Alternatives to surgery for undereye bags

Undereye bags can have several components and usually it is due to a combination of factors. One factor is that the fat underneath our eye starts to pooch forward; this gives the puffiness and is only corrected by surgery. In some countries docs will inject this fat to "dissolve" it but this is not FDA approved in the United States. A second component is that we start to get a tear trough; that is the line from the inner eye that travels down towards the cheek. 

This tear trough is a concavity or depression; the puffy fat above it is a convexity. Thus, the tear trough will accentuate the appearance of the puffinesss above it. So, if you have the trear trough filled in with an injection of Prevelle or Sculptra or Radiance, or whatever soft tissue filler your doc recommends, it will minimize the disparity between the puffiness and the depression; and the puffiness will appear less prominent. 

I use this technique often in patients who do not want surgery.  I also recommend that you keep your skin as healthy as possible by increasing the amount of collagen in your skin.  This will keep your skin thicker and thus more able to camaflouge these changes.  Vitamin A derivatives such as Retin-A and retinol increase the amount of collagen in your skin. 

Hope this helps.

It is difficult to give specific advice on "eye bags" without an examination. Bags usually come from the fat around the eyes protruding which can be either inherited or come on with age. If there is a hollow area beneath, called a tear trough, it can be filled with an injectable such as Restylane. However, the skin in this area is very thin and patient selection is important. The best treatment is usually surgery to either remove the excess fat or take the extra fat and move it to adjacent hollow areas. This latter procedure is called fat re-positioning.

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