The Facts About Skin Treatments

Lower Eyelid Surgery and Peels

The only way to remove excess skin and fat pads underneath the eyes is with a scalpel. On this 48-year-old woman, lower eyelid surgery (called blepharoplasty) was followed with a trichloroacetic acid (TCA) peel to soften fine lines. "You can correct deep grooves surgically, but fine lines will be smoothed only with the resurfacing of a chemical or laser peel," says Richard Fleming, MD, clinical professor of plastic surgery at the University of Southern California, who performed the operation. He also injected fat harvested from her thigh into the hollows of her tear troughs. (Sometimes the fat beneath the eyes can be repositioned during lower eyelid surgery, but that wasn't possible in this case.) All three procedures were performed at once, and the downtime (swelling and bruising) was seven to 10 days. The results should last about 15 years, says Fleming.

The latest non-surgical skin procedures