Injectable treatments are constantly growing in popularity. Last year, the number of hyaluronic acid injections administered in the United States grew by 60%, and Botox injections have grown by 420 % since 2000. Injectable treatments are popular because they are minimally invasive, quick, have little side effects and essentially no downtime, and provide good results in making people look younger. Injectable treatments have only one drawback: they are sadly temporary. A person who receives Botox or Restylane injections, for example, will likely need a follow-up treatment in about six months to continue to receive the same aesthetic benefits. But are there any long-term effects of injectable treatments?

Research suggests that there is. Botox treats facial wrinkles by blocking the treated muscles from receiving signals to contract. Since the constant contraction of facial muscles that creates deep wrinkles is a result of habitual contraction, Botox has the ability to recondition muscles over time, so that the types of wrinkles treated by Botox gradually diminish, making the treatment less and less necessary.

Recently, research has implied that there may also be permanent effects from hyaluronic acid fillers such as Restylane and Juvéderm. It seems that skin areas treated with these fillers use the hyaluronic acid they digest to enrich themselves, so that in addition to the temporary filler effect, these compounds have a permanent effect in improved skin health.
So, even though these compounds are essentially short-term treatments, they do have long-lasting, and positive, effects.

Radiesse (formerly Radiance) is an exciting and different kind of injectable filler. Although it can be injected to fill wrinkles and folds in the face like other fillers, it is a composite material. In addition to the carrier gel, which is methylcellulose, a chemical commonly used as a food thickener, Radiesse contains microspheres of a calcium mineral that resist digestion by the body. Although the microspheres are biocompatible, that is, body-friendly, they are not easily digested, unlike the methylcellulose or hyaluronic acid, the base material of injectable fillers like Restylane, Perlane, or Juvéderm. Therefore, these microspheres last a long time in your skin, and your skin uses them as a framework around which it builds its own material. Therefore, by the time the carrier gel is digested, it has been replaced by natural collagen.

So how long will the effects of Radiesse last? In general, Radiesse lasts about twice as long as other fillers, or a year or more in most patients.