What can I do to get rid of my eye bags?
I'm 29 and for as long as I can remember I've had "bags" under my eyes.
I've attached a photo so you can see what I mean.
I've always avoided the filler route because I've been told it will make it worse.
Is bleph my only option?
I also have hyperpigmentation here which makes it look even worse.
I'd really like to improve the look of my under eyes and would love to know what my
options are.
I think this is hereditary.
Thank you for your question!
The age of 29, you described having always had bags under your eyes and that you stated
that you avoided fillers and you want to know if blepharoplasty is your most practical option.
Well, I have to congratulate you in making that assessment.
For years, once there was an introduction of particularly, the hyaluronic acid fillers
such as restylane and Juvederm.
It became the holy grail of non-surgeons to try to help their patients with bags under
their eyes by trying to fill in hollows and camouflage the appearance of bags.
Now, we do this type of procedure in our practice but there really is a limited type of volume
that can be placed that can be effective.
This material is very soft and so what we see a lot in our practice is patients are
coming to actually have the hyaluronic acid done elsewhere removed by an enzyme called
hyaluronidase.
That’s because once you get puffiness beyond a certain level, it just doesn’t work.
So let’s discuss a little bit why you have the puffiness.
Let’s first discuss about the anatomy.
The anatomy is basically something called lower eyelid fat prolapse.
Lower eyelid fat prolapse means that the fat that is normally around your eyes pushes forward
creates a bulge and makes the eyes look puffy and makes you always look tired.
When you have a history where it’s you’re always recalled having bags under your eyes,
it’s most likely a genetic trait.
In my practice, I’ve have operated on several generations in the same family with exactly
this type of situation.
In a younger person like yourself, if there’s no excess skin, which is typically the case,
we do something called a transconjunctival blepharoplasty.
Transconjunctival blepharoplasty is a procedure where we approach the lower eyelid from the
inside and thereby avoid an external scar.
This way, we are able to reduce, reposition and address the herniated the fat, the fat
that’s pushed forward, in a way so that we can make the eyes appear as you never had
bags under your eyes.
It’s a very natural look and aside, one of the most common phrases we hear from our
patients who are thinking doing this for a long time, they’ll often say after it’s
done: “If I knew it was this easy, I would have done it sooner.”
And part of that of course, the hesitancy about doing surgery at all, but also, in our
practice we do these procedures so much, we do it under local anesthesia with LITE IV
sedation.
So we’ve made this process very easy for people even younger people to have done with
minimal interruption and disruption in their lives.
So that’s what I would recommend for you in the absence of a physical examination by
just looking at your photos.
In terms of skin quality and hyperpigmentation, depending on the type of issue that is responsible
for this, sometimes pigmentation is due to genetics just like a regular skin color.
Other times, pigmentation may be due to environmental factors such as sun exposure or people who
work outside or have spent a lot of time with incidental sun exposure.
Routinely to help people with dark circles or pigmentation, we do an injection of something
called platelet-rich plasma.
Platelet-rich plasma is something we developed from your own blood.
What we do is we draw your blood like a regular lab test and then we spin it so we can concentrate
the platelets, the serum, essentially the healing and growth factors necessary for wound
healing.
When this is injected on the skin or under the eyes, we will actually see significant
improvement in skin quality and so in your situation as a younger person, we found this
to be very helpful.
In some cases, we also do laser actually from the outside, use a laser to tighten the skin
and to resurface the skin.
So there are complementary procedures to help maximize the overall appearance of the lower
eyelids.
At this point, my recommendation is to meet with qualified experienced cosmetic surgeons
and discuss your options as to how to address this area.
I would suggest to making general anesthesia as something to avoid if you can and once
you do that, I think that you’ll be ultimately pleased with the ultimate result of not having
the bags under your eyes anymore.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!