Dr. Prasad: Today, we’re doing a Vampire Facelift® and a brief explanation of what a Vampire Facelift® is, basically the idea of lifting the face is what leads to some confusion. As a cosmetic surgeon, I perform face lifting routinely. And what I’m doing? I’m routinely vertically lifting the face. That means lifting the skin upwards. Now instead of lifting upward, the Vampire Facelift® concept is more about lifting the skin outward. Now why is that? Well, because as we get older, we lose bone, muscle and fat. And so the face starts to go inward. You start to see more of the skeleton, the underlying structure of the face.

Patient: Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that my skin doesn’t quite feel smooth and bright as it used to. I’ve noticed that there are certain small indentations that begun to appear under my eyes, in the areas around my nose and lips. And these are the kind of issues that I want to address but at the same time, without getting the very obvious artificial look. This is why I’m really looking forward and very excited for the Vampire Facelift®.

Dr. Prasad: So what the Vampire Facelift® is doing is we’re adding hyaluronic acid and platelet-rich plasma in a unique way to restore volume in areas that need volume. As you get older, as you hit your mid to later 30s and beyond, you start to lose areas of volume of fat particular such as the lateral part of your eyebrow, the outer part, the tear trough area or the under eye area, the cheek area, the nasolabial fold also called the parentheses line, the outer corner of the lip. So the concept of Vampire Facelift® is to literally to take one syringe of a hyaluronic acid filler such as Restylane, Juvederm, Belotero and use that very strategically. So that way we avoid an unnatural, over inflated effect and for people with these early stages of facial aging, they don’t need very much. The idea of using platelet-rich plasma is really very inspired. The platelet-rich plasma stimulates healing so it increases blood supply and collagen. Think about it when you get a cut, the area where you get the cut heals by generating collagen and new skin cells. So what we’re doing is we’re kind of manipulating that healing response and placing the PRP and stimulating new collagen and blood supply to the area that needs it.

Now the synergistic effect of hyaluronic acid and platelet-rich plasma has been very well documented in wound healing. And so this is a benefit that we get really nicely with the Vampire Facelift®. So our plan today is to add volume in the areas where she needs volume by doing a Vampire Facelift®. So we’re going to start first with a hyaluronic acid filler. So this happens to be Restylane but you can use Juvederm, Belotero or any filler that you are comfortable with. So what we’re going to do is first start with identifying where the opportunity is. Now to me, her lateral brow is already very nice and high so we’re not going to place anything in the lateral brow.

I think we have an opportunity right here in the tear trough area and hollows. She had already topical anesthetic and she should be relatively comfortable. I’m going to ask her to rest her head back so she doesn’t feel the pressure to stay steady and we’ll start placing. You can bring your chin up. So now we’ve got this area filled in very nicely. It looks very natural it’s blending in very well.