Do you take every step you can to
maintain the youthful appearance of your face? Your hands also
develop signs of aging that could lead to you looking much less
youthful than you realize. In fact, according to the American Society
of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), a person's real age can typically be
guessed by looking at their hands alone.
The telltale signs of aging on hands
include wrinkles, sun spots, a loss of skin elasticity, vein
prominence, and a loss of volume in hands that makes the bones and
ligaments in your hands appear more prominent.
To help your hands appear more
youthful, follow these tips to prevent and treat the signs of aging
on your hands.
Prevent Signs of Aging on Your Hands
No matter how old you are and how old
your hands currently appear, you are never too late to begin to take
steps to prevent even further aging of your hands.
To help maintain the youthful
appearance of your hands:
- Use a
hand cream that contains sunscreen.
Sun exposure is one of the
top causes of DNA destruction that ages your hands. Apply a hand
cream that contains sunscreen every two hours when outdoors to
prevent additional hand wrinkles, sun spots, and skin thinning.
- Use a nightly hand cream that
contains retinol or vitamin C.
While many anti-aging hand creams
are on the market, retinol and vitamin C are two anti-aging skincare
ingredients that prevent the signs of aging in all skin types.
In addition, never hesitate to wear
gloves when possible to protect your hands from the sun's harsh rays
even further.
Treat Existing Signs of Aging on
Hands
Unfortunately, no hand cream can
completely reverse all of the signs of aging on your hands. However,
many cosmetic procedures can improve the appearance of your hands
drastically.
Injectable Fillers
A telltale sign of aging in your hands
is a loss of fat volume. This volume loss leads to the veins,
tendons, and bones in your hands appearing much more prominent than
they did.
Just as injectable fillers can add
volume to your face, they can also add volume to your hands to make
them appear younger. They plump up hands to restore their more
youthful appearance.
Botox
While Botox, or Botulinum toxin, is not
typically injected in the backs of hands to eliminate wrinkles, it
can be used to help erase wrist creases. This cosmetic injectable
relaxes the muscles that create those deep wrinkles in your wrists,
just as it relaxes facial muscles to eliminate facial wrinkles.
Vein Treatment
The prominence of hand veins is the
number one factor affecting the perceived age of hands. If you
don't find that injectable fillers help hide the appearance of your
prominent hand veins well enough, then you may want to consider laser
ablation of your hand veins.
To perform laser ablation, also called
endovenous laser treatment (EVLT), your cosmetic surgeon will simply
insert a thin catheter into each vein that is attached to a laser.
The laser then gently heats the wall of each unwanted vein until the
vein collapses and disappears.
Don't worry that laser vein ablation
will affect your hand health. Your body will simply re-route your
blood flow through other, less prominent veins in your hands.
Additional Laser Treatments
Many other types of laser treatments
can help make the skin of your hands appear more youthful. Laser
treatments exist that help increase collagen synthesis in the skin of
your hands to firm up skin and eliminate wrinkles, as well as
treatments that help eliminate the pigment in age spots.
If you enjoy maintaining your youthful
appearance, then remember to maintain the youthful appearance of your
hands, just as you do your face. Contact the office of Ronald C.
Barry, MD, to schedule a consultation about your hand rejuvenation
options.
