This review is a bit overdue, and I don't like being negative about docs because there are many docs in my family - but this situation was not good. And, it was pretty black and white.
I was been getting Radiesse in my temples since 2011 - and this was my last treatment (over a year ago now). They are very hollow, and it is a major difference in my appearance (I will post a pic but they are not that hollow there). Anyway, this is a very straightforward procedure. I had it done by a plastic surgeon, a nurse, and then a dermatologist. Nobody screwed it up. The key to this is to inject deep into the tissue. An injection that is too shallow can cause lumps, a wavy / uneven appearance, and a blue tint (the Tyndall effect). And that's what I got. So, I paid $800 to have a blue wavy / lumpy mass in my temple that was blue for about 6 months (with bad headaches) until it finally became too hard to see thanks to the filler dissipating. I had another doctor inject kenalog and 5-fu in the hopes it would go down, so who knows, maybe that helped. The headaches were not stopping so I wanted to try anything.
A few weird things happened during this injection. First, he mixed it with a large amount of lidocaine. So, the total quantity injected was much greater than the filler and it didn't seem even (well, it wasn't even, which was obvious when the lidocaine went away). Second, I said "why don't I hear the cracking noise" - which is a common thing you hear when you get injected here. Dr. Geldner said he "knows how to do it so you don't have to hear that kind of noise" and that only inexperienced doctors create that noise. No, if you inject too shallow, you don't hear the noise and you end up with the mess I got. If you inject deep, then you hear the cracking noise of your tissues reacting / separating from the injection. You're supposed to hear the noise.
I went back a week or two later because it still looked ridiculous and I had headaches / migraines, but he said it was fine and just swollen (as I walked around looking like an alien - and note that NO prior injection here ever made my temples stick out like this... there was maybe 1 millimeter of swelling in those injections). Subsequent doctors said the filler was placed too superficially (shallow). Radiesse swelling is gone by 1-2 weeks...but I had visible lumps until the product was gone anyway. Every plastic surgeon blames mistakes on swelling - this is such old news it goes back to the beginning of the field.
I was having some other health issues at the time that left me with a cosmetic problem that could not be easily fixed, so I had hoped that this would've been a positive experience to take my mind off that - and it had been foolproof for years... but nope. I am giving the extra star because at least he did discuss those other issues with me & didn't run out of the office like most doctors, once they're done. But 6 months of a big bruised zit / lump on my face wasn't what I paid $800 for. Of course, one doesn't get one's money back from a plastic surgeon - ever even though the manufacturer's price for 1.5 cc Radiesse in 2016 was $331+tax. So he's keeping $430 for doing this to me & there's nothing I can do except say: Don't go to him for filler. read more
