Let's Talk About Fat Injections

Fat injections offer natural-looking results when you want to contour areas of your body, add volume to accentuate curves, or smooth out wrinkles or scars on your body or face. 

Here at The Aesthetic Surgery Center on the Upper East Side in New York City, our renowned plastic surgeon, Dr. Elliott H. Rose, artfully applies fat injections, also called fat transfer, for your body and face to get you the results you want. 

Fat injections offer the advantage of removing unwanted fat from one area while enhancing another, achieving a more balanced and proportionate appearance. Research shows that patients who get fat injections for a variety of goals experience positive results. 

Fat injections basics

For the first step, we perform liposuction of fat cells from areas of the body that have too much fat tissue, such as the abdomen, thighs, or flanks. Then we purify the harvested fat and carefully inject it into areas where volume is needed, such as the face, breasts, buttocks, or hands. 

The procedure offers double the benefits: It contours the area from which we extracted the fat but also enhances the areas where we apply the injections. 

Ways we use fat injections

Fat injections have aesthetic and reconstructive applications. These include:

Facial rejuvenation

Fat injections can smooth out wrinkles, restore lost volume caused by aging, and enhance features like the cheeks, lips, and under-eye areas.

Breast augmentation

Fat injections provide natural-looking enhancement, correction of asymmetry, or reconstruction after a mastectomy.

Buttock augmentation

Often referred to as a Brazilian butt lift, fat injections that are placed in the buttocks can enhance the size and shape of the derriere.

Hand rejuvenation

The appearance of veins and tendons can age the look of your hands. Fat injections smooth out these imperfections to provide a more youthful look.

Scar improvement

Fat transfer treatments can restore volume and smooth out the contour of disfiguring facial or body scars.

How fat injections can benefit you

The effects of fat injections are natural-looking. Because the injections use your own tissue, you also get a more realistic feeling compared to synthetic fillers or implants. And there's no risk of allergic reactions or rejection because the fat is autologous, meaning it’s from your own body.

While some of the injected fat may be reabsorbed by the body, the cells that establish a blood supply typically provide long-lasting results. You also heal with minimal scarring because both the liposuction and injection sites involve only small incisions.

What it’s like to get fat injections

During your initial consultation, Dr. Rose conducts a thorough assessment to determine if fat injections are the right procedure for your aesthetic or reconstructive goals. During this visit, he also identifies the best donor and recipient sites.

When you come in, Dr. Rose uses liposuction to gently remove fat from the donor area. The areas to receive liposuction are numbed using a local anesthetic.

Our office then processes the extracted fat to remove excess fluids and non-fat tissues, leaving behind concentrated, viable fat cells.

Dr. Rose then precisely injects the purified fat into the target areas in small amounts to ensure even distribution and optimal survival of the fat cells.

Recovery time varies depending on the extent of the procedure and the areas treated. Common post-procedure side effects include swelling, bruising, and discomfort, which typically subside within a few weeks.

You start to see noticeable improvements once the initial swelling goes down, with final results becoming more apparent over the following months as the fat cells integrate into the surrounding tissues.

Determining if fat injections are right for you

Fat injection helps you enhance your appearance without synthetic materials. Dr. Rose makes sure you have realistic expectations and understand that the success of the procedure depends on the quality of the harvested fat, the technique used, and your personal healing response.

If you’re considering a fat-injection procedure, we invite you to schedule a consultation here at The Aesthetic Surgery Center. Call us or use this website to book your visit.