MD Codes™: The Only Approach to Facial Aesthetic Injectables

Ok, so what are these MD Codes™ I keep reading about?

After many years of seeing unpredictable and often unnatural patient outcomes, Dr. Mauricio De Maio (MD) created the MD Codes™. The MD Codes™ is a system that was developed to increase patient confidence, safety and clinician success rates with injectable treatments and by focusing on addressing unfavourable emotional attributes of the face.

The causes behind Facial Ageing

There are many reasons that cause our faces to change shape. The causes are the subject of much scientific study. A loss of fat in the facial region can happen due to the natural aging process, weight loss, a shift in hormone levels, exposure to UV rays, smoking, injury, and combinations thereof.

So, as we age, facial volume loss happens when the face fat (that was once evenly distributed around the eyes, cheeks, forehead, temples, and mouth) shifts and diminishes. Gravity starts to play its part, and once round cheeks fall downward and sink, causing hollowness under the eyes. Lips begin to lose their plumpness and appear thinner with age.

Without addressing these changes in our face, that once perfectly positioned face fat can gather in certain areas that were once more taut, such as the lower jaw. This movement and change can cause unsightly jowls of baggy skin to hang low on each side of the lower jaw, as well as the neck.

Every single day, we repeat necessary repetitive movement of facial muscles, and these movement cause creases in the skin, which over time cause wrinkles and deep folds. Combined with a loss of collagen that helps to provide thick, healthy and supple skin, the overall effect is that we see a less desirable appearance, which is often manifested by negative emotional attributes.

Emotional Attributes

Our faces convey how we feel to the rest of the world. Portraying how we feel through a smile, a frown or a grimace illicit a response in others. So what happens when the emotion we express does not reflect our true feelings. For example, a patient’s face may look tired when the patient is not feeling tired or may convey sadness when the patient is not feeling sad, or anger.

Studies (1,2,3) have demonstrated that negative emotional messages are associated with specific facial deficiencies. An angry appearance may be caused by glabellar lines. A tired look caused by eye bags. The changes that we see occur with aging in the skin, soft tissue, and bones of the face. Such deficiencies are what typically result in the accumulation of these negative emotional messages.

A lack of knowledge and understanding of this is what has lead (and still leads) to injectors treating one area in isolation, such s the nasolabial folds. Treatment of only one isolated area may not lead to a successful aesthetic outcome, and often leads to an unnatural, unbalanced outcome.

Overcoming a Fear of Unnatural Outcomes

We know from our experience of dealing with thousands of patients, and from extensive study by the Allergan Medical Institute that the largest barrier stopping patients from overcoming their fear of treatment is the fear of unnatural outcomes.

This calls for a much more holistic and natural approach to anti-aging. Simply put, physicians need to treat the face as a whole to address treating, and removing negative emotional attributes. Here’s summary of an MD Codes consultation prior to treatment.

Credential Credential Credential

If your injector or their consultant cannot demonstrate multiple, and we do mean multiple, ‘Before and Afters’ images of their own patients, by that injector, you should question why. If they start using Google, get up and walk away! Maybe even run!

We recently had a patient who was devastated, incredibly upset by the unnatural outcome she had experienced by a Physician injector. That Doctor has conducted only a short consultation, and indeed used google to show outcomes; presumably of some other Doctors work! This patient needed a through consult of at least an hour, a full set of before photographs (we take 26 from every angle and emotion) before Dr. Kennea approved a treatment plan which was discussed fully with the patient.

Just because a clinic or injector talks about using the MD Codes, that DOES NOT mean they have actually had in person training. They might simply have attended a large conference, or watched a demonstration. Ask questions!