Could Those Nips and Tucks Speed Up Aging?

If you have tried facial plastic surgery, injections that plump and paralyze and liposuction for those hard to exercise places, you may be less thrilled with your results now than even six months ago.

There is news from a growing band of plastic surgeons, cosmetic doctors and dermatologists saying that cutting healthy tissue may indeed accelerate aging.  This sentiment is not limited to just the US, this is an international concern being voiced almost daily.

Aging continues no matter what modality you choose.  Let's say you opt for a surgical face lift; even though your facial muscles and skin have been cut and sutured, that tissue will continue its degeneration while adjacent tissue is also weakened from cutting and suturing. 

This means you will notice sagging again and this sagging promotes tension in the surrounding tissue.  Now you will be a candidate for the very popular "Revision" surgery that promises to fix the sagging, or does it?

Our faces "age" when the supporting facial muscles lose their shape and contour due to "disuse".   This means that little if any movement you make with your mouth or face will keep those muscles taut and in good form.  Over time the atrophy becomes noticeable as muscles and muscle groups pool into one another creating the look of lines, wrinkles and a sagging face.

Cutting perfectly healthy tissue as a "remedy" for facial aging means that the elasticity of the skin surrounding the incisions will be compromised and those muscles that were shortened and sutured will no longer have the needed volume that is present in a youthful face.

Cutting and suturing your beautiful face robs your skin of life-giving nutrients and oxygenated blood; instead of wearing the radiant soft look of youth, you realize that that you cannot fool Mother Nature.  Cutting healthy tissue never improves the skin.

Facelifts have evolved with newer techniques; years ago, faces were simply cut, repositioned and sutured.  Now the process requires that each area – skin, fat, muscle and fascia – be separated, individually repositioned and sewn while avoiding facial nerves that weave throughout the tissue.

Add muscle elongation to the mix of cuts and sutures, risks and dangers, and this is a recipe for the look of old and done and over done.

Disappointment and unrealistic expectations are genuine concerns of most physicians.  Oh sure, they're trained on cadavers but surgery is not a definite art.  There are human conditions and errors; sometimes there are health challenges and surprises that were not anticipated.

Dr. Michael Prager, a member of the Bristish Association of Cosmetic Doctors, is convinced from his clinical experience that anti-aging cosmetic surgery actually accelerates the aging process.  He says, "Four out of five clients I see regret their decision to have anti-aging surgical procedures."

Surgery for any reason is risky and fraught with danger and should only be used as a last resort, especially on an aging face.  Remember there are limitations to every surgery, the results are short-lived and the risks are considerable   There are no guarantees that you will like the work or live to complain about the results.

Injections pose their own risk because injecting and injecting and injecting again may not produce the desired results long-term as the aging process will continue to affect the muscles in every portion of your face and neck.  One pertinent question to ask is how many injections are you willing to have over the next 20 years and how much money are you willing to spend? 

Another aspect of injections is the documented fact that these serums and potions can travel to the brain.  That's right.  When the face is injected with Botox, the risk goes beyond redness at the injection site; in fact, if you choose Botox, there is a long laundry list of health conditions and warnings you must sign off on to protect the injecting doctor and the drug company before anything is paralyzed. 

Just remember that plastic surgeons aren't just pushing plastic surgery, now they have added injections and skin care treatments to their menu of services.

Fillers like Restylane, Collagen, Perlane and Sculptra have become popular to prop up sagging facial skin.  Does everyone have a positive experience using these expensive, temporary fixes that dissolve into your system after a few months?  Of course not.  Are patients regretful?  Sure, they are.

Alex Kuczynski, a reporter for the New York Times for eight years and now a columnist there wrote the fascinating book Beauty Junkies.  In it she writes that she is not obsessed, okay maybe 'relatively' obsessed, but looking good at first meant 'maintaining'.  Then she became addicted and tells how she had her first Botox shot at 28, spent over $8,000 in one year on microdermabrasion, collagen injections, more Botox and Restylane, an eye lift and other anti-aging modatlies.  She decided when her top lip resembled a large yam after an unexpected Restylane reaction and much soul searching that that these methods did not ultimately add to her happiness and satisfaction and even labeled her liposuction foolhardy and wasteful. "No matter how much money you spend, or how much plastic surgery you have, or how many dermatologist visits you schedule, inevitably, times' winged chariot will catch up to you and march all over your face.'

We have read that Jamie Lee Curtis, Susan Sarandon, Julianne Moore, Jane Fonda and many more celebrities will not ever have more of anything plastic and instead have decided to age spectacularly.  Here are these beautiful women plus others - who can easily afford the best of everything and they say no to procedures that could potentially wreck their health and their beautiful faces.

Will injections and surgery lose their status symbols as people realize that this type of self improvement is really self mutilation?

We want to look good for our age. 

We want to feel confident and happy with our looks and we absolutely can without resorting to any life threatening, painful, expensive, temporary fixes.

The best choice to improve an aging face is facial exercise. 

You want your face to look young and healthy, but how often do you exercise it?  Just like body muscles that tighten with exercise, facial muscles that are stretched out, lax and droopy will respond to simple resistance training, too.

It is remarkable that by strengthening those tiny, hidden muscles with targeted exercise that this can act as Nature's facelift.   You will feel the muscles respond immediately and this lifting, tightening and toning plumps up the muscles making the skin and face look younger.

It is wise to heed the docs who have seen first hand the effects of facial surgery, liposuction, facial injections, skin care regimens, lasers and products.  Many believe that surgical cosmetic procedures can have a detrimental effect that shows up as thinning, discolored skin, hair loss and skin that just looks and acts older.

Facial exercise is the most positive step to recreate that younger face you thought you had lost forever.