It’s an old saying, but it’s very true, and it’s certainly very apt for cosmetic medicine. If you only have one, or a limited number, of tools or treatments available, you tend to believe that you can treat every concern with the one tool that you have at your disposal.
Twenty years ago we did not have the anti-wrinkle injections we have now, neither did we have the range of dermal fillers that we have today. In fact we only had one injectable product – collagen.
Collagen was not ideal – it did not last very long, was only effective for lines and wrinkles, and only came in small amounts. In addition there was a risk of allergy, so everyone had to have allergy tests with it over a period of six weeks before they could have a first treatment. But it was all we had, so we did everything we could with it. It made my job easier – whatever the concern, if it would benefit from a small amount of filler, the answer was collagen! We used it in lips, in lip lines, lines around the eyes, frown lines, forehead lines, scars and naso-labial folds.
Nowadays we have many more products available. In addition to three different anti-wrinkle injection
products we have a small host of different filler injections, collagen stimulators, platelet rich lasma treatments, as well as a range of dermal therapies including IPL, Lasers, skin needling, fat dissolving injections and more.
Many clinics limit their stock issues by stocking only a handful of different injectable treatments, often from a single distributor. We don’t do that at Envisage Clinic – we stock almost every available dermal filler in Australia. Why? Because in my view there is no “best” or “superior” dermal filler in general terms, but for any particular concern on any individual patient there may be a product that is best for them. Stocking them all gives us the opportunity to pick the right product, and helps to stop “everything looking like a nail”
Next time someone tells you that a particular product is the only one they stock because it is “the best” or “superior” I would suggest that you take that statement with a grain of salt. It’s very likely what they have been told by the supplier of that product. You will, I believe, generally find that doctors and clinics that stock a range of cosmetic injectables will have more options and more experience.
