I want to get rid of the tired look around my eyes! is the most common request I get from my patients when they enter my clinic, literally. The eyebag treatment about which I am writing this blog is the quick fix answer, but it is a quick fix which leaves lasting and natural results.
The world of aesthetic medicine has changed significantly in the last 15 years. When I first injected my first patient with botox in 2004, I was getting rid of their forehead and frown lines, perhaps even the wrinkles around the eyes, and yes this did give the patients a new glow, wrinkle free eyes, but the tired look was still really there. Back then we did not really understand the ageing process and how to reverse it, as well as we do today, and apart from botox, we also had hyaluronic acid dermal fillers, in their infancy, and all we were treating were nasolabial folds and lines, and we were also performing lip enlargement treatments, but that was it!
To go back a little more, those who have followed my work over the last 2 decades will have read, that my father, Prof Bosko Milojevic, was one of the pioneers of modern Aesthetic Surgery, having opened his clinic all the way back in 1967 in Zagreb, Croatia, one of the first private European aesthetic plastic surgery clinics. I always looked up to him, and wanted to learn from this great man and father, but fate meant that I lost my father at a young age, and my career path took a different route.
After my medical training in London, I became a non surgical aestehtic doctor, and today I am very proud to be carrying on my father's work, but in a very modern way, in a world of botox, fillers, needles, probes, lasers, stem cells and growth factots. A world of aesthetics, which can now in a minimally invasive way, rejuvenate naturally, without the scalpel, without risks, without downtime. Now we can perform almost everything and correct almost anything non surgically, with all the modern cutting edge methods at our disposal and it is an ever revolving , ever developing branch of medicine, which is very exciting. We can now straighten noses in 2 minutes with fillers, get rid of eyebags the same way, perform full face non surgical face lifts, shape the body non surgically without liposuction, the list goes on...But back in the year 2008, it was not so!
Back then, I was doing as many as 40 botox treatments per day, enjoying it immensely, but I did feel like somewhat of a one trick pony, and not the all conquering plastic surgeon which I aspired to be as a kid growing up. So when in the years 2008-2010 many new advancements came into the world of aesthetic medicine, I was the first in the queue to sign up for the advanced training courses in nose straightening, eyebag removal, cheek filling, jawline straghtening, and even breast enlargement using hyaluyronic acid dermal fillers. Exciting times! I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes, suddenly I was able to do all these previously surgical procedures in a very modern non surgical way.
1st May 2008, I remember the day well! The first training course, run by occuloplastic surgeon Mr Raman Malhotra in central London, on how to get rid of eyebags, tear trough, dark circles, tired eyes and volume loss around the eyes. Until this time, injecting dermal fillers around the eyes was contraindicated , but with the advent of new advanced Restylane dermal fillers, and also with a new refined injection technique, we were suddnely able to reduce and erase eyebags in a 5-10 minute, painless procedure. I was fascinated and fell in love with this procedure straight away! And decided to be brave, which paid off big time.
Ok, so I must have inherited some talent in my hands from my father, but there is nothing like practice and experience to make you good at something. While other doctors were still afraid of this procedure, so close to the eyes, afraid of lumpiness, afraid of swelling or a bad results, I put this procedure onto my website, and studiously and bravely went about performing many procedures, and there were many!
Patients in the modern world, especially the modern millenials, like a quick photoshop treatment. Quick, easy, no risks, but a good result. As soon as patients found out about my treatments for eyebags (and Dr Malhotra and I were practically the only 2 doctors to perform this procedure for the next few years) they were flocking in. A press conference for the media for Galderma (then Q-med), and a Daily Mail article describing this procedure (I treated the journalist with great results, and she published her photos), and we suddenly did not know how to find appointments for our patients. We soon became number one on world Google for this procedure, and I to this day have patients flying into London or indeed my Zagreb clinic, from Iceland, Usa, Russia, Nigeria to name but a few, just for this non surgical procedure.
These days, this is my main sub specialty, and I have performed over 8000 cases of eyebags, all happy, with minimal side effects and downtime, and all with great longterm results, which are always natural. If ever there is some swelling still after a few weeks, which is rare, I have used my special vibration massage, to great effect.
I just love this treatment, I often joke I could do it blindfolded.I call it a wow treatment, because it has that wow factor. Even the largest eyebags can be erased in just 5 minutes, like magic, even though we did not remove them, they are gone! My patients no longer have that tired look, they don't feel tired, they just feel great and very very happy...
Read more here.
