Update: My Hand Rejuvenation Experience with Radiesse

Five weeks ago I performed hand rejuvenation using Calcium Hydroxyapatite or Radiesse. You can find my original post here.  This is the follow-up.

I’ll start with the TL;DR:  I am incredibly pleased with my results.

My hands were swollen for about 3-4 days with some achiness or soreness, but nothing that I would call pain. I never had any limitations of strength or function at anytime.

At about the two week point, after the swelling had gone down, I decided to do a touch up concentrating on the area between the 1st and 3rd metacarpals (i.e. the thumb and middle finger.) I used 1 syringe of Volassom (the Korean knock-off for Radiesse) for each hand, so in total, each hand received 2.3 mL of CaHA — 1.5mL of Radiesse and 0.8mL of Volassom. I was not surprised that I required more than one syringe given that my hands were a grade 4 on the Merz scale. 

Yep, definitely a 4.

The only odd side effect that I have had is that the skin on the backs of my hands is still slightly sore to the touch. However, as I mentioned previously, I have 100% pain-free strength and function, and the skin sensitivity continues to decrease with time.

I feel like the before and after photos undersell how improved my hands look in real life. I still have the wrinkly crinkly skin, which will require…something. (TCA peels? PDRN/PN? Miracle L? RF? I'm open to suggestions!) But, I am thrilled to death that my hands no longer look like an anatomy class dissection specimen.

Anatomy 101

Much better!

To address an important topic, I understand why many people have great trepidation at the idea of using a filler that is not dissolvable using hyaluronidase. I elaborated in a comment to my original post why I personally felt comfortable doing this, based on my knowledge of the anatomy of the hand and my skill set. And to be honest, I don’t think I’d let even Tim Pierce put Radiesse or Sculptra in my face! 

So, it’s not for everyone, but it was a great experience for me. If I need a redo in the future, I may try Restylane Lift (which is HA), as it is also FDA approved for hand rejuvenation, just to compare the results.