Can Laser Resurfacing Make Under Eye Bags Worse?

There are usually 3 things to treat when performing surgery on the lower eyelids: 1) protruding fat or "bags" 2) a loose eyelid that causing drooping of the outer part of the lid 3) loose skin that makes wrinkles or even sagging piles of skin under the eye. Patients can have some or all of these features that cause them to appear more tired, sad or older.

Laser resurfacing works great to treat the loose skin part of the eyelid. The most common procedure I perform on lower eyelids is a blepharoplasty to remove the fat through an incision on the inside of the eyelid followed by CO2 or plasma resurfacing of the eyelid skin to tighten and rejuvenate.

There are always potential problems but they should be extremely rare when treatments are done correctly. For example, a loose eyelid may become worse after resurfacing. This should be identified before and an eyelid tightening procedure should be done to prevent it. Temporary increase in pigmentation or prolonged redness may occur with resurfacing. A very rare possibility is loss of pigment or whitening with CO2 resurfacing. This has not occurred with plasma resurfacing.

When done properly in trained hands, the results should provide a rejuvenated, more youthful and beautiful eyelid.

Good luck, I hope this was helpful.

I LOVE laser skin resurfacing the lower eyelids!!! As an Ocular Plastic Surgeon I gave up the scalpel blade 15 years ago for the CO2 (carbon dioxide) laser. The laser can be used to gently remove the fullness (fat) in the lower eyelids.

Once the fatty tissue is sculpted the same laser can be used to resurface or smooth the skin. The results are beautiful. The laser causes a gentle tightening and contraction of the skin helping to further diminish the under eye bags and wrinkles.

Eyelid wrinkles and loose eyelid skin can camouflage eye bags. Laser resurfacing can remove eyelid wrinkles and tighten eyelid skin, and after laser resurfacing eye bags can be more obvious.

Many non surgeons try to achieve a blepharoplasty by using laser resurfacing, and it is simply impossible to remove eye bags with laser resurfacing.

Combining laser resurfacing with a blepharoplasty can be done, but it is very tricky.

Too aggressive laser resurfacing combined with blepharoplasty can cause scarring and pull the eyelid down into an Ectropion -- a serious complication.

After fifteen years of doing combined laser resurfacing and blepharoplasty I now only use fractional Ablative 2940 Erbium laser resurfacing with blepharoplasty. The fractional ablative 2940 Erbium is very effective but less aggressive than the CO2 laser flat beam or fractional. I believe it is safer.

Web reference: http://drseckel.com/dark-circles-under-the-eyes/puffy-eyes-surgery/

Laser resurfacing for lower eyelid wrinkles alone can make existing bags appear worse. I will tell you from personal experience and having treated many patients with the CO2 laser for lower eyelid wrinkles, that if you have bags before the procedure underneath your eyes that they will indeed appear worse after you have healed up from the resurfacing, The reason is because when you have both eyelid wrinkles and excess fat of the lower eyelid, the fat is slightly less noticeable due to the wrinkles camouflaging them. If you remove the wrinkles, it is like pulling a curtain tight or lifting the drapes in front of the movie screen, that is, you can now see the screen below the curtains or in the case of eyelids, you see the bags. My advice would be to do both procedures at the same time, that is, a lower eyelid surgery with the CO2 laser if you have both problems and fix both at the same time. We as do many other surgeons often perform lower eyelid fat removal at the same time as we resurface the skin with the laser or some physicians prefer a chemical peel instead of the laser.

Under eye bags can be improved by several treatments. Fractionated CO2 can be used for resurfacing. I have had very nice results combining CO2 with radiofrequency using ePrime to stimulate collagen and elastin. This combination leads to great textural change with dramatically improved contours under the eyes.

LASER resurfacing for under the eye wrinkles is an effective means of improving skin texture.  However, the LASER is not designed to deal with herniated fat from the lower lid and volume issues.  A comprehensive approach to your lower eye and upper cheek transition will provide you the best aesthetic result.

Web reference: http://www.shahfacialplastics.com/laser-resurfacing.html

The comments below are great but be sure to consider skin type as well. Patients with darker skin may have issues with CO2 laser resurfacing.

The laser targets water in your skin and is "an ablative" therapy actually causing superficial destruction of the top layers of your skin. It will not change the fat or any of the other contents below your skin.

Complications can include changes in pigmentation and in very rare cases scarring requiring surgery. Make sure you see a board certified plastic surgeon or facial plastic surgeon and have all of your questions addressed. I hope this helps.

Nothing treats the lower eyelid skin like laser resurfacing.  It is great for that.  If your problem is eyelid bags, then the laser will not help.  You need to first figure out what is bothering you before deciding if the particular treatment is beneficial.