What are some risks involved with using injectable fillers on my face?

There are major risks to injecting fillers into the face, including "black nose," infections, and even blindness. Plastic surgeon Paul Nassif, MD, explain these complications, and why it's critical to confirm the filler being used is authentic.

Transcript

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You could actually put too much filler around the jawline and have a problem chewing, all kinds of things.

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There are many risks when it comes to putting or placing fillers in your face. Even in the most experienced hands,

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complications can happen. Such as, for example-- I'm a revision rhinoplasty specialist.

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And I have a few cases a month of someone coming in with a black nose. What's a black nose?

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Basically, it means that someone has actually put filler around either the cheeks, around the nose, in the nose,

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and it's occluded a blood vessel. And basically, it ruins the circulation of the nose, and the nose dies. Now we try to fix it or prevent that before it dies,

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but sometimes we can't and we have to reconstruct everything. We've had patients, we've heard, going blind by fillers in the temple.

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We've had a lot of irregularities, especially around the lower eyelid where you can have this bluish color of filler.

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So you're going to have these weird, abnormal appearances. You could actually put too much filler around the jawline

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and have a problem chewing, all kinds of things. There's risks which can cause major problems

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and get you to the hospital. Can cause infections-- that's the other thing. Infections can occur with fillers. So you have to be very, very careful.

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One also important thing-- you want to make sure when it comes to fillers-- so here's your little, your pearl from this,

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is you want to make sure, first of all, that you're getting in the box something that is FDA-approved. And most of these are hyaluronic acids,

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which mean they are reversible. You can put something called vitrase in there to reverse it.

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There are a few fillers that are a little bit more long-term such as Radiesse, which is OK to use as long as, again, we

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want to make sure that when it goes in, it's staying in for up to a year. But you have to be very careful. You want to make sure it's the real product.