If you hear something is fake, you probably think it's a bad thing.
But a local doctor is having the opposite reaction to his new Fakelift.
"No surgery, no thread, no lasers," says the Fakelift's inventor, facial plastic surgeon Dr. Mike Nayak.
A needle on the left, a cannula on the right and syringes are the only medical devices laid out in his procedure room.
Instead of anesthesia or sedation, a fully awake patient.
"I can do this on people on blood thinners," says Dr. Nayak, of Nayak Plastic Surgery in Creve Coeur, "I can do this on people have heart conditions, I can do this on smokers, I can do this on people who can't have general anesthetic."
Instead of injecting hyaluronic acid gel into lines on the face, the focus is on using fillers to build up the cheeks and the jawline.
"That hides both sides of the jowl, lowers the jaw line to what is actually a more youthful position," says Dr. Nayak. "And the other thing is, this little bit of jowl line has been lifted, and it's been lifted by building in" the upper cheek area.
Dara Pry, 51, had her Fakelift in August.
"It's a subtle difference" says Dara. "There's a little swelling in the beginning, but it goes away quickly."
Dr. Nayak says the Fakelift wasn't even possible five years ago. But what's happened in that time is the fillers have gotten better. They're less expensive and last longer and none of the filling is done with a needle.
"So that's my doorway," says Dr. Nayak has he makes his first needle stick into the upper cheek of 65-year-old Nyra Mueller.
It's one of the few needle sticks he'll have to make.
A blunt-tipped cannula does the rest of the work spreading the filler, reducing the chance of bruising and bleeding. There's also little pain.
"We're traveling in layers of the face that have no pain receptors," says Dr. Nayak.
Patients say there's little discomfort. Risks include possible infection. But the procedure is also entirely reversible.
The entire procedure takes about 45 minutes, and Dr. Nayak says the result is about half or three-quarters of the effect you'd get from a surgical facelift.
"Three years ago in fillers, she'd walk in and we'd fill the heck out of that," says Dr. Nayak pointing to Nyra's deep smile lines. "And she wouldn't look younger," says Dr. Nayak. "The action is out here," he says, pointing to the side of Nyra's face.
"It didn't hurt," says Nyra, "I could feel the pressure, you could hear it a little bit, a little crackling sound. It was less than a dentist's appointment."
And the fresher look patients Dara Pry and 69-year-old Sandra Eastridge were looking for.
"They look at me and say do you have a different hair color? You look good you look refreshed you looked tired before," says Sandra about the reaction she gets from friends.
"I felt like I was aging," says Dara, "and now I feel like I'm fighting back."
The Fakelift costs anywhere from $3,500 to $5,500, depending on how much filler is used.
And like a surgical facelift it doesn't last forever.
Expect to need more filler about once a year.
