Can I have a non-surgical procedure to get rid of my hollowness and dark skin pigment
under my eyes?
I am a 22-years-old soon to be 23, & I happen to have fairly thin and transparent skin under
my eyes Are there any remedies for me , like non surgically or invasive procedures? I’m
also starting to get some wrinkles under my eye as well. So what's your advice for me?
Thank you for your question!
You’re in your early 20s and you’re concerned about the darkness and hollowness under the
eyes. So I’ll share with you our approach and I understand you’re looking for a non-surgical
procedure.
I’m a cosmetic oculofacial plastic surgeon. I first trained in eye surgery before I trained
in the specialty training of eyelid surgery called oculoplastic or oculofacial plastic
surgery. So your concern is something we have dealing with for a long time. Now I have been
in practice for over 20 years, the good news is we have more options today than we did
when we I first went into practice. First of all, when you think about it, when you’re
this young, unless you are smoking or doing something that is really stressful to your
body, the chances are that this appearance is a genetic appearance. Now the dark circles
being of ethnic appearance and the relative volume absence if more of a genetic appearance.
Now in our practice, we employ, regardless of whether it’s genetic or whether it’s
acquired as part of facial aging, we have to essentially define the two things that
we have to deal with. Number one is the transparency of the skin and how you see the darkness,
be it the underlying muscle or the underlying bone. Two is the volume deficit.
So to address transparency, we use something called platelet-rich plasma. Platelet-rich
plasma is derived from your own blood and what it is the concentration of the growth
factors and healing factors necessary for wound healing. We have found that injecting
platelet-rich plasma under this very thin eyelid skin, the skin is only half a millimeter
thickness, we are able to improve the quality of the skin and see the improvement of some
that darkness. The other option that we also offer is the use of hyaluronic acid filler
such as Restylane. What we are doing is by placing the hyaluronic acid filler in a very
precise way in the area that needs it, we are able to restore the volume and soften
some of the shadowing that occurs with this situation.
The limitations of these procedures are they do need to be continuously performed in a
regular basis. In other words, this is something you can try but is something you may need
to do again every 6 months or so. There are people who are more severe, more people who
are less severe. And I always say that the benefit of these things particularly the PRP
is comparable to the benefits of weight lifting. Two of you go to the gym, they both lift the
same weight, they both get different results. So with the results of the PRP, with this
combination, we look and see how you respond and then come up with a plan. Now that may
be too burdensome for you and maybe it is probably better to wait and just cover-up
with a make-up. It is tough. It is one thing when someone comes in their 30s and 40s for
this and it’s a different thing when a younger person comes. But I tell you that there a
lot of very young people who are extremely motivated, learn about this option and do
come to us at regular basis. So there’s certain degree of motivation combined with
the budget available to invest in these treatments.
I would also mention to you that there’s a unique synergy in the combination of PRP
and hyaluronic acid. And there is some permanence in terms of the fibrovascular tissue that
comes in that mimics essentially as a response to this wound healing signal from the platelet-rich
plasma. This has been shown objectively in research where wound healing was performed
for bone where platelet-rich plasma alone and hyaluronic acid alone and a combination.
So a similar type of thing is happening with how we use it in aesthetics and we use it
a lot. This combination is the basis for the very popular Vampire Facelift™ which we
perform.
So I would say that it’s very important that you understand these options and understand
that it isn’t a definitive treatment that you may need to do some maintenance. So I
hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!