Expert Silicone Injection Removal in Beverly Hills | Los Angeles
Silicone Biopolymer injections are unregulated in the United States and can cause serious health problems related to chronic inflammation, filler migration, and discomfort. Dr. Raffy Karamanoukian is recognized as one of the leading plastic surgeons in the United States that is dedicated to the removal of silicone biopolymers from the face, lips, and after failed silicone BBL to the buttocks. If you have undergone silicone biopolymer injections into your face or body, our renowned plastic surgeon offers minimally-invasive solutions to eliminate or remove these fillers from your body.
Relieve Pain and Discomfort from Silicone Biopolymers
Although silicone biopolymers are unregulated and non-FDA-Approved in the United States, some doctors inject silicone and biopolymers into the soft tissue as an alternative to fat transfer or dermal fillers. Over time, these biopolymers cause tissue inflammation that can lead to infection, granuloma formation, and fibrosis of the tissue. If left unchecked, the fibrosis and inflammation can lead to contour problems, pain, discomfort, autoimmune disease, biopolymer rejection, and tissue toxicity. These health risks may jeopardize your quality of life and overall health.
Our goal is to reduce the inflammatory load by safely removing silicone biopolymers from the soft tissue. In doing so, the silicone load is reduced and this may improve the tissue toxicity related to your body’s autoimmune response. Patients benefit from these silicone removal techniques as they may theoretically decrease the risk of tissue rejection, foreign body tissue reaction, inflammation, and fibrosis.
Safety of Silicone Injection Removal in Beverly Hills
The long-term health effects of foreign body tissue reaction remain unclear. Evidence-based research has identified distinct histopathologic findings associated with silicone biopolymers, including granuloma formation, migration, soft tissue swelling, and autoimmune inflammation. The surgical protocols that we have uniquely developed can safely remove and separate silicone biopolymers from the fatty tissue. The idea is that by removing the silicone, you will reduce the physical burden of disease. Our Los Angeles plastic surgery center focuses on safe solutions for removal of the material from your face or body.
Silicone Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBL) Problems
Our office manages countless patients who have made the unfortunate mistake of silicone BBL to their body. Although fat transfer has its inherent risks of surgery, silicone BBL’s are associated with permanent soft tissue inflammation and toxicity. Free silicone can migrate, move to remote or distant areas of the body, cause lumpiness and nodules, induce swelling, and endanger the tissue to the point that you may feel chronic pain, burning, itching, redness, and discomfort. Some patients with silicone may also have alterations in their sleep cycle, stress level, and energy levels.
Silicone dermal fillers are not regulated in the United States because their long-term effects on the body are not clearly defined. If you have had silicone injections and were not aware of the potential problems, you may be a candidate for surgical removal with our board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica.
Medical Grade Silicone Fillers
When a patient comes in for a plastic surgery consultation for biopolymer removal, most of the time they are unsure what type of filler they have had injected into the buttocks. To date, there are no FDA-Approved silicone fillers that can be used in the United States for buttock augmentation. Medical-grade and FDA-Approved silicone is thus a myth, as most of these dermal fillers employ commercial or industry-silicone that has enough contaminants that they are unsuitable for injection into soft tissue. Patients who have had silicone biopolymers in South America and Mexico may have fillers that are termed ‘medical-grade’ but these fillers rarely have any medical documentation proving their safety for human use.
Dr. Karamanoukian has had countless patients with biopolymer injections and uses his twenty years of experience and surgical judgement to identify patterns of autoimmune and foreign body tissue reaction. This experience allows his diagnostic and management techniques to produce positive outcomes for patients.
Although some injections have been labelled as biopolymers or ‘biopolimero,’ they can also contain other petroleum based materials, mineral oil, vegetable oils, vaseline, propylene glycol, PMMA, Bellafill, and hyaluronic acid.
Treatment Areas for Silicone Biopolymers in Los Angeles
We have seen many patients with silicone that has been injected into the face and body. For the most part, we treat patients who have botched BBL or lip silicone. However, we see biopolymers in the buttocks, hips, thighs, face, breasts, penis, and labia majora. Each of these silicone filler problems require individualized and curated techniques to reduce the inflammatory load of the material.
Common Risks of Silicone Biopolymer Injections
If left unchecked, chronic inflammation can cause major problems to the soft tissue and skin. Silicone has a tendency to migrate through tissue to distant areas. Silicone migration can enter lymph nodes and travel down the thighs and legs to cause localized swelling and tissue redness. Microscopically, biopolymers cause granuloma formation, immune cell response, fibrosis, and foreign body tissue reaction. In the worst case scenario, this chronic fibrosis and inflammation can alter the health of the tissue to the point where the skin becomes red, thickened, and necrotic. If you are concerned about silicone migration or suspect this in your case, you should seek the advice of a surgical expert to manage your complications. Rarely, free silicone can travel through the blood vessels and lymphatics and increase your risk of stroke or death.
Silicone Disease and Your Body
Silicone can mimic your fatty tissue in many ways, including specific gravity and material density. This unique attribute may cause significant problems as the silicone can migrate through tissue planes and cause diffuse inflammation at the cellular and macroscoopic level. We see the visible markers of macroscopic foreign body tissue reaction when the tissue swells, becomes red, develops nodules, and distorts the normal tissue anatomy. The vascular supply of the skin and soft tissue then begins to change, resulting in large-scale tissue disease. The inflammation caused by silicone reaction can be constant, or variable, depending on your body’s immune system.
The goal of surgery is to reduce the short and long-term effects of silicone reaction by eliminating the bulk of material from your skin and soft tissue.
Treatment Options for Silicone Injection Removal
Patients are often overwhelmed by the severity of silicone disease. Silicone is a permanent filler material and there are no known antidotes or injections that can dissolve the silicone plastic. For this reason, most surgical procedures focus on removing and separating the silicone from the normal tissue. Dr. Raffy Karamanoukian employs several techniques including surgical excision of silicone filler, VASER guided ultrasonic cavitation and separation of silicone, and Ultrasound-Guided Liposuction for selective Silicone removal.
Surgical Excision of Silicone in Los Angeles
There are many pros and cons to this technique that should be kept in mind when planning a surgical procedure to remove silicone. Silicone polymers often migrate from the site of injection outward into adjacent soft tissue. Surgical excision techniques remove skin and soft tissue fat from a specific area and this can be problematic when we are dealing with diffuse spread of silicone polymers. In other words, silicone is not often isolated to one area and surgical excision may not remove the entirety of the silicone. If partial excision is accomplished, additional liposuction techniques should be used in a secondary stage to reduce the migrated material.
The second major issue involves the surgical excision approach, which not only leads to scarring on the buttocks - but also the possiblity that the remaining tissue may not heal properly along the incision line.
For these reasons, Dr. Karamanoukian advocates for silicone injection mitigation with either VASER technique, liposuction technique, or Ultrasound-guided liposuction techniques. Surgical scar excision is thus useful for those patients who have isolated silicone deposits or who have recently undergone injections.
VASER Cavitation of Silicone Injections
VASER is a high performance liposuction treatment that utilizes cavitation energy to disrupt fatty tissue prior to liposuction. In non-viscous oily deposits of silicone polymer, the VASER system may help dislodge pockets of silicone contained within the fatty soft tissue. By agitating the biopolymers, removal of the silicone may be facilitated by the VASER system. Downsides of VASER assisted lipectomy of silicone oil is that the resulting fibrosis and collagenesis may make it more difficult to address future problems with silicone oil. VASER induces collagen deposition and fibrosis, both of which entrench silicone biopolymers within scar tissue.
Ultrasound-Guided Removal of Silicone
In our Beverly Hills and Los Angeles plastic surgery practices, we believe that real-time ultrasound may facilitate the precise removal and mitigation of silicone oils within the soft tissue. Ultrasound allows Dr. Karamanoukian to assess the severity of tissue fibrosis and silicone density on different planes and may allow for careful visualization of silicone migration. Our goal is to precisely locate and define planar silicone deposits within the skin and soft tissue so that we can selectively separate and remove silicone from normal tissue.
Ultrasound-guided removal leaves less scarring but is not appropriate for patients with severe skin involvement, tissue necrosis or skin loss. Dr. Karamanoukian will review your options for silicone removal during your consultation.
Recovery after Silicone Injection Removal in Beverly Hills
Silicone removal is usually performed on an outpatient basis under general anesthesia. After a careful review of your medical history, our team of experts will schedule an appropriate treatment that takes into account the provenance of your silicone filler and the extent of your physical symptoms.
After liposuction-based silicone removal, you will notice some mild discomfort and swelling along the buttocks and hips. This tissue edema should last about one week followed by a return to normal activities. Most patients will wear a compression garment following the surgery.
When Do I See Results After Silicone Injection Removal?
Recovery is very quick after ultrasound-guided silicone removal and patients typically notice an overall improvement in the shape of their buttocks after a few days of recovery. Inflammation and redness may still be present depending on the extent of surgery and the severity of your silicone disease. We recommend you return to normal physical activities within two weeks of your procedure.