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  • Did You Know Your Eyes Age First Before the Rest of Your Face?
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The eyes are another area that commonly show signs of age. Oftentimes, it's the eyes that show the age even before the rest of the face. So I think performing eyelid surgery is great. It's one of the things that can provide the most improvement for you as my patient. I tell people it's the best bang for your buck because the recovery is not that long, and the improvement you can get is very, very significant. So if you want to rejuvenate your face but you're not ready either physically, emotionally, or financially for a face-lift, maybe just doing your upper eyelids and your lower eyelids is a really good starting point that can really make you happy for a good 5 or 10 years.

So an upper eyelid and a lower eyelid surgery, or a blepharoplasty is the removal of the excess skin. So if you look at someone's upper eyelid and they have a little bit of skin hanging on their upper eyelid, that's removed. The incision is kept in the crease of the upper eyelid, so you really don't see it. This is a great operation for my female patients because a lot of women have a little bit of skin hanging on their upper eyelid, and they don't really think much of it until they have trouble putting on their eye shadow. And then they have trouble with the makeup, and it seems to get caught in the crease. And that seems to be the first sign that there's some excess skin on the upper eyelids.

So it's really common for a woman to come and see me and say, "Hey, Doc, you know, I didn't realize my eyes were so bad, but I just really have trouble putting on eye makeup recently." So that will really help the overall appearance of your upper eyelids. The lower eyelids, again, is the same thing. It's removing the excess skin. In addition to removing the skin, a lot of times I'm removing the excess fat as well. So lower eyelid surgery will help if you have excess skin of your lower eyelid that crinkly, crepey looking skin. And also if you have under-eye bags, I can remove the excess fat that's under the eye, and reduce the appearance of bags. The bags under the eyes is a really common complaint from people. It clearly gets worse as you get older. But I also have some very young patients in their thirties who come to me because they have under-eye bags. And they tell me that they've always had them, even looking back to the pictures when they were a child.

So the under-eye bags can be something you're born with, or something you develop as you age. But a lower eyelid blepharoplasty can help that. If your problem is only with the bags and not with excess skin, then I can even make the incision on the inside of the lower eyelid, so that it's a completely hidden incision that no one can ever see. If you need removal of the skin, then the incision is made just under the lower eyelashes. So, again, it's an incision that's extremely well hidden. No one but you will ever know that it's there.

Did You Know Your Eyes Age First Before the Rest of Your Face?

Dr. Matthew Schulman explains that because the eyes tend to begin aging before the rest of the face, eyelid surgery can make a large difference. He discusses removing excess skin and/or fat to bring back a youthful look.