Restylane for Tear Trough

The Realself community has always been a great resource for me and I like to give back when I can. Today, my I had restylane injections to fill in my tear troughs. I choose the injections right now over having surgery. In future, if this does not work out or is not working as well, I will opt for the surgery besides I am squeamish about having anything by my eyes.

I have always had dark circles under my eyes. I am 1/2 Mediterranean and am plagued with hereditary dark circles in my younger days that eventually hallowed and puffed to form the tear troughs appeared in my early 40's. I am tired of looking tired and I think the troughs make my eyes look older besides looking very unrested.

MY PROCEDURE: I had my injections done by my plastic surgeon Dr. Michael McNeel who I absolutely love, love, love. Dr. McNeel performed my reconstructive rhinoplasty (I reviewed that as well on realself) which turned out very natural to my face and I breathe so much better. I like his light touch. When he evaluates the situation, he is cautious and realizes that I want a very natural outcome. Everyone has their preference, but he knows that I prefer a light touch so that people wouldn't even guess I have had "work" done. LOL

I had less than one whole syringe today. The nurse applied numbing cream to my undereyes and after a time, Dr. McNeel came in and made several injections. On a pain scale it was about an annoying 2, slight pin prick here and there but nothing uncomfortable. He would inject and mold with his fingers, inject a little more, mold, and so on. When he got to the point where he was comfortable with what he saw, he stopped. I sat for a few minutes applying very light pressure. He told me that there would be bruising (and for me I expect that as I bruise easily and especially on delicate parts like by my eyes), he said there could be some swelling this week (which I expected from reading other reviews posted here on realself) and I was sent home with an ice pack to ice my eyes every so often and a recommendation for arnica cream.

I am home, I took a picture last night, a picture right before I went into the doctor's office and one when I came home about 40 minutes after the procedure. I don't feel any pain or fullness in my eyes and I am writing this about 4 hours later.

I love the immediate result. Yes, there is bruising but if you look beyond the bruising, the topography of my tear trough is invisible now. Even though I have the expected bruising, I feel like my eyes look much more rested.

I will keep you posted as to healing and I have a two week follow up with Dr. McNeel to see if he needs to add a little more after things have settled down. If the results stay the same as today, minus the bruising, I will be over the moon! And I am hoping also that the results will last a while before having to refresh but I also plan to keep you updated as to that as well.

I iced yesterday and used the arnica cream before I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, the swelling that Dr. McNeel warned me about was there and the bruising was about the same. Under the eyes are a little tender today. As I mentioned before, my eyes bruise easily and heal slowly from bruising so I did not expect to wake up with any less bruising than I had yesterday.

I had errands to do so I attempted to cover it with concealer but I never was good at applying concealer ever! I can't even do a pimple right but even the crappy job that I did made it less noticeable. I could have easily put on my glasses to help in disguising it but I did not want to annoy the tenderness. I took a pic - without makeup - you'll see the extent of the swelling is not bad and I took another with the bad concealer job I did and you can see, it is somewhat passable.

I did not update on day 3 because that was the same as day 2. Today the swelling is down significantly. No tenderness today but bruising is very colorful. My one eye has a bit of pulling from the swelling. You will notice it by my upper eyelid on the one side. My doctor told me that my eyes will look different ways until everything finds its place and settles. The topography of the eye trough is still good. You can't appreciate it from the pictures because the bruising gives the impression of the trough still being there but I still think that once the bruise absorbs, everything will look really good or near perfect.

The colorful bruising is hard for me to camo (sometimes I think the cover up makes it look worse) but I have become accustomed to the weird looks when I run errands. It is just my skin and every time I get a poke or a bump, I have a bruise for 2 weeks no matter what I do or use to speed up the recovery process.