As if taking care of your skin isn’t complicated enough, and even though I hate to say it, there isn’t a single overall medical corrective procedure that by itself will result in helping your entire face look younger. A realistic, multifaceted approach is the only option that can make achieving a complete picture of youth possible (assuming that is what you are aiming for). I know that can get expensive, and many of the procedures (especially dermal injections, Botox, laser and light treatments) are not permanent and need to be redone to maintain benefits. Granting all that, each procedure, regardless of what it is, can only impact a part of the face or a particular condition. The lesson is, don’t expect to find one procedure that will take care of all your concerns.
For example, an eye tuck (blepharoplasty) can make the skin around the eyes look younger and reveal an eyelid that has long been hidden, but it won’t change sagging at the chin, wrinkles, or crepey skin anywhere else on the face. Botox can smooth out a lined forehead and crow’s feet (I do not recommend getting Botox anywhere else, but I’ll get to that discussion later in this chapter), but that won’t change the under-eye area, sagging, or wrinkles and crepey skin on the rest of the face. Dermal injections can work wonders for the lines between the eyebrows, laugh lines (the deep folds that run from the nose to the corner of the mouth), and receding lips, but there a lot of other areas that won’t improve. Even a face-lift won’t change the texture of skin, brown discolorations, wrinkles on the forehead (unless a brow lift was included in the procedure), sagging areas around the eyes (unless an eye tuck is included), or overall skin texture.
Deciding what to do requires balancing what you can afford with what you want to achieve. One laser or IPL machine treatment, or a single surgery, Botox injection, or dermal injection is unlikely to get you what you want. Any physician who is selling you a treatment or surgery as being a panacea for looking younger is not giving you the whole picture.