Blog
Jul 2024
Can biostimulators or injectable moisturisers help with sagging jowls?
A common concern we come across with patients at Dr Liesel Holler is sagging jowls. Many patients want to know if injectable moisturisers such as Profhilo, or biostimulators like Polynucleotides can help to treat this concern.
The quick answer to this question is no, injectable moisturisers and biostimulators won’t work for treating sagging jowls.
In this blog we want to explain to you exactly why these treatments are not able to target sagging jowls, and to shed some light on the types of treatments that can get results for this specific ageing concern.
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What happens to the different layers of the skin as we age?
The bone or skull
The bone or skull resorbs as we age by shrinking (bone resorption). This is happening over time by fractions of a millimetre. This is more noticeable around the jaw and the eye sockets. The eye sockets get bigger over time and as we lose bone support in the midface, which affects the under eye area. The jaw area shrinks and this impacts the jowls.
The deep fat pads
The deep fat pads are also diminishing with time and getting smaller. This results in our cheeks looking flatter and the loss of the youthful, plump, roundness we have in our younger years. When we lose our midface volume and lateral volume, this can impact the lower face and contribute to the descent of tissues.
Facial muscle
Some facial muscles suffer from laxity and deterioration as we age, while other muscles can over contract when there is no support underneath the muscle. This can give the face a drooping appearance and increase the look of sagging jowls, and an increase in dynamic lines.
Superficial fat pads
The superficial fat pads also get thinner over time and we can lose volume here, however sometimes the superficial fat pads can actually get a little bit bigger as we age which means that patients may accumulate a bit of a fatter layer in the jowl, or in the nasolabial fat pads.
The skin
The skin could be described as the icing on the cake to all the other layers. Injectable moisturisers like Profhilo, or biostimulators like Polynucleotides are treatments that are great for addressing your skin quality, however if we have sagging jowls we need to address how you are ageing in the deeper layers of your facial anatomy.
What causes sagging jowls?
Sagging jowls are caused by issues in the deeper structures of the face, for example if you have a receded jaw, because you have lost the bone support, if your deep fat pads have become smaller or lost volume with time, if you have a deep volume deficiency. In these cases whatever you do to the skin is not really going to help. Even if the skin looks better because you have used a treatment like Profhilo or Polynucleotides, you’re still going to have the structural deficiency that will need treatment to improve the look of your sagging jowls. There can be other reasons too, like a localised increased jowl fat compartment, which would need other types of treatments.
What treatments improve the look of sagging jowls?
At Dr Liesel Holler we have a range of treatments that can be used to treat sagging jowls. To identify the route cause of your concern it is important to have a consultation with a medically qualified aesthetic practitioner, as this will determine the best treatment for your specific issue.
Some of the treatments that we use for sagging jowls at Dr Liesel Holler include dermal fillers like Volux by Juvederm, hybrid fillers like HArmonyCa and the use of aesthetic energy devices that can work on the deeper layers of the dermis like Biodermogenesi.