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Restylane® Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Restylane®
Treatment
Q: What
is Restylane®?
A: Restylane®, which is non-animal, improves the resilience
and youthful contours of your skin and its ability to counter
the effects of gravity, time, wind and weather. Restylane®
plays an important role giving volume to the skin, shape to the
eyes and elasticity to the joints. Restylane®, composed of
Hyaluronic acid, is found naturally in your skin and other tissues.
Hyaluronic acid has a chemical structure similar in many ways
to sugar and is identical in all species and in all tissue types,
making Restylane® a very safe product for you.
Q: How is a Restylane®
treatment done?
A: During treatment the crystal-clear gel is injected into the
skin in tiny amounts with a very thin needle. The gel then gives
natural volume and smoothes out the wrinkles.
Q: How long will the treatment session
take?
A: In general a treatment takes 30 minutes. The time can differ
somewhat, depending on the correction to be performed.
Q: What can be treated?
A: Each of us has natural lines that can be improved. Restylane®
can be used to give you a long-lasting and natural beauty lift:
smoothing wrinkles and folds, and giving your mouth a fuller,
more sensuous appearance. The hyaluronic acid in Restylane®
is non-animal. Please contact us today for a free consultation.
Q: Does it hurt?
A: For wrinkle treatments no pain relief is generally necessary,
however it can be easily arranged at your request. When enhancing
the lips, pain relief in the form of a local anaesthetic is often
used.
Q: How soon will I see the results?
A: The results of Restylane® can be seen immediately.
Q: What will I look like after
the treatment?
A: Immediately after the treatment you can expect slight redness
and swelling. This is a normal result of the injection. The inconvenience
is temporary and generally disappears in a day or two. If the
inconvenience continues or if other reactions occur, please contact
your physician. The initial swelling after lip treatment may last
longer. Some patients experience swelling for about a week and
the lips can look somewhat uneven during this time. This means
that the result directly after the treatment should not be looked
upon as the final result.
Q: What should I bear in mind
after my treatment with Restylane®?
A: During the first 48 hours after your treatment, do not massage
or rub the treated area. If you have had a lip enhancement, avoid
puckering your lips for the first two days after the treatment.
Until the initial swelling and redness have resolved, do not expose
the treated area to intense heat (e.g. in a solarium or by sunbathing)
or extreme cold.
Q: Can Restylane®
be removed?
A: No, however, Restylane® dissolves naturally with time.
You can choose to have the treatment done in steps if you feel
uncertain about the desired result.
Q: Can Restylane®
replace surgical procedures?
A: No, however, Restylane® is sometimes used in conjunction
with surgery to help fill out wrinkles that cannot be removed
by surgery.
Q: How can I get Restylane®
treatment?
A: Please contact us today for a free consultation about treatment
using Restylane®. We will answer your questions to help you
reach a decision. Because skin test is needed, you may qualify
to have the treatment performed immediately following your consultation.
Q: What should I consider before
I have a Restylane®
treatment?
A: Look in the mirror and decide which result you are expecting.
Communicate your expectations to your physician before the treatment
and ask him or her what is possible.
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Restylane®
Safety
Q: Is Restylane®
safe?
A: After the injection some common injection-related reactions
may occur, such as swelling, redness, pain, itching, discoloration
and tenderness at the implant site. They typically resolve spontaneously
within one to two dasy after injection into the skin. Other types
of reactions are very rare, but aboy one in every 2,000 treated
patients have experienced localized reactions thought to be of
a hypersensitivity nature. These have usually consisted of swelling
at the implant site, sometimes affecting the surrounding tissues.
Redness, tenderness and rearely acne-like formations have also
been reported. These reactions have either started a few days
after injection or after a delay of two to four weeks and have
generally been described as mild to moderate and self-limiting,
with an average duration of two weeks. For more information, please
consult your practitioner.
Q: Do I need to have a skin test?
A: No, the results of several studies and experience from over
700,000 treatments indicates that a skintest is not necessary.
Q: Are there any side-effects?
A: The rate of reactions to Restylane® is very low. However,
after Restylane® treatment, some common injection-related
reactions are possible. Possible reactions to Restylane® are
swelling, redness, pain, itching, discoloration and tenderness
at the site of injection. These reactions typically resolve within
a few days after injection into the skin and within a week after
injection into the lips.
Other types of reported reactions, which are very rare, include:
1 in 2000 treated patients experienced localized reactions, which
were thought to be of a hypersensitive nature. These reactions
usually consisted of swelling at the injection site, sometimes
affecting the surrounding tissues. Redness, tenderness and rarely
acne-like formations were also reported. These reactions either
started a few days after the Restylane® injection or within
two to four weeks after Restylane® injection. The reactions
were generally described as mild to moderate and self-limiting
with a two-week average duration. Please consult your practitioner
for more information about these products.
Q: Why do the lips sometimes become
very swollen immediately after a Restylane®
treatment?
A: Unfortunately, we do not yet know the cause of this but we
have no reason to believe that this is an immunological reaction.
The swelling is normally gone within a week after injection into
the lips.
Q: Can Restylane®
be used if I have undergone laser treatment or chemical peeling?
A: Yes, but it is recommended that you wait until the treated
area is totally healed and the skin has normalized (normally 4
- 6 weeks).
Q: Can patients with allergies of
different kinds be more sensitive to Restylane®?
A: So far we have seen no connection between patients with allergies
and patients that report a reaction to Restylane®.
Q: Can Restylane®
be used during pregnancy or lactation?
A: There has been no reported testing for use of Restylane®
during pregnancy or lactation.
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Efficacy of Restylane®
Q: How long does the effect of a Restylane®
treatment last?
A: The length of time a Restylane® treatment lasts depends
on the individual and many factors, including the structure of
the skin, lifestyle, age, the degree of desired perfection and
the injection technique used by the practitioner. Clinical experience
indicates that touch-up and follow-up treatment will add to the
duration. In general, follow-up treatment for lines, wrinkles
and folds is needed after 6-12 months and 6 months after lip enhancement.
Q: Does Restylane®
get stiffer in cold weather? What happens in the sun?
A: You should not expose the treated area to intense heat (e.g.
in a solarium or by sunbathing) or extreme cold for the first
few days after the treatment in order to avoid the risk of inflammation
as the area has been disturbed. However, once Restylane® has
integrated into the body, it will adjust to your normal body temperature.
Q: How will my skin look if I
do not get follow-up treatments?
A: The results will gradually disappear and your skin will eventually
look like it did before the treatment. Receiving follow-up injections
will help to maintain Restylane® correction.
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Miscellaneous Restylane®
Questions
Q: What are the contents of Restylane®?
A: Restylane® consists of 20 mg/ml of stabilized hyaluronic
acid and physiological sodium chloride solution with a pH of 7.
All Restylane® products are clear, transparent and viscous
gels. The only difference between the products is the size of
the gel particles. In contrast to other similar products, the
hyaluronic acid in Restylane® is not produced from animals.
This means that there is no risk of disease being transmitted
or allergic reactions being elicited if you are sensitive to common
foods, such as beef, chicken and eggs.
Q: What is hyaluronic acid?
A: Restylane®, composed of Hyaluronic acid, is found naturally
in your skin and other tissues and is not of animal or human origin.
Hyaluronic acid has a chemical structure similar in many ways
to sugar and is identical in all species and in all tissue types,
making Restylane a very safe product for you.
Q: How was Restylane®
developed?
A: Dr. Bengt Ågerup, and the company Q-Med in Uppsala, Sweden,
succeeded in developing a way of using a Non-Animal, Stabilized,
Hyaluronic Acid to replace the loss of volume in the skin after
many years of research. The first application, Restylane®,
was launched in 1996. Prior to this, only collagen made from cow
hide and hyaluronic acid made from rooster combs were available.
Q: What is the CE-number of Restylane®?
A: The CE-number is the same for all Q-MED Esthetics products
is CE 0562. This is the number of the notified body. A notified
body is an institution which issues the CE-certificate, i.e. gives
the CE-mark for products approved for sale within the EU. The
CE-mark means that the product fulfils the demands set out in
the EU directive.
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