Face Looks Worse and Now I Have Undereye Bags - Gulfport, MS

My face was damaged by Thermage at his office. He took no responsibility to provide treatment to help with the damage and referred me on to a dermatologist. The texture of my face went from being smooth to being rough and indented/scarred with the outline of the grid on my cheeks. I have spent years paying for various treatments at my dermatologist's office trying to break up the scar tissue which form the grid patterns on my face, as well as extracting milia from the thousands of pores that were seared over. 

Hello to all you kindred spirits. I’ve been off-line for a while dealing with a very long and painful divorce. It lifts my spirits to see how many responses from those who have been helped and avoided the Thermage procedure. I’m still looking for ways to repair the damage. Twice yearly juvaderm helps in deeper areas around nose and mouth but still no luck with the texture. I have had 9 sessions of professional microneedling. This did seem to help break down the grid lines some, but the overall texture is still like a paper towel with lumps and bumps at each of the 4 corners of the grid square. Although I did see some improvement with my microneedling, I also worry about it since it would seem in my mind to be similar to tenderizing a steak and breaking down the connective structure. But when you get desperate, you’ll try just about anything. I haven’t gotten desperate enough to try any type of radio frequency or laser yet. I am terrified that I might make things worse. I am like “I want my old skin back“; it was pretty good smooth skin! We don’t realize what we have until it’s gone. Looking back at old pictures we fail to appreciate what we had at the time as we are always looking at our flaws. I did find a good product that seems to work with the under eye bag swelling with continued use. It is called Defenage from my Dermatologist office. Since using I don’t have to do the lymph drainage massages every morning so that is a blessing. An emotional side effect years later of trying to move past this, which I don’t know if it is good or bad, is that I don’t Meticulously take as good care of my skin as I did, because it’s a kind of why bother fruitless effort. Maybe that frees me up to live life more fully and not worry so much about the sun that I used to guard myself against religiously. The one hour of Thermage did a lifetime damage to my skin as if I had never preserved it all those years. I have a piece of black tape over my computer camera so that I don’t have to see my face on Zoom or Teams. It is a solemn reminder of the price we pay for beauty.

I normally don't post photos, but I wanted to share with others so that this does not befall them. I wish that all my pictures could have been taken in the exact same spot, angle, and lighting but this is the best I could do. I have a before picture, actually taken at the doctor's office right before the procedure, then a 7 month picture and a two-year picture. I was 49 when my before picture was taken, and as you can see my face texture and firmness was good; people thought I was in my 30's. I thought I was doing some preventative maintenance by having Thermpage. Worse decision I ever made in my life. Years I spent protecting my face from the sun was all undone in one hour with microwave frequency.