the gaps in our faces (and elsewhere!) unless you get private treatment, because NHS plastic surgeons mainly concentrate on reconstructive
surgery for people who've had cancer or severe injury. Implants, for
example, are costly, can be dangerous, might be rejected and gravity means
the implant ends up a bit lower than it was supposed to be over time.
Transplanting fat from one part of the body to another might be promising,
but when you have no body fat to transplant there's no point even trying
this one. Collagen and other fillings are potentially dangerous and can't
be used to fill larger gaps. This area of work is 'cosmetic', and the
NHS doesn't fund cosmetic treatments.
For us this might seem short-sighted, a Catch-22 situation where we might
be alive, but don't function properly because of the way we look.
Discussions continued around Polylactic acid (PLA) injections. These have
been marketed as New-Fill and were approved by the EU in 1999 for the
treatment of scars and in aesthetic surgery. PLA is used in a lot of different
surgical and industrial processes. It is a synthetic polymer that is totally
biodegradable and immunologically inert. New-Fill is manufactured in France
where a study has shown that facial atrophy can be corrected. All the
patients treated were happy with the results.
Unlike having collagen injected under the skin, New-Fill injections cause
the skin to thicken, creating new collagen naturally and replacing almost
the entire thickness lost when the adipose fat disappeared.
By skilful injection, the shape of the face is restored. Between three
and five courses of injections, given at two week intervals, are needed
to gain the thickness and
page 2 of 5
contents
of issue 76
back
issues
the
gazette
recipes
small
ads
contacting
us
weblinks
appearance required. Local anaesthetic can either be mixed with the injected PLA, or applied as a cream before the injections start.
