Profhilo Structura in Nottinghamshire: Who It Suits and Who It Does Not

The consultation that led me to write this one has become common enough across Nottinghamshire that I have stopped being surprised by it. Someone in their forties or fifties has lost a significant amount of weight, is pleased with almost all of it, and has arrived because of what has happened to their face. The description is nearly always the same: hollow, tired, and older than the body it sits on.

They usually ask for filler. Filler is often not the answer, and explaining why takes the first twenty minutes.

The layer this treatment works in

The face is not one structure but several stacked on top of each other: skin, then a superficial fat layer, then deep fat compartments, then muscle and bone. Ageing and weight loss do not affect those layers equally, and treatments are not interchangeable between them.

Standard Profhilo spreads through the dermis. It binds water, stimulates collagen and elastin, and improves the quality and hydration of the skin itself. It is a skin treatment and does not change facial structure, which is what makes it so useful and what limits it.

Profhilo Structura works one layer down. It is placed by cannula into the superficial fat layer beneath the skin, the adipose tissue responsible for facial contour and support. Once there it acts on the fat cells and the surrounding matrix, stimulating collagen and elastin production and reorganising the extracellular matrix, so that the structure supporting the skin firms rather than the skin being padded out from outside. It carries a higher concentration of hyaluronic acid than standard Profhilo, 90mg per 2ml against 64mg.

The distinction matters because it changes who each one helps. If the complaint is dullness, crepiness and poor skin quality, standard Profhilo is the right treatment. If the complaint is that the midface has descended and the cheeks have deflated, Structura addresses the layer that has changed. The Profhilo and Profhilo Structura comparison sets the two side by side, and the patient guide to Profhilo covers the original in full.

Why it is not a filler

This is the part that takes explaining, so it is worth being precise.

Dermal filler adds volume. It occupies space in a defined area, and the result is visible on the day because something is physically there that was not there before. Used well, in the right face, it is an excellent treatment and we offer it.

Structura adds no meaningful volume. It provokes the tissue that has deflated into behaving more like the tissue it used to be. The firmness arrives over weeks, not on the day, and the change reads as structural support rather than as added contour. For a face that has lost its own fat, restoring the behaviour of that layer is a more proportionate answer than replacing the shape with a gel.

That also means Structura will disappoint anyone who wants a defined result immediately. The Profhilo and dermal filler comparison sets out where each belongs.

All injectable treatments at the clinic are for patients aged 18 and over, and every injectable plan is reviewed by Dr Shahe Boghossian, Medical Consultant (GMC 5204600), a doctor with a background in vascular surgery.

Weight loss, and the face that comes with it

Rapid weight loss empties the facial fat compartments faster than the skin over them can retract. That is a physiological sequence rather than a matter of luck, and it is why the facial change so often looks disproportionate to the body change. Dr Boghossian sets out the mechanism in the skin health pillar on rapid weight loss and facial ageing.

For patients on GLP-1 receptor agonist medication the pattern is the same and the timescale is compressed. Because Structura targets the adipose layer directly, it addresses the tissue that has changed rather than working around it.

Two practical points that come up in every one of those consultations.

First, timing. Treating a face that is still losing weight means treating a moving target. Where someone is mid-course on medication and still dropping, we usually recommend waiting until weight has stabilised, and we will say so even though it delays the booking.

Second, proportion. Structura restores structure. It does not restore twenty years, and the treatment plan for a face that has lost a lot of fat quite often involves more than one modality, planned in sequence rather than delivered in one appointment.

The course, the cost and the timeline

The standard course is two sessions 30 days apart. More advanced structural loss sometimes needs three. Maintenance every six to nine months sustains the result, because results typically last six to nine months and then decline.

Delivery is by cannula rather than needle, which most people find more comfortable, described as pressure rather than sharp pain. Mild swelling, tenderness or bruising can follow and usually settles within 24 to 72 hours. Avoid vigorous exercise, swimming, saunas and extreme heat for 48 hours.

Initial firmness is often noticeable within days of the first session. The visible lifting and definition build over four to six weeks after the second treatment, so judge the result at around week six after session two, not before.

From £350 per session, with the plan agreed at consultation. The Profhilo Structura treatment page carries the current price, the suitability criteria and the booking link.

Where we recommend something else

When the concern is skin quality, not structure. Dullness, fine crepey texture and dehydration belong to standard Profhilo, polynucleotides or a skin-quality plan, and Structura is more treatment than the problem needs.

When weight is still moving. Wait.

When the loss is skeletal rather than adipose. Bone resorption changes the face too, and no regenerative injectable addresses it. That is a different conversation and sometimes a different treatment.

When someone wants an immediate, defined change. Structura is slow and subtle by design. Wanting a visible result the same week is a legitimate preference, and it points at a different treatment rather than at this one.

Treatment is not appropriate in pregnancy or breastfeeding, with active skin infection, or where there is known hypersensitivity to hyaluronic acid. Full suitability is confirmed at consultation.

Getting to us

The clinic is at 65 London Road, Newark-on-Trent, NG24 1RZ, on the A46 approach with free parking at the front. Two sessions 30 days apart, plus the consultation, means three visits over about five weeks, which is a light schedule by the standards of most courses.

We see patients across Nottinghamshire for this, from Southwell, Bingham, Ollerton, Collingham and Balderton, as well as from Lincoln and Grantham. Southwell is around 15 minutes on the A612 and A617; the Southwell clinic page has the route. Evening appointments run to 20:00 Monday to Thursday.

Frequently asked questions