If you're considering a cosmetic procedure to make your face look younger, no doubt you've looked at things like cheek implants and wrinkle serums. But those have either limited effects or require more surgical work than you might be comfortable with. If you want the youthful look but don't want the surgery, cheek fillers might be the best option. Comparing cheek fillers to implants and wrinkle treatments shows how much more effective the fillers might be.

It's Not Just Wrinkly Skin That's the Issue

As you get older, you have to deal with not only wrinkles but things like bone loss, too. This is not necessarily the medically bad bone loss that everyone has to look out for -- your cheekbones just get thinner. Combine that with a loss of fat in your cheeks as the fat eventually gives into the pull of gravity, and you can end up with a sallow, hollow-looking face.

Wrinkle treatments don't really take care of that. You can get a little localized plumpness from filling in wrinkles, but you don't get an actual replacement for the loss of bone structure. And your skin certainly doesn't lose the sagginess that forms after both your cheekbones and cheekfat thin out.

Cheek fillers, though, give you those nice, plump cheeks again -- and that in turn lifts the skin in nearby areas of your face. The sagginess is reduced considerably. You also look more youthful because you appear to have full cheeks again. The one drawback to cheek fillers is that they're not permanent; you'll need to go back to the doctor every so often to get more filler injected. But with fillers, such as Voluma, there's an interesting effect: they can actually influence your body and make it start producing more cheek collagen. So when you go back, you might not need as much filler.

Implants Require More Work

Of course, cheek implants are permanent, but they require more surgical intervention. Remember, you're placing an object in each cheek -- that's not something you can take care of with an injection. Plus, cheek implants really aren't that common anymore. And with cheek fillers, you don't have to worry about the fillers suddenly moving around, or appearing lopsided because of a botched procedure. Cheek fillers have a standardized scale that doctors can follow so that there's more agreement on how a patient's cheeks should look.

If you have more questions about cheek fillers, such as Voluma, talk to your doctor. He or she can fill you in -- no pun intended -- on what sort of care you'd need after getting the filler, and how much it might cost.