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The Ageing Skin

The ageing skin changes affect all parts of our body and can affect our emotions, self-confidence and sometimes our personal relationships.
Long-term exposure to the sun is the largest factor in ageing skin and is responsible for a large portion of the unwanted cosmetic effects.

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The clinical signs of photo-ageing of the skin are: wrinkles, lentigines (‘liver spots’), actinic keratoses, broken fine vessels (telangiectasia), loss of translucency (‘glow’), loss of elasticity and sallow colour.

Our team of Dermatology Consultants, Cosmetic Surgeons, Aesthetic Doctors, Nurses and Aesthetic practitioners has together a vast experience and knowledge to provide you with the best, safe and realistic advice about the treatment or combination of treatments that will help you to achieve your goal.

What are some the signs of skin ageing that bother patients most and we can help with?

Vascular changes

Fair-skinned patients from the age of 20 upwards often see broken superficial vessels on the cheeks and nose.  They are easily treated by laser; however, 2-4 sessions may be required.

Pigmentation

There are a number of harmless pigmentation disorders that can lead to the appearance of increased facial ageing.  These include solar lentigo, pigmented seborrhoeic keratoses, melasma and facial melanosis. These problems usually require a combination of approaches to ensure maximum improvement:  good sun protection, skin lightening creams, topical retinoid creams, chemical peels and/or laser treatment.

Wrinkles

As we age and expose our face to the sun, UV rays damage the elastic fibres in the skin and the inherent ‘snap back’ quality becomes impaired.

Wrinkles begin to appear – at first only when the face is in motion, usually as expression lines around the mouth, by the eyes (‘crow’s feet’) and on the cheeks.  This occurs commonly in our thirties and forties, but the lines only appear when we talk, smile etc and we still look unlined when our faces are at rest. This is a good time to use muscle relaxing injections such as Botox.  If you are a smoker, these signs will start from your mid- twenties.

As ageing proceeds, the damage to the elastic fibres becomes more severe.  Eventually the wrinkles produced when we move our faces persist, even when the face is at rest.  The wrinkles have now been ‘ironed into’ the skin. At this stage, resurfacing procedures such as chemical peeling or laser treatment may be required.  Often, non-destructive laser or radiofrequency devices are used to heat up the collagen deeper in the skin.  This causes skin tightening, which can improve the appearance of wrinkles.

Eventually the face can be full of wrinkles and the choices of treatment then would lean heavily towards surgical re-draping and lifting procedures.

Shape

This is the most neglected aspect of ageing.  As we grow older the pads of fat on our face can increase or decrease in size and slip out of position, giving a hang-dog look that gives us a tired appearance.  Simply removing the fat gives a hollow/skeletal appearance that ages us even more. Restoring lost volume in critical areas can give a rejuvenated appearance without looking tight or stretched.  Lips, cheeks and temples can be enhanced with filler compounds to look younger.

Aside from the high level of medical expertise, we have high tech equipment to provide a wide range of non-surgical and surgical treatments. All our surgical treatments are carried out under local anaesthesia.

Please see the section on cosmetic treatments for more information