Puffy Eyes from a Young Age? (photo)

You have hereditary eyelid fat prolapse, which is not that uncommon. Although surgery [blepharoplasty with fat repositioning] would be an excellent treatment for you, if you wanted to avoid surgery, you could try injectible fillers such as Restylane or Juvederm or Boletero to help camouflage the contour irregularity along your lower eyelids.

 

Puffy eyes can benefit from an outpatient procedure known as a lower eyelid blepharoplasty, which exacts very gratifying results in facial rejuvenation. 

I would recommend seeing an allergist or an ENT that also treats allergeries.  Additionally, seeing your primary care MD would be helpful to look at your thyroid to see if there are issues.

Dr. ES

I can share with you that in my practice, I’ve had patients as young as 14-years-old who have had bags under their eyes since they were little. Unfortunately, this is a genetic trait especially if you’ve eliminated all the other possible causes like late nights, not enough sleep, allergies, sinus problems and other things. If there is puffiness under your eyes regardless of the time of day or environment or the amount of sleep, then the most probable issue is something called lower eyelid fat prolapse. This means that around your eye, there are these fat pockets referred to as extraconal fat. These fat pockets act like a cushion around the eye. In some people, the fat pockets push forward and creates a bulge looking like under eye bags.

A lot of my patients have gone to different drug stores and tried different types of creams and lotions to try and get rid of under eye bags and of course they don’t work. With your age and skin type, and assuming that you have lower eyelid fat prolapse, I think it’s worthwhile for you to consider lower eyelid blepharoplasty.  This is a big decision so I suggest that you really do your research and meet some doctors before you move forward. What I typically do is something called a transconjunctival blepharoplasty. That means going from the inside of the eyelid, getting into the fat pockets and sculpting the fat pockets so you don’t see the bulging of the fat pockets anymore. That’s a permanent solution that can last long-term for 10 to 20 years especially for someone who’s very young.

Hopefully you would be able to take this information and go further and meet with doctors and consider your options. I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.