The Straight Scoop on Facial Aging
Recently, Julia Roberts created a stir when she remarked that electing not to have a facelift is risky for her career as an actress. We don’t usually write about celebrity plastic surgery, there’s enough chatter around it already. But the media coverage included many inaccurate comments—such as those suggesting that fillers and lasers are just as effective as a facelift. We want to take this opportunity to clarify a few aspects of facial aging for those who may be thinking about rejuvenation.
It’s great news that there are so many options for treating wrinkles, sagging and dull skin nowadays. But the array of procedures to choose from can be confusing. If you can identify the areas of your face that trouble you and why, it can be easier to choose appropriate treatment.
Dynamic Wrinkles
Dynamic wrinkles are caused by muscle movement, and the lines on your forehead are the most obvious example. Raising your brow repeatedly causes horizontal grooves, while furrowing causes the vertical “elevens” between your eyebrows.
Most people have two choices for combating dynamic forehead wrinkles. Botox or Dysport can offer a temporary fix as these injectables relax the muscles for several months. A cosmetic surgery procedure called a forehead lift can provide a longer lasting solution and open up sagging eyelids as well.
Dull Surface Skin
As your skin ages, new cells rise to the surface more slowly while older cells hang around, causing many people to sport a dull, tired complexion. At the same time, environmental damage begins to emerge in the form of hyperpigmentation and fine wrinkles.
Options for banishing dead cells, smoothing lines and brightening up the skin include lasers, microdermabrasion and chemical peels. Most often there is no one right approach—your best bet is to choose an experienced cosmetic surgeon with a variety of tools at hand and talk over the pros and cons of each treatment.
Deeper Wrinkles
Underneath surface tissues, the skin has a support system made up of collagen and elastin fibers. Over time, this framework breaks down, causing skin to sink into deep lines running from the nose to the mouth and smaller rifts above the upper lip and between the lower lips and chin.
Facial fillers such as Juvederm and Restylane were designed to target this problem. They plump up tissues underneath the skin, raising it out of crevasses. Fat transfer has recently become another popular way to replace lost volume.
Face and Neck Sagging
As it gives up its youthful tone and succumbs to the forces of gravity, your skin slides southward. The ultimate result can be saggy cheeks, jowls along the jaw line and extra neck skin.
There’s just no getting around the aging process, and sagging skin often prompts people to consider a facelift and/or neck lift. Fillers and fat transfer can target individual wrinkles very effectively, but these options won’t actually elevate skin back into a more youthful position.
Choices for Today and Tomorrow
When you have a general understanding of facial aging and the variety of treatments available, two things should become clear: for many people, a combination approach makes sense. That’s because no single procedure can do it all for every patient.
Younger people with more superficial issues can benefit from a skin treatment such as microdermabrasion and perhaps Botox for forehead wrinkles, or a filler for “parentheses” around the mouth. Many older patients find that a facelift makes the most sense for moving tissues back into place, combined with a chemical peel for improving the look of surface skin.
Finally, to get the best results for your budget, you need a skilled treatment provider who will advise you honestly about all your choices. One who can be with you over the years as your needs change. There’s no better choice than a board certified plastic surgeon.
