Doctors hate this one weird trick: eye bag edition
October 25, 2024 10:04 AM Subscribe
I'm a woman in my late 40s, and while I have a great skincare regime and generally look pretty good, my eye bags make me sad. Not puffy eyelids, and not sunken circles, but puffy circles underneath the eyes.
I don't drink alcohol at all (and was an extremely light drinker before that), I don't eat a lot of salty/sodium-rich foods, and I generally get a decent amount of sleep, perimenopause be damned. I eat fairly healthy in general. This is all to say that when I've researched what might be the cause, the main ones get ruled out fairly quickly.
I will add that my face, especially my eyes, are absolutely wrecked after I've been crying – super puffy and red. It's always baffled me how some people can legit be sobbing, and then look fairly normal 15 minutes later. Does this mean my face is just more susceptible to swelling/water/salt retention? And if so, are the eye bags just part of that?
I know that eye creams don't really work, and that the under eye patches only have a very temporary effect. So MeFi, have you dealt with this same issue, and if so did you find anything that really made a difference in a more long-term way? Aside from blepharoplasty, which ain't in the cards for a few different reasons?
Do you plunge your face in ice water every morning?
Have you done facial lymphomatic massage?
Did you actually find a cream/serum/toner/etc that works??
What else you got? Thanks in advance!
I don't drink alcohol at all (and was an extremely light drinker before that), I don't eat a lot of salty/sodium-rich foods, and I generally get a decent amount of sleep, perimenopause be damned. I eat fairly healthy in general. This is all to say that when I've researched what might be the cause, the main ones get ruled out fairly quickly.
I will add that my face, especially my eyes, are absolutely wrecked after I've been crying – super puffy and red. It's always baffled me how some people can legit be sobbing, and then look fairly normal 15 minutes later. Does this mean my face is just more susceptible to swelling/water/salt retention? And if so, are the eye bags just part of that?
I know that eye creams don't really work, and that the under eye patches only have a very temporary effect. So MeFi, have you dealt with this same issue, and if so did you find anything that really made a difference in a more long-term way? Aside from blepharoplasty, which ain't in the cards for a few different reasons?
Do you plunge your face in ice water every morning?
Have you done facial lymphomatic massage?
Did you actually find a cream/serum/toner/etc that works??
What else you got? Thanks in advance!
I started doing an 8:16 intermittent fasting routine (no other real diet change but a focus on fiber) about a month ago for reasons unrelated to puffy eyes and under-eyes, but within like a week, all my morning eye puffiness seemed to be gone! It was nuts! Not sure if this is long term yet though.
posted by Drosera at 10:27 AM on October 25, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Drosera at 10:27 AM on October 25, 2024 [1 favorite]
Eye creams most definitely do work! So do lots of other things - makeup artists, models, and actresses have MANY tricks of the trade, and lots of them are extremely effective (if you've ever seen celebrities in real life it can be SHOCKING how good they look compared to normal people, and it's because they get stuff done!).
In the land of temporary fixes, caffeine products have a tightening effect, as does hemorrhoid cream (really!), as does coldness - so, cold rollers or freezer patches for a quick morning pick me up. Marilyn Monroe used to dunk her face into a bowl of ice water in the mornings. Today on any film set I'd estimate that 60% of actresses wear cold under-eye sticky patches in the morning before makeup.
It sounds like what you have is a drainage issue creating the "puff", so lymph drainage like gua sha or massage might help(some people put rubber bands around their ears during this kind of massage, to help open the channels). Sleeping on your back probably helps too, and avoiding allergens, too much salt, etc.
Many people's eyebags are a "hollow" which can be filled in with filler. But if yours are a "puff", don't let anyone talk you into getting filler there - it will hold extra water and probably make the puffiness worse. Sadly filler isn't great for fixing puffy areas.
For an easy DIY you can do cheek raises (twitch your cheek muscles like a smile, repeatedly. Do reps, hold them like isometrics, etc. A few hundred a day) - this will move the tissues around and maybe help with drainage, and over time it will make your cheek muscles grow from exercise, so the cheekbones can look a little higher and wider, which may help support baggy eye tissues a little better.
For more permanent solutions, there are things like laser or radio wave pulses that cause a small amount of controlled damage to the skin. This stimulates new collagen growth or creates teeny invisible scars that make the tissues tighten.
The most permanent would be a surgery like maybe a lower blepharoplasty, and those are AWESOME - if you decide you're really sick of the eye bags, blepharoplasty is a pretty quick and low risk surgery that works suuuuper well, I know several people who've had awesome results.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 1:17 PM on October 25, 2024 [4 favorites]
In the land of temporary fixes, caffeine products have a tightening effect, as does hemorrhoid cream (really!), as does coldness - so, cold rollers or freezer patches for a quick morning pick me up. Marilyn Monroe used to dunk her face into a bowl of ice water in the mornings. Today on any film set I'd estimate that 60% of actresses wear cold under-eye sticky patches in the morning before makeup.
It sounds like what you have is a drainage issue creating the "puff", so lymph drainage like gua sha or massage might help(some people put rubber bands around their ears during this kind of massage, to help open the channels). Sleeping on your back probably helps too, and avoiding allergens, too much salt, etc.
Many people's eyebags are a "hollow" which can be filled in with filler. But if yours are a "puff", don't let anyone talk you into getting filler there - it will hold extra water and probably make the puffiness worse. Sadly filler isn't great for fixing puffy areas.
For an easy DIY you can do cheek raises (twitch your cheek muscles like a smile, repeatedly. Do reps, hold them like isometrics, etc. A few hundred a day) - this will move the tissues around and maybe help with drainage, and over time it will make your cheek muscles grow from exercise, so the cheekbones can look a little higher and wider, which may help support baggy eye tissues a little better.
For more permanent solutions, there are things like laser or radio wave pulses that cause a small amount of controlled damage to the skin. This stimulates new collagen growth or creates teeny invisible scars that make the tissues tighten.
The most permanent would be a surgery like maybe a lower blepharoplasty, and those are AWESOME - if you decide you're really sick of the eye bags, blepharoplasty is a pretty quick and low risk surgery that works suuuuper well, I know several people who've had awesome results.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 1:17 PM on October 25, 2024 [4 favorites]
I had huge ones. I discovered I had a gluten intolerance. I stopped 100% eating anything with gluten and the bags disappeared in about 2 weeks. It could definitely be allergies of some sort. Does anyone in your family have a gluten allergy?
posted by the webmistress at 2:20 PM on October 25, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by the webmistress at 2:20 PM on October 25, 2024 [2 favorites]
This caffeine gel from the ordinary takes down a little puff for me and it’s $12 so not huge investment to try.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:28 PM on October 25, 2024
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:28 PM on October 25, 2024
Retinol, vitamin C creme and allergy nose spray took care of mine. They weren't very large but were visible in person and in every photo of me since the mid '10s.
posted by fiercekitten at 5:14 PM on October 25, 2024
posted by fiercekitten at 5:14 PM on October 25, 2024
If I ever had the time to bother I might do Wayne Goss’ makeup trick more often. (Search for “Wayne Goss hide eye bags” to get a video. Basically you hide the shadow of the bag, vs the bag itself, with concealer.
You’ve excluded thyroid issues right? If so, sadly it’s just gravity working on your anatomy. I like the ideas people have mentioned, hopefully they’ll work for you.
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:02 PM on October 25, 2024
You’ve excluded thyroid issues right? If so, sadly it’s just gravity working on your anatomy. I like the ideas people have mentioned, hopefully they’ll work for you.
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:02 PM on October 25, 2024
Do you have allergies? Perhaps you could try hot compresses at night and washing your pillowcase more often just in case.
Are you good about staying under 2,000 milligrams of sodium daily? Have you tried tracking? This is not easy to do.
Do you think you have herniated fat pads and excess skin? That requires surgery, starting at around $3,000 depending on your location. Supposedly, blephs are a surgery with a high satisfaction rate and people often wish they had done them sooner.
Malar bags or festoons are apparently a different story, and can be helped with surgery but are more treatment resistant and potentially connected to health issues. Is there any possibility that your kidneys are declining in function?
There are some eye creams that don't play very well with makeup but which offer a tightening effect that some say is miraculous. I do not remember the product names off hand, but I think Peter Thomas Roth sells one.
posted by pearl228 at 6:00 PM on November 4, 2024
Are you good about staying under 2,000 milligrams of sodium daily? Have you tried tracking? This is not easy to do.
Do you think you have herniated fat pads and excess skin? That requires surgery, starting at around $3,000 depending on your location. Supposedly, blephs are a surgery with a high satisfaction rate and people often wish they had done them sooner.
Malar bags or festoons are apparently a different story, and can be helped with surgery but are more treatment resistant and potentially connected to health issues. Is there any possibility that your kidneys are declining in function?
There are some eye creams that don't play very well with makeup but which offer a tightening effect that some say is miraculous. I do not remember the product names off hand, but I think Peter Thomas Roth sells one.
posted by pearl228 at 6:00 PM on November 4, 2024
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posted by phunniemee at 10:13 AM on October 25, 2024