Painful, yes. But the new NO-KNIFE FACELIFT DELIVERS!
Like Shirley Ballas, INGE VAN LOTRINGEN is delighted with the results of her own pioneering, anti-ageing tweakment
GO ON, admit it: when we see someone emerging from a beauty treatment looking decidedly more radiant and toned, we are intrigued. And tempted. And so it was just recently with Strictly judge Shirley Ballas’s non-surgical ‘facelift’.
The 62-year-old posed for a slew of before and after snaps and said: ‘I wanted to look my very best but I didn’t want to go under the knife. This is the best I’ve looked in years!’
Ballas’s glowing results are thanks to Neo-Gen Plasma, an energy-based treatment that stimulates skin cell renewal by means of applying intense heat to the collagen- generating deeper dermal layers.
The principle is similar to that of many laser, radiofrequency and ultrasound treatments in that skin is ‘wounded’ in order to force a ‘healing’ response that results in plumper and brighter skin.
Such treatments can be brilliant for the right person but if, like me, you have thin, reactive skin (mine looks almost transparent) it could suffer damage which risks ageing, rather than rejuvenating, your face.
It’s why I prefer to get my anti-ageing boost from fillers. In expert hands, carefully placed fillers can invisibly restore lost volume in areas like the temples, the brow and under-eye hollows.
But until now, the technology has not been there for dermal fillers to treat the soft tissues of the lower cheek and jaw area; nor has it been able to smooth wrinkles in that area.
But it’s the lower half of the face where skin thinning and sagging is most apparent. And, let’s face it, a jowly face really gives the age game away.
SO My ears pricked up when I heard of a new product called HArmonyCa ( complete with obligatory convoluted spelling), which is the first injectable that claims to tackle thinning, slackening skin and wrinkles in the mid and lower face.
That’s because it’s a ‘hybrid’ of two technologies: a subtle filler as well as a long-term rejuvenating injection, spiked as it is with an agent proven to induce the production of collagen and elastin (the fibres that give skin its fullness and spring, and stop it creasing).
Due to the low density of the filler and the application method, the risk of overfilled ‘ hamster cheeks’ is apparently non-existent.
Intrigued, I booked in with surgeon and cosmetic physician Dr Apul Parikh, one of the first in the country to offer the procedure. ‘This is not a treatment aimed at those in their 20s and
30s,’ says Dr Parikh. ‘ The main target is “concertina” lines [those big-smile lines that spread from the corners of your mouth], which generally form and set past the age of 40.’
The hybrid filler also helps reinforce and ‘thicken’ both the feel and look of cheek and jaw skin because a thin layer of product is ‘spread under a large area of skin lacking torque and bounce’, he says.
The procedure takes an hour. Dr Parikh says I’ll see a noticeable improvement in the laughter lines and tone of my cheeks, with full results evident after six weeks.
My face is marked with injection points: I need two in each cheek. The HArmonyCa filler (two-parts hyaluronic acid gel and one-part collagen-boosting calcium hydroxyapatite microspheres) ‘ incorporates the anaesthetic lidocaine, to numb the pain of the injections’.
This is a relief when I see the terrifyingly long cannula that is about to be inserted under my skin. It looks like a massive needle but is in fact a flexible hollow tube with small holes along its length. Once under the skin, the product is pushed out of the openings along the cannula and spread in a ‘windscreen wiper’ movement under the entire cheek and jaw area. That really doesn’t sound like it’s going to be fun, but the swiping around of the thing under my skin is initially surprisingly painless. Apparently there is space between the skin layers so the tube doesn’t do damage. The numbing agent helps as well.
It does get sore when it gest to the outer edge of my face near the ear and jaw but, fortunately, it’s over before I can wail for a time-out. A smaller area near the jowl region is treated separately, after which I have to grit my teeth for it all to be repeated on the other side.
THE result from the filler is instant: there’s a subtle but noticeable added width to my cheeks, making them look less hollow, and my skin feels thicker and firmer.
My main nose-to-mouth lines are still there, but the finer laughter lines that radiate out from them have softened.
Dr Parikh rounds the treatment off by putting me under his Celluma LED light canopy for half an hour — renowned for calming inflammation and helping skin heal faster.
Four months on, it lives up to the hype. For a non- surgical procedure, that offers a longlasting result that I expect is going to revolutionise the aesthetics industry. It may even be worth a ten from Shirley. n HArmonyCA costs £1,200 apulparikh.co.uk. Available in clinics around the UK, too.
I thought the social pause of lockdown was the ideal time to come off them. But two weeks after my last pill I was a sobbing, anxious wreck
the children were calmer. I had started dating and, after 18 long months, I entered a new phase with a new boyfriend.
I’d always intended to come off the antidepressants at some point, and then lockdown happened and I thought the social pause provided the ideal opportunity.
I took one every other day for a few weeks and then stopped altogether. I felt OK when I was weaning myself off them. I DIY-ed, I continued writing, I baked banana bread.
then one day, maybe a week or two after my last pill, I became a sobbing, anxious wreck.
I called my friend V, who had been my rock through my break-up. She told me I sounded exactly like I had done at the nadir: wretched.
I hadn’t told my then boyfriend that I was taking the pills so, of course, I didn’t tell him that I had stopped. When I analyse why, I think it was because so much of dating is about presenting an easybreezy image and I didn’t want him to think I was a liability. In the event, my relationship spluttered and died.
Did coming off the drugs prompt the split? Maybe. It probably made me a bit more vulnerable, less bubbly. harder work, perhaps.
In hindsight, it expedited the break-up rather than caused it. Whatever — I felt low. Was this who I was underneath? Was I not any stronger? Was the happiness and strength I had been feeling purely chemical?
I started to feel a modicum of regret over taking the pills. Was I back to the beginning? had I done no ‘real’ healing?
My cousin, a psychiatrist, calmed me. She told me that, after a while on an SSRI, your brain gets lazy and reduces the serotonin it makes for itself. Which means, when you stop taking the pills, you feel lower than you would naturally feel if you had never taken them.
If the pills made you a nine-outoften happy and you would normally be a seven, withdrawing from them can make you a five for a while, until your body kicks in and starts making more serotonin again. I felt like a three. I didn’t want to ride this out. So I started taking the drugs again. And though I was grateful to feel better within weeks, part of me feared I could never live without them.
It was easy to just get on with life. And I did. For another two years. ‘Wait until your divorce is done and everything is calm before you try to come off them again,’ advised my cousin.
And so, last autumn, having been in a steady, happy relationship for 18 months with the Boyfriend — and knowing that my children were much more stable, the divorce had been finalised and our house was secure — I started lowering my dose.
I took half a pill a day for three weeks (turns out taking them every other day is inadvisable as it precipitates ups and downs) and then . . . nothing.
I wasn’t scared, but I was apprehensive. I warned those close to me that I might be more emotional. And I worried it could affect my relationship by making me more needy, more anxious.
With the Boyfriend, I have been much more open about my antidepressants. My post-marriage journey has taught me that showing your true self is essential in a relationship, as is communicating your needs. he was understanding and non-judgmental.
In fact, everyone was supportive. I felt OK. I waited for the fall-out. none came.
I did, and still do, feel moments of anxiety. Situations I might once have brushed off quickly require more time to process. A late
I didn’t want my boyfriend to think I was a liability, so I didn’t tell him
evening email might play on my mind and disrupt my sleep in ways it wouldn’t have done before. the upset following a disagreement may take longer to dissipate.
And, yes, I needed more reassurance in my relationship. Required a few more ‘I Love Yous’, hand squeezes and heart emoji WhatsApps. happily, this wasn’t a problem.
I was, according to the children, ‘more irritable’.
I listened to Radio 4’s Made Of Stronger Stuff podcast, and its host Dr Xand van tulleken said that an increase in serotonin makes you focus on the positive rather than the negative. And this made sense.
I can see how my brain has swung a few points over to the latter. those rosy glasses are a slightly paler pink these days.
But, on the flip side, I’m feistier. I feel more. My daughter wanted me to cry at her singing like the mums in the movies do, and now I do.
It’s like I’ve had a layer of teflon removed. I’ve increased my emotional range. And, though it might seem strange to say, I like experiencing more sadness. It makes me feel more human.
But I caveat this whole withdrawal story with the fact that I needed to be ready to come off antidepressants.
I liken it to potty training. When I tried to do it too early with my children it was a s*** show (literally). then, six months later, it was OK. this has been similar.
Interestingly, antidepressant withdrawal is topical right now. nICe, the nhS watchdog, has just released new guidelines to gPs suggesting patients are weaned off them slowly rather than going ‘cold turkey’.
And it’s partly because I felt like there was a lack of knowledge around this process — and of the emotional and physical effects — that I decided to write a post about my successful withdrawal on Instagram last month.
the response was incredible. I have a legion of loyal followers, many of whom have come along on my journey and had a similar experience to me, and without exception every single comment from them was supportive. they were grateful for the open discussion.
even those who are opposed to antidepressants, who feel they are given out too easily or are just a placebo, made their points respectfully.
It showed me just how many women (and men) are taking them, or have taken them. Or are considering doing so.
It also highlighted to me that, while in my social circle taking antidepressants is seen as entirely acceptable, there are many cultures where judgment very much exists.
So many people told me, both in the comments and privately in direct messages, how somebody talking publicly about taking them reduces their feelings of shame.
It has now been a month since I stopped taking the pills, and I feel OK. More than OK.
My withdrawal coincided with highs (Christmas and a sunny holiday) and challenges (Christmas and a double whammy of the lurgy), but I haven’t looked back.
And I am thankful. these tiny pills helped me find my way through the darkness, see hope when I felt only despair.
they gave my children a functioning mother when they needed one most. I am truly grateful for their existence.
If life throws me against the rocks again I won’t hesitate to seek out their help.