Fat grafting fills facial features with a patient’s own fat. The fat used for fat transfer is extracted from part of your body like the abdomen or thighs and injected into another area that requires plumping. Since the fat is your own, a significant portion of the fat becomes permanent, and therefore it eliminates the need for constant reinjections, as with other materials.
The advantage of fat grafting is that the fat comes from your own body, so you cannot develop an allergic reaction unlike other external implant substances that are introduced into the body. Your body naturally accepts the injected fat.
The fat is processed and re-injected into the area using a fine needle and syringe. The most common areas of fat graft placement are the lips and the nasal-labial fold lines of the face (laugh lines). Other areas where fat is used can be cheeks, scar depressions, irregularities, or to re-contour the face or body. The procedure can take anywhere from one to a few hours. There is usually swelling and mild bruising noted which resolve over the first week after the injection of the fat.