Patients are turning to med spas to address ‘Ozempic face’

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Elizabeth Wellington | (TNS) The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA — At five feet, two inches tall, Julia O’Reilly was 190 pounds, prediabetic, and her blood pressure was elevated. Her only real exercise was chasing around her little ones.

She met with her doctors, who started O’Reilly on weekly Ozempic shots. She lost 50 pounds.

But with the weight gone, O’Reilly said, her face sagged, her cheeks hollowed, and dark circles appeared under her eyes.

“The goal was to lose weight,” O’Reilly said, “not to look sunken in and sickly.”

Those who use drugs like Ozempic — either for medical reasons or aesthetic ones — often find the weight loss leads to something now called “Ozempic face.” The result: medical spas are seeing an uptick in requests from clients using medicines like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound.

“I didn’t want to radically change myself,” O’Reilly said. “But I wanted my face to match this better version of me.”

So, after consulting the medical and beauty team at Center City med spa skin care clinic Body+Beauty Lab, she decided fillers were the best route to replace the youthful fullness she says Ozempic robbed from her face.

An old remedy for a new problem

According to a Gallup-up poll, 6% of US adults, or 15.5 million people, report having used medications like Ozempic and Wegovy for weight loss. When they work as hoped, doctors say they curb appetites and cravings. The downside: depleted muscle mass leading to older-looking faces.

“It’s a protein issue,” explained Dr. Marc Neff, medical director at Jefferson Health New Jersey’s Weight Loss Surgery Program. “Protein is important for skin elasticity, muscle tone, and overall skin health. It’s really important that when people start these medications they work with a dietitian to keep protein levels up.”

Doctors who specialize in beauty have been using fillers made from synthetic hyaluronic acid — Restylane, Juvéderm, Sculptra, Belotero — to plump and hydrate aging skin for more than 20 years. When injected into cheekbones, jawlines, and under the eyes, synthetic hyaluronic acid mimics the natural version, Mother Nature’s secret for dewy and fresh looking skin.

The periodic injections have also helped cancer and HIV patients feel confident.

However, over the years, fillers have come under as much scrutiny as weight loss medications. Too much of it can result in a plastic-looking face — see any reality TV star — not to mention bruising, itchiness, and swelling. And then there is the unfair pressure to look young all of the time: the very fact that they exist sends a message to those who chose not to use fillers that aging is not an option, when in truth it’s our only viable choice.

Julia O’Reilly, 35, gets work done on her cheeks by L. Sarah Sidiqi, Aesthetic Nurse Practitioner. Julia lost 50 pounds on Ozempic. She was not happy, so she went to The Body+Beauty Lab, 8th and Chestnut Street, Philadelphia for procedure to “plump” her face. Photograph taken on Monday, July 29, 2024. (Alejandro A. Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS)

For patients who have lost weight on the new medications, it can also seem like making an impossible deal with the devilish beauty gods, or an unwinnable game. For many, it’s a game they are willing to play.

“I treat this issue on a weekly basis,” said Sarah Sidiqi, an aesthetic nurse practitioner who sees roughly three “Ozempic face” patients a week at Body+Beauty Lab, compared to once a month before the weight loss drugs became popular. “They all want to restore the facial volume they’ve lost.”

A $4,000 fix

Before Linda Weller, 67, started using Mounjaro, her face, she said, looked pretty good for her age. Yet after losing 60 pounds in a year, it started to “look like a mudslide” — even as her A1C levels dropped and she was able to stop taking her blood pressure medication.

“I didn’t want to put the money out to get a facelift,” Weller said. “So I got my cheeks done.”

“I look and feel great,” Weller said.

Candice Reid, a registered nurse and owner of a Mount Airy Med Spa Nurse Candie, said she’s using more hyaluronic acid injectables, too, especially for clients who have lost weight who are over 40.

In addition to the hyaluronic injectables, Reid injects platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, into clients’ cheeks and jawlines to stimulate collagen growth. Collagen is among one of the most important proteins our body makes to keep skin from sagging. Production of it slows down as we get into our 30s with dramatic drops in the 40s.

“You can’t spot where you are going to lose your weight from,” Reid said, “But you can add volume back to facial areas that have been affected from fat loss.”

On a recent Monday afternoon, O’Reilly was ready to be perked up. Five syringes of Restylane — totaling more than $4,000 — lined the medical counter. After cleaning O’Reilly’s face and numbing it, Sidiqi injected Restylane into each of O’Reilly’s temples for contour and underneath each of her cheekbones to lift them. Sidiqi injected Restylane in O’Reilly’s chin to round it out and then she plumped her lips, but not too much because the overdone pout is out.

Gone were the dark circles. Gone was the unwanted gauntness. In less than an hour, O’Reilly had her younger face back. The results should last about a year.

“I like the way I look,” O’Reilly said. “I’m very pleased.”

Will O’Reilly be back? She’s not sure. Looking young is not cheap. Like the weight-loss drugs, fillers will have to be a permanent part of her beauty regiment if she wants to keep up her look. She’s just 35.

Repairs underway on MN Highway 13 in Mendota Heights, set to reopen Nov. 1

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A stretch of Minnesota Highway 13 in Mendota Heights near Lilydale Regional Park is estimated to be closed until Nov. 1 for repairs after the slope underneath the roadway failed due to heavy rains back in early June.

Repairs have officially started on the highway, which will include a subsurface drainage system and a retaining wall, according to Chris Hoberg, a maintenance operations engineer at the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

The slope failure happened June 3 and the highway was subsequently closed to traffic the same day. Hoberg said MnDOT had to study the area at first to figure out the root cause of the issue, but they ultimately determined that saturated soil caused by rainfall undermined part of the road.

“We had heavily saturated soils, water moving through the granular soils underneath the roadway, and that created more pressure than the slope was able to to handle and so that caused the failure.”

The drainage system being built will be able to drain the soil underneath the highway and divert water into a storm sewer system to prevent subsurface water from accumulating to that level of a failure again.

A 240-foot-long retaining wall will also be built.

“Just because of the terrain on site there, this is an area where the roadway needs to be built on an embankment. It needs to have a retaining structure to hold that soil in place so the roadway can sit on it,” Hoberg said.

Hoberg added that there have been failures before in the area, so MnDOT will be connecting this repair with adjacent ones to create a more robust system. He said this will stabilize this section of Highway 13 for the long term.

Contractors started mobilizing repair equipment and materials to the site on Sept. 9 and construction activities began Sept. 11. Hoberg said repairs are currently progressing well and they are on target for their November reopen date.

The roadway is currently closed between Wachtler Avenue and Sylvandale Road, and signed detours are in place.

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California sues ExxonMobil and says it lied about plastics recycling

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California sued ExxonMobil Monday, alleging it deceived the public for half a century by promising that recycling would address the global plastic pollutions crisis.

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said that even with recycling programs, less than 5% of plastic is recycled into another plastic product in the U.S. even though the items are labeled as “recyclable.” As a result, landfills and oceans are filled with plastic waste.

ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bonta, a Democrat, said a coalition of non-profit environmental organizations has filed a similar lawsuit against the oil giant, which is one of the world’s largest producers of plastics. The state’s lawsuit is a separate action. Both suits allege ExxonMobil misled the public through statements and slick marketing campaigns.

Bonta’s office said in a statement that the attorney general hopes to compel ExxonMobil to end its deceptive practices and to secure an abatement fund and civil penalties for the harm.

“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” Bonta said in a statement.

“ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health,” he said.

On Sunday, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a ban on all plastic shopping bags at supermarkets.

ExxonMobil knew that plastic is “extremely costly and difficult to eradicate” and that plastic disintegrates into harmful microplastics, yet it promoted recycling as a key solution through news and social media platforms, according to the lawsuit.

At the same time, it ramped up production of plastics, the lawsuit states.

Lately ExxonMobil has been promoting “advanced recycling” — also known as “chemical recycling” — and saying it will better turn old plastics into new products, the lawsuit states.

Twins still in playoff picture, but odds worsening with six games left

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It all comes down to this, one final week of the season to decide the Twins’ postseason fate.

While the Twins’ odds to make the postseason at one point were around 95 percent, they now sit at 54.5 percent with six games left to play after a disastrous road trip to Cleveland and Boston during which they went 2-5.

The Twins currently sit a game behind the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers, on the outside of the playoff picture for the first time since the early months of the season. They have a one-game lead on the Seattle Mariners. When all is said and done, two of those four teams will head to the postseason, nabbing the final two American League wild-card spots.

The Twins, Tigers and Royals were idle on Monday, while the Mariners played the Houston Astros.

“We’re going to try to make the best of (the) day off, come back fresh, ready to go with some enthusiasm,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Our guys want it. They want what’s in front of them.”

With one week left in the regular season, here’s what you need to know:

What does the schedule look like?

After an off day Monday, the Twins finish off their regular season with a six-game homestand, playing host to the Miami Marlins and Baltimore Orioles.

The Marlins enter the series with the worst record in the National League and these three games should offer the Twins an opportunity to pick up some ground in the playoff race. The Twins will send Bailey Ober, Simeon Woods Richardson and David Festa to the mound against the Marlins.

They then finish off their regular season with three games against the Orioles, who at this point look to be locked into the first AL wild-card berth. With nothing expected to be on the line for them, the Orioles could opt to rest some of their regulars to prepare for the postseason. The second game of that series, Saturday night, was picked up by FOX on Monday and will be televised nationally, shifting the game time from 1:10 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

The Tigers, meanwhile, end their season with a six-game homestand against the Tampa Bay Rays (78-78) and Chicago White Sox (36-120), who are perhaps the worst team in the modern era, which means the Tigers should have a good opportunity in front of them next weekend.

The Royals, who are on a seven-game slide, finish off their schedule at Washington (69-87) and then head to Atlanta (85-71) for a series that could have playoff implications for both teams.

The Mariners began a series against Houston, the AL West division leaders, on Monday, have an off day on Thursday and then finish their season against the Oakland Athletics (67-89) at home.

How is the tiebreaker decided?

The Twins needed 163 games to decide the AL Central division in both 2008 and 2009.

When the Twins and Tigers met in 2009, it was a 12-inning thriller, decided when Alexi Casilla’s single plated Carlos Gómez, sending the Twins to the playoffs.

“It was as intense as you can get because you know if you lose, you’re going home,” remembered Justin Morneau, who was on both the 2008 and ’09 Twins teams. “You’re hanging on every pitch. It’s unlike any baseball series you have where everything all year is two games, three games, four games and then, all of a sudden, it’s one game for everything.”

But the excitement of the win-or-go-home Game 163 has been replaced by a new tiebreaker system, implemented after the 2021 season where ties are now determined by head-to-head records.

Who holds the tiebreaker?

The Twins.

In all potential situations.

If you’re looking for a glimmer of hope as a Twins fan, this is it. Holding the tiebreaker means the Twins need to gain just one game over either AL Central foe in the next week.

The Twins went 7-6 this season against both the Tigers and Royals. They went 5-2 against the Mariners. That means that in a two-way tie or three-way tie (or the even unlikelier event of a four-way tie), they have the advantage.

Who would the Twins play if they made the playoffs?

The team that wins the second wild card is almost assuredly headed to Baltimore to take on the Orioles in the best-of-three Wild Card Series.

The team that wins the third wild card will likely face the Astros, who have not clinched the AL West but are unlikely to be caught by the Mariners. They’re also unlikely to catch the Cleveland Guardians to receive a first-round bye. That would also be a best-of-three Wild Card Series and would be contested entirely in Houston.

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