I was just doing a training on Voluma injections for the temple area.
I am a fan of adding volume to this area. I do it all the time when I do fat grafting to the face. I think it is an overlooked but vital area to address with facial aging. Not only to you look better, but it helps lift the eyebrow and eye area.
In the training video it showed the nine layers of the temple area. You have fat, superficial layers of fascia, deep layers of fascia, muscle, and bone.
- Injection is 1 cm up and 1 cm over from the temporal to frontal septum
- Best to underfill
- Aspirate before injections (this is so we avoid any injection into blood vessels)
- Inject onto bone (this means we are injecting very deep onto the layer just above your bone).
- We immediately massage. You do not need to do this at home.
- Median injection volume: 3.65 for both temples (They averaged 2 cc for first treatment/1.5 for touch up a few weeks later.)
For you the patient: Come in with a clean face. Don’t touch the area after injection. No make up in the area for 12 hours. Avoid strenuous exercise for that day. Avoid dental work for 2 weeks after treatment.
There is always a risk for a complication. These are rare. We have hyaluronidase in our clinic in the rare event of an issue (hasn’t happened to us yet, but it is a real risk). We always monitor for this. The ASDS guidelines if there is blanching is: hyaluronidase injection, skin massage, intralesional or systemic steroids, warm compresses, and aspirin.
Our thoughts?
The temple is important. As it thins with age, it makes your face look narrow and gaunt. It leads to your eyebrow falling. It contributes to the increase in crows feet around the eye from volume loss. It can make you look sickly.
The issue for this area is that it requires a fair amount of volume for correction. As the video showed, the average injection volume was 3.65 cc. Given the cost of voluma for each syringe, this is part of why I love to do fat grafting in the area (I have lots of volume, so you are not paying by the cc of volume). But if you aren’t going to the operating room, or don’t have enough fat (as incredibly many of my Bay Area patients don’t have), then I think this is a great alternative.