What treatments can you combine with hyaluronic acid fillers?

Thanks to their versatility, hyaluronic acid fillers can be used in combination with other treatments to increase their effect and duration.

Hyaluronic acid fillers have brought about a great change in aesthetic medicine, with significant benefits for both patients and doctors. They improve skin quality and rejuvenate it; their results are instantaneous and easily modifiable. And nowadays they are available in infinite variations combining different molecular weights, concentrations and degrees of cross-linking to offer targeted, specific solutions. It is no longer just a question of moisturizing and rejuvenating the skin, but of improving its texture, providing it with support, and remodeling its laxity.

This versatility is also what makes hyaluronic acid fillers ideal as an integration for aesthetic treatments performed with other methods; a combined and complementary use will improve the results obtained from each treatment, and make them longer-lasting. Here’s how.

Hyaluronic acid + botulinum filler

Botulinum toxin is often used to treat expression lines, which are formed by the contraction of facial mimic muscles. Hyaluronic acid and botulinum perform complementary actions. The former fills the wrinkles, while the latter, by minimizing muscle contraction, allows the hyaluronic acid to remain in position for longer: the reduction of mechanical movement slows its absorption by the body.

Treatment of crow’s feet and glabellar wrinkles

A typical filler/botulinum strategy can be used as the treatment of lateral canthal wrinkles (the infamous crow’s feet) and glabellar lines, the vertical expression lines that form between the eyebrows. A combined treatment may include a sitting of free hyaluronic acid injections to provide the skin with deep hydration. A month later, botulinum toxin can be employed to reduce the wrinkles.

Eyebrow soft-lifting

Age causes our eye to become hooded: eyelids hollow out, eyebrow arches give way, weighing down on the upper eyelid. In the early stages of the process, one can opt for a complementary botulinum/hyaluronic acid treatment. The former, by modifying the action of the muscles, will help raise the eyebrow by a few millimeters; while the latter restores skin turgor, thus lifting the hollowed-out eyebrow.

Hyaluronic acid filler + non-ablative blepharoplasty

Non-ablative blepharoplasty is also an alternative for eyebrow soft-lifting. This technique shortens the excess skin without surgically intervening on the orbicular muscle nor incising the eyelid tissue. Tiny dots of sublimation (transformation from the solid to the gaseous state) are performed on the dead cells of the eyelid epidermis. In this case, too, a synergistic treatment with hyaluronic acid will improve the final result.

Hyaluronic acid + laser filler

Fractional CO2 lasers are an innovative technique which vaporizes the area to be treated by means of a carbon dioxide beam. It is the standard method for treating skin imperfections such as spots and warts and for removing scars and tattoos, but it is also increasingly being employed for the reduction of wrinkles. Needless to say, its efficacy is improved by a supplementary hyaluronic acid filler treatment.

Treatment of acne scars

Lasers reduces scars by stimulating the epidermis’s renewal, smoothing the skin and producing new collagen. A hyaluronic acid filler can then be used to fill the residual dimples caused by acne.

Treatment of cheek- and cheekbone wrinkles

Fractional CO2 lasers are often used to smooth the finest and most superficial wrinkles on the cheeks and cheekbones. Hyaluronic acid injections can be used to prepare the skin before the laser treatment, by giving support and crafting the right shape and volume, resulting in a smoother and more relaxed final result.

Hyaluronic acid filler + microfocused ultrasound

Microfocused ultrasounds via an ultrasound probe are a widely used treatment to treat sagging skin. Thanks to the probe, ultrasounds can be focused on precise points deep in the skin without acting on the epidermis. Once they reach the tissue, ultrasound waves produce heat at 70 °C for a few milliseconds. This is sufficient to denature old collagen fibers and to stimulate the body to produce new ones, a process known as neocollagenesis.

Treatment of neck- and décolleté skin laxity

Ultrasounds are mainly used to treat sagging neck skin, one of the most obvious signs of cutaneous aging. A free hyaluronic acid filler can be a useful addition to retain skin hydration.

Hyaluronic acid filler + adsorbable traction threads

Absorbable suturing threads are an innovative treatment which can be used to produce a non-surgical lifting effect. These are monofilament strands of PDSII (polydioxanone), a material that is hydrolytically reabsorbed by the body over time. This medical device has a double action: it offers mechanical support on the one hand, and on the other it stimulates the production of new collagen fibers. The effect of traction threads lasts longer if the skin is hydrated and nourished with hyaluronic acid fillers.

Multiple hyaluronic acid fillers

Nowadays, hyaluronic acid fillers are so specialized and diversified that each product can be considered a treatment in its own right. An apparently simple treatment such as volume augmentation or lip redefinition cannot be performed with one same product – one must choose fillers with different characteristics in order to optimize the final result.

Different beauty needs require increasingly complex solutions: targeted but at the same time versatile. And hyaluronic acid is the ideal product to meet this challenge.