Cheek volume can be rebuilt with filler every year, or built once. For patients who have been maintaining midface volume with syringes for a decade, an implant is the version that stops being an appointment.
These figures are typical ranges, not a promise. Anesthesia, operating time, recovery and how results settle vary with your anatomy, your health history and the plan you and Dr. Swenson agree on. Your individual details are confirmed at consultation.
Shaped implants placed over the cheekbones to restore or create projection, sized to your face. Because they sit on bone, they behave like structure rather than volume — they don't migrate, deflate, or need topping up.
Filler is immediate, adjustable, and reversible — and recurring. Fat transfer uses your own tissue but survival varies and results are less predictable. An implant is permanent, precise, and requires surgery. There's no universally right answer; there's a right answer for how long you want to keep paying for the same result.
Implants add projection to a midface that never had much, or that has lost bony support. They do not lift a midface that has descended. If your cheeks used to sit higher and have fallen, that's a lift question, not an implant question — and the two get confused constantly. Dr. Swenson will tell you which you're looking at, and the answer is sometimes neither.
Implant or filler?
Run the numbers over ten years — that's usually the real comparison. Filler stays the better choice if you like adjusting, or aren't certain about permanence.
Is it permanent? Can it be removed?
It doesn't dissolve, and it can be removed or exchanged surgically.
Will it look overdone?
Over-projection is the classic failure. Conservative sizing is what makes an implant read as bone structure rather than as an implant.
Can it be combined?
Frequently with a facelift, eyelid surgery, or chin implant.
What's recovery like?
Swelling for a week to ten days, with the final contour emerging over about two months.
A surgical consultation with Dr. Swenson is $75. That's an hour of a surgeon's attention, not a sales appointment with a coordinator. To be straightforward with you: the fee does not apply toward the cost of a procedure. Some practices credit it — we don't, and we'd rather you know that now than find out at checkout. Vue does not bill insurance, so all procedures, including those done for functional reasons, are self-pay. You'll get an exact quote before you commit to anything.