10 Aging face signs with treatment options

Aging changes

1. Skin – age spots, wrinkles, loss of elasticity, sagging, large pores, and rough texture.
2. Hair – thinning or receding hair line
3. Loss of facial volume – Youthful faces are full and convex. Aging causes loss of volume in skin thickness, fat, and even bone, causing shadows and hollows.
4. Sagging brow – brows sag with age, particularly the outer brow. The arch should be between the middle and outer 1/3 of the brow. This may cause sagging upper eyelids.
5. Upper eyelids – excess skin and sometimes fat occur with age causing a “tired” appearance. Sometimes excess skin covers the lashes.
6. Lower eyelids – bags and/or excess skin may develop. Dark circles are usually shadows from volume loss and/or protruding fat pads.
7. Crow’s feet – wrinkles lateral to the eyelids usually from sun damage and animation. Also, frown lines and forehead furrows.
8. Lips – thinner upper lips and the distance between the nose and upper lip elongates. The corners of the mouth may turn down giving a sad appearance.
9. Jowls – these develop from loss of facial volume and elasticity.
10. Neck – excess skin and/or fat develop. Platysma muscle bands may occur.

Treatment options features

1. Good skin care. Cosmeceuticals, such as New Youth, combined with High technology lasers like Helix and/or UltraClear. These can be combined with the VirtueRF microneedle device. These combinations effectively “turn the clock back” several years.
2. Hair transplant with micro-grafts, using FUE (follicular unit extraction) with Neograft, or strip excision technology called FUT. To reduce hair loss Exosomes or PRP can be forced into the hair follicles with Ultrasound Plus resulting in better hair growth than with needles.
3. Fillers, such as Restylane products (e.g. Lyft), Juvederm products (e.g. Voluma), Sculptra, and Renuva, the longest-lasting filler, can be used and often in combinations for the best overall results.
4. Brow lift – local or general anesthesia according to patient’s preference.
5. Upper eyelid lift. Usually local anesthesia. For mild to moderate cases Helix laser or UltrraClear laser Micro-coring mode-very rewarding for more youthful appearance.
6. Lower lid lift to remove skin, fat pads or both. Laser resurfacing can be done at the same time or separately for fine lines. VirtueRF Exact microneedle will non-surgically reduce fat bags.
7. Botox or Dysport--for crow’s feet, frown lines, forehead furrows, and even elevation of the corners of the mouth to diminish mouth wrinkles.
8. Lip fillers can add volume and/or reduce wrinkles. An upper lip lift procedure can be done with inconspicuous scarring under the nose--an excellent procedure when indicated, called a “buckhorn” excision. Most aging lips become vertically longer making the upper lip turn under.
9. Jowls--Improvement can be achieved non-surgically with fillers on each side of the jowl along the mandible, reduction of the fat with VirtueRF, and removing excess skin with Helix or UltraClear lasers.
10. A sagging neck. When the problem is only fat –liposuction. Reunion is added to the liposuction when skin also needs tightening. Often men want the excess neck skin removed with a simple direct excision. Recovery time is minimal, scarring inconspicuous, and it effectively removes the extra skin and fat. Alternatively, UltraClear micro-coring laser can be very helpful in selected cases.
11. Combination procedures are interesting because the result is like 1+1=3. Any combination of the following can be combined with any or all the others:
    • EveresseRF. This device uses no needles, numbing, there is no pain. The result is thicker, tighter skin by stimulating collagen and elastin. No recovery time.
    • Lifting PDO threads. Threads with barbs placed under the skin lifts and tightens skin.
    • 3-D Miracle laser or Cool Peel laser.
    • Fillers.

Dr. Ronald Finger, MD, FACS is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Savannah and Bluffton. fingerandassociates.com