Is there any treatment to get rid of my under eye bags without blepharoplasty?
I'm 25-year-old female who has suffered from under eye bags since childhood. Over the last
3 years it seems to have gotten worse. There is a large bulge/fat pocket that is more prominent
in my left eye. My bags are only visible when I smile or laugh so now I try to avoid doing
this. I would ideally like the "bulges" to be even. I was looking into fillers but my
doctor told me that this will eventually cause lumps on sides of cheeks, creating worse problems
in the long run. Is there anything else available?
Thank you for your question!
You’re 25 years old and you stated that you had puffy under eyes since childhood and
that this problem’s gotten worse for the last 3 years and you’re asking of course,
can you have under eye puffy under eyes without blepharoplasty. By the way you wrote your
question, it’s clear that you’ve done a lot of research and you’ve learned about
the option of doing injectables and other options but when it gets down and you’re
using the term fat pockets, so I won’t labor the anatomy other than to say, you know exactly
what it is.
Now, I’m a cosmetic oculofacial plastic surgeon, board certified by the American Board
of Cosmetic Surgery, fellowship trained by the American Society of Oculofacial Plastic
Surgery, practicing for over 20 years. So you can certainly rely on my quest to find
alternatives to lower eyelid blepharoplasty to help people look their best. My goal is
to help people look the best they can with or without surgery.
The reality is you’re dealing with a hernia, a herniation of fat. And although there are
times when you notice it when you’re smiling and when you’re trying to avoid smiling,
it’s kind of impractical and likely to be unhealthy. But rather, it’s about dealing
with the anatomic reality. The under eye area is puffy. If it’s bothering you, if other
people are pointing it out to you, then a lower eyelid blepharoplasty is probably the
ideal solution.
Now, we have dealt with many people who are just like you and what are the objections
to surgery? Well, I look at all these objections and concerns and we basically developed in
our practice a system to try to meet those objections and help people have these procedures
without the anxiety. Number one anxiety is the anesthesia. Everyone assumes that you
would be under general anesthesia, in a hospital or surgery center where you are treated like
a sick patient.
Well, we have our own facilities in our office which are certified by The Joint Commission
that oversees hospitals and surgery centers and so what we also do is we don’t do general
anesthesia for lower eyelid blepharoplasty, we do things under local anesthesia with LITE™
intravenous sedation. Now that means we give you enough sedation to reduce anxiety but
you don’t have to be and at the same time, not being under general anesthesia. Now that
already takes away a lot of anxiety.
If you think about it, when people come to our practice and they come back for their
surgery, they know everybody. It’s not intimidating, depersonalizing like at the hospital and therefore,
they are already a lot more comfortable. I’ll tell you that that a lot of people who have
avoided doing lower eyelid blepharoplasty have said to me after I did, they used to
phrase it “If I knew it was this easy, I would have done it sooner.”
So local anesthesia with sedation, skilled, competent, artistic hands in the surgeon you
are looking when you start making this decision and doing more research are things that help
patients feel comfortable. This is actually in so many ways less involved that coming
back over and over to get injectables to try to avoid surgery. People who get injectables
under their eyes will have swelling, they can have bruising and bleeding. So it’s
not like they’re avoiding those issues by not doing surgery.
So to answer your question, I would say that transconjunctival blepharoplasty is probably
the best way to treat your under eye puffiness. Do it in a way that you’re comfortable by
meeting with a doctor who you feel confident and who does the procedure in the way that
is least physically and emotionally stressful for you. Otherwise, you will be very frustrated
looking for a non-surgical solution. There’s a reason why surgeons like myself wear scrubs
every day and do surgery because there aren’t non-surgical solutions for surgical problems.
That’s straightforward.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!