5 Tell-Tale Signs of Aging

What You Can Do to Delay Them

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Let’s face it: You’re not getting any younger. And try as we might to turn back time with lotions, potions and plastic surgery, there are a few signs of aging that are dead giveaways. They can even pop up as early as your 20s. “Some people just age faster than others,” explains Dr. Z. Paul Lorenc, a plastic surgeon in Manhattan. And facelifts aren’t necessarily the solution for these five age giveaways; sometimes more unusual remedies are needed…

You can blame it on heredity, environment, stress, or even poor diet and health, but aging happens to us all. However, there are a few things you can practice to halt and reverse the aging process, says Dr. Douglas M. Monasebian, a plastic surgeon with Park Avenue Plastic Surgery in New York City. “This includes a healthy lifestyle, no smoking and limited sun exposure.” But if, as with so many people, the damage is already there, it’s possible to fix the five signs of aging below. That’ll keep ‘em guessing for a few more years.

1. Veiny, Spotted Hands
What causes it: According to Monasebian, as we age skin loses collagen and elastin fiber, making it less elastic. Hence, your hands suddenly look scrawny. Also, you may see changes on the surface of the skin (such as brown “age spots”) due to sun exposure. After all, how often do you remember to apply sunscreen to the tops of your hands? Heredity also influences your likelihood of getting liver spots.
What you can do about it: There are a number of treatments for veiny or spotted hands. An IPL (Intense Pulse Laser) can remove the visible signs of sun damage such as pigmentation and broken capillaries, and help even out skin tone and texture. “Hand lifts” are also becoming popular: Fat can be transferred from elsewhere in the body, or cosmetic fillers (such as Scuptra or Perlane, similar to those used on the face) can be injected to “fill in” deep grooves.

Chemical peels can remove some hand blemishes; recovery time is 1-2 weeks. For a less dramatic solution, try bleaching or alpha-hydroxy creams: topical fading lotions that you use for up to one year.

Price: The average cost of an IPL treatment is $350-$600. Filler injections range from more than $539 for Restylane injections to $1,200 for fat. Chemical peels can cost $100-$300 per treatment. Usually at least six treatments are recommended. (See related article: Restore Young Skin and Fight Signs of Aging)
2. Eye Bags
What causes them: Fat and fluid settles into the under-eye area. There are a number of reasons why bags appear, including genetics, fluid retention and allergies. Bags tend to look more pronounced when we get older because the skin under the eye gets thinner and loses elasticity.

What you can do about them: The simplest solutions are to cut salt out of your diet, apply cold compresses (even the old cucumbers-on-the-eye trick), and use under-eye creams or serums to soothe and moisturize. But if your eye bags are truly bothersome, surgical techniques might be the way to go. Blepharoplasty is a procedure to remove fat, usually along with excess skin and muscle, from the upper and lower eyelids. In addition, Restylane or Juvéderm can be injected around the eye area to smooth and fill it out.

Price: Prices for a blepharoplasty run about $2,500, which doesn't include the price of the operating room and anesthesia. Procedures using a plumping agent (Restylane) range from $368 (for collagen) to $1,226 (for fat).
3. Mouth Wrinkles
What causes them: Again, a lack of elasticity in the skin is to blame. The face has a much shallower layer of subcutaneous tissue, and it’s one of the first places that wrinkles will appear. Frequent sun exposure is another culprit as is smoking (the constant pursing of the lips creates lines).

What you can do about them: There are many short-term solutions. Botox works by relaxing the muscles and making the line disappear – and one injection treatment will last between 3-6 months. Bovine collagen injection is another option. It normally last about 3-4 months, but about 10% of the population is allergic to it so ask your dermatologist about a skin test. You will get the longest (although not permanent) results from autologous fat transfer. This is a wrinkle-filling procedure in which fat is removed from one part of the body (such as the thighs, buttocks or stomach) via liposuction and used to fill in deeper wrinkles elsewhere.

Price: Botox injections run approximately $500 per treatment. The cost of a fat transfer procedure can run over $3,000. (See related article: Asian Anti-Aging Secrets)
4. “Turkey” Neck
What causes it: That “wattle” comes from weak or loose neck muscles. You may also notice "bands" ringing your neck.

What you can do about it: According to Lorenc, Botox injections can relax parts of the neck muscle, “releasing” the wrinkling on the neck. This is a quick and easy treatment (it takes about 15 minutes). But if your situation is more extreme, platysmaplasty surgery (also known as a necklift) may be a better option. This typically one-hour surgery is designed to tighten loose, sagging skin in the neck area and below the jaw line. During the surgery, incisions are made under the chin and/or behind your ears. A surgeon removes or realigns specific neck muscles that will tighten and support the middle part of the neck. A neck lift is often performed in conjunction with a facelift or forehead lift.

Price: Fees for neck lift surgery can range from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on the scope of the procedure.
5. Varicose Veins
What causes them: The word “varicose” literally means “twisted” in Latin. These bulging, blue, enlarged veins can pop up anywhere, but most often occur on the legs and feet. That's because standing and walking increases the pressure in the veins in your lower body.

As you get older your veins can lose elasticity, causing them to stretch. The valves in your veins may become weak, allowing blood that should be moving toward your heart to flow backward. Blood pools there and your veins enlarge and become varicose.

What you can do about them: According to the Mayo Clinic, you can take some self-help measures first: Exercising, losing weight, elevating your legs, and avoiding long periods of standing or sitting can prevent varicose veins from getting worse. For more extreme cases, there are numerous surgery options. During sclerotherapy, your doctor injects varicose veins with a solution that scars and closes them, allowing them to fade within a few weeks.
Laser surgery works by sending strong bursts of light onto the vein, which makes the vein slowly fade and disappear. No incisions or needles are used. A more invasive treatment, vein stripping, involves removing a long vein through small incisions. And during an ambulatory phlebectomy, your doctor removes smaller varicose veins through a series of tiny skin punctures. 

Price: The average price of a sclerotherapy procedure is $325. Laser treatments cost between $300 and $450 per session. A phlebectomy usually costs at least $1,000. Vein stripping can be considerably more expensive than the other treatments; ask a plastic surgeon for an estimate.

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