Thank you for your question.
You submitted several photos and you’re describing your question that you’re 28
years old, you have dark skin and you have some fine lines under your eyes.
You’ve gone to a doctor and you had Botox injection after which you felt didn’t make
that much of a difference.
You’re asking is there any value in using Pelleve.
Well I can certainly assist you with this.
I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and fellowship trained cosmetic oculo-facial plastic
surgeon practicing in Manhattan in Long Island for over 20 years.
The treatment of the eyelid area, an eye rejuvenation has been a major part of my practice and with
the focus in particular on ethnic eyelid rejuvenation many years ago.
I actually wrote – one of the first articles about the ethnic considerations with eyelid
surgery.
I get a lot of patients from all over the world who – with a variety of background
who are looking for solutions to improve the appearance of their eyes.
When you ask a question like this, I have – I’ll describe what I do in my practice.
When I look at someone like yourself, I think first is all these lines natural lines that
you expect or are these lines that are change that related to aging environmental or sun
exposure and other factors.
Now in general those fine lines that are directly below the eyelid margin are very difficult
to treat regardless of the cause.
But when you want to try to improve those lines we have to ask ourselves simple question,
how much of an improvement are we aiming to achieve?
How much of an improvement can we achieve?
There is no question in my practice where for people who are not good candidates for
lasers and that basically covers anyone with darker skin who is at risk of pigmentation
changes from laser.
Pelleve which is a radio frequency technology to help stimulate collagen and effectively
tighten the skin up to a certain point.
Certainly it’s an option but when we’re talking about someone at your age with the
relative fine lines under the eyes, I would probably not recommend Pelleve.
I think that heating up the skin has a certain limit and currently I feel that many of the
thermal energy devices are being overly aggressive and are overheating a lot of people’s skin.
We’re starting to see a lot of this and I’ve been saying this for years that there’s
a certain amount of stress you can impose upon the skin.
The skin will respond by generating collagen but once you exceed the certain amount of
stress, the skin cannot respond and it breaks down.
A lot of people are coming into my practice after getting thermal and it’s not just
a single one, but maybe multiple devices because the scenario is such where the doctor uses
one thermal device doesn’t work out so well.
They use another thermal device, doesn’t work out so well.
The patient goes to another doctor who says I’ve got a thermal device and then it doesn’t
work out well.
By the time they’re done their skin is really broken down which brings me to how we help
these patients.
We actually use something called Platelet-Rich Plasma where we’re using your own body’s
natural ability to heal using the cuticle growth factors in cells used in wound healing
to stimulate collagen and to stimulate the skin quality.
We’ve had tremendous success in the treatment of dark under eyes circles and for people
who have hallows and who want to improve fine lines, we use Platelet-Rich Plasma for acne
scars.
Certainly that is something that I might consider when I’m receiving consultation, but again
it’s a matter of what is your goal.
If your goal is to try to see some improvement, then I would consider Platelet-Rich Plasma
but most likely I would probably talk you out of doing anything because at 28 years
old with dark skin and relatively few fine lines under the eyes.
I don’t think we’re going to be able to make enough of an impact to justify the cost
and time needed to do these therapies where we might be able to document photographically
an improvement but it might not be enough for you.
I think there’s a very – it’s very, very important why I spend a lot of time with
every patient particularly in their first consultation with understanding the problem
and the desired objective and what is defined as success.
I’ve turned away good number of patients who I felt where their expectations did not
in any way come close to what I could possibly achieve regardless of the modalities and since
I really have no limits, I do both of non-surgical, minimally invasive procedures to advance cosmetic
surgical procedures particularly around the eyes.
There is no real limit for my abilities to do something that’s available but at the
same time we can’t make everybody perfect.
I think that we have to be careful about that.
With that being said, you may want to rethink this and just meet with other doctors and
learn about your options but always be clear about what you expect.
If you can’t get that type of commitment from the doctor that there will be the level
improvement that you would like, it’s better not to do anything.
I hope that was helpful.
I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.