if you continue to do that, the lines soften out, the muscles, reduce a little bit in bulk, and it allows the skin a chance to heal and to improve.

So back to the filler question.

Yes, you can put tiny amounts of filler there, but the blood supply in this area is very delicate, with little tiny blood vessels coming out from underneath the rim of the bone here, and they course up through the forehead and they end.

And there isn’t a huge amount of crossover support of blood vessels here, whereas in other areas of the face there’s more backup from other blood vessels.

So generally here, fillers are not a first line. If they’re done, it’s a riskier treatment than other areas in the face and we have to be super careful.

What I will do in that situation is I’ll take my ultrasound machine and I’ll map out the blood vessels and just look for any unusual patterns and I’ll look for the depth of that blood vessel. And if I’m doing filler, I’ll go very cautiously, tiny amounts and go very carefully.

You can interestingly, we do put filler quite a lot in the temples and that will give us support of the whole area here. And it’ll help lift the brows, it’ll help the crow’s feet lines, it will indirectly improve under the eyes.

If somebody has got asymmetrical brows or we really want a very subtle brow lift, you can come in with a little device called a cannula at the tail of the brow and very, very delicately and carefully put tiny amounts of product to help lift the brows.

But the vast majority of the time, we’re looking at skin care. We’re looking at skin treatments to thicken and strengthen the skin and make it softer and reduce lines. And then we’re looking at something that’s in a muscle treatment like Botulinum Talk and Filler is really way down the line if we use it at all.

So I hope that’s helpful and feel free to get in touch if you have any more questions. Take care. Bye.