Thank you for the question.
You are asking if Juvederm would be useful for filling in the hollows and you describe
a situation in your question with the photo you submitted that you are 20-years-old and
you feel that these are genetic or hereditary hollows and the skin has gone a little bit
crinkled and that you are having trouble covering this up with makeup.
And you feel like at the age of 20, you look at least like you are 25.
Well, I can certainly give you some ideas based on how I approach patients like yourself
in my practice and make a decision based on some of this concepts once you understand
this framework and how someone like me evaluate people like yourself in practice.
A little bit of background, I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial
plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
I’ve practicing in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years and helping people with
rejuvenating their eyes and making their eyes look very good using a wide array of modalities
from minimally invasive such as skin products to procedures such as laser and as well as
surgery something we do in our practice every day..
So it is very important, before you chose a particular product or solution, to define
the problem that you are concerned about and understand what the potential options entail.
To begin with, I would say that when someone who is young like yourself and who is 20 comes
to our office, I always have to frame everything in terms of whether or not it is worth the
time and investment for someone who is younger to do procedures that can help genetic issues
that require some maintenance.
So let’s begin with first the hereditary aspect of the relative hollowing.
You look at the tear trough area and the area does look a little bit hollow and the area
of the eyelid to cheek area can also look a little bit hollow and there are may be some
natural genetic hereditary pigmentation and some lines.
You didn’t mention in your question whether or not there is a history of smoking, whether
any issues of allergies and sinus problems and these are the kind of things we first
learn about before we make recommendations in our practice.
Coming up with the concept about what is the anatomy.
So technically there is a relative deficit of volume, let’s say in the tear trough
and the eyelid to cheek junction.
Generally for this area, we use a filler like Juvederm but I prefer to use Restylane.
Restylane is a little bit softer.
I find, in my hands, it works better and it can make an improvement.
I often combine Restylane with platelet-rich plasma (PRP).
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is derived from your own blood and contains growth factors
and elements of the blood that are required for wound healing.
So what we have been able to do is successfully improve skin quality and get some long term
benefit from its combination with a hyaluronic acid filler.
Now that being said I would caution you that you have to be prepared with these types of
procedures.
When you do something like this, you have to continuously do it if you want to maintain
a certain look.
Now for some young people especially in our area, New York City, we have a lot of actors,
we have a lot of people who are in front of cameras and they will make the time and investment
but I think that it is a different scenario when a person who is 20 and comes with this
issue to someone who is 40.
Why?
Because for a 40-year-old, it is a change.
It is a shift of volume loss and other things and we deal a lot of these aging changes.
But when it comes to someone younger, I just want you to be sure that you are willing to
do this long-term.
Now, with that being said, what is nice about these modalities is that they are not permanent.
You can try it and you can see if you like.
You see if it is worthwhile for you and decide to make this part of your approach to helping
yourself look better.
But again, I would be cautious about someone who is very young like yourself engaging this
type of correction because the time and often the resources can be somewhat challenging.
In addition, you have to understand whenever you have a procedure, even if it is done with
minimal trauma, with blunt cannulas which is technique of using cannulas that minimize
bruising to minimize the tear trough and to do these things, there is going to be some
swelling.
There is still a potential for bruising and you have to factor that into your life.
So from the perspective of skincare, you might have some options where you want to try first
the skincare options of topical creams.
And in our practice, we have our own skincare line and we help people customize what might
be a good solution but basically the epidermal to the superficial or the popular dermal levels
of the skin but we can still create benefits such as improving skin quality and skin color
or discolorations, irregularities with topicals but it takes a little bit of time as opposed
to doing something with like a laser.
So learn more about your options.
Don’t just jump in and do something.
And learn about this and again of course there is still an option of not pursuing it beyond
the initial experience because the material is temporary whether it is Juvederm or Restylane
or any injectable filler.
And if you don’t feel like doing this at this point in your life, you can wait till
much later.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!