The Importance of Upkeep

Wednesday, November 15th, 2017

Keeping up with the Kardashians is one thing but keeping up with your skin’s health and appearance is a whole other ballgame. No matter what age you are,16 or 86, it’s essential to maintain your skin’s health and appearance both with in-office and at-home treatments. Whether your goal is to fight off wrinkles and/or spots or just to shield your skin from further sun damage, here are a few ways you can achieve these goals.

Fight Off Wrinkles

As we age, several things cause us to develop fine lines and wrinkles. First, we lose volume below the skin and the sun’s UVA rays cause the dermis, the support layer of the skin, to thin. As this happens, wrinkles begin to appear. With thickening of the outer dead cell layer of the skin weighing it down and increased function of the underlying muscles of facial expression, these wrinkles and lines worsen. If you do what you have been taught all your life and put a moisturizer on instead of removing the dry dead cell layer, you simply make the wrinkles worse. Luckily, with the combination of using face creams that contain ingredients like retinol to thicken the dermis and an alpha hydroxyl to remove the dead cells, getting frequent facials to remove the dead cells, using Botox to weaken the muscles and refilling the area under the skin with one of the Juvederm products or fat, you can fight off your wrinkles from the inside out.

Combat Hyperpigmentation or Redness

Exposure to the sun can result in hyperpigmentation and/or increased abnormal vascularity causing redness. Disease processes and hormonal fluxes can also cause pigmentary problems. These can leave you feeling self-conscious and always having to wear foundation to hide them. Luckily, with good skin care, frequent facial treatments such as microdermabrasion, facials or peels and/or IPL treatments we can correct these problems, leaving you with a more even complexion and a younger look.

Prevent Further Damage

One of the harshest things on your skin is no other than the sun itself. Not only can sun damage put you at a higher risk of developing skin cancer, but it can also cause premature wrinkles, sun spots, freckles, redness and other damage. We encourage our patients to wear a daily sunblock containing zinc oxide since it is impossible to stay out of the sun, even indoors. The new (actually over 20 years old) zinc oxide sunblocks are practical since you need to apply them only once or twice a day and they go on clear. The only other sunblock that blocks UVA, the cause of the problems, needs to be applied hourly if you are outside or every 2 hours if inside.

Here at Center For Plastic Surgery, we understand the importance of upkeep and offer our patients a wide variety of non-invasive procedures and skin care options. Schedule your consultation with our Highlands office today!