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Robert G. Aycock, MD, FACS · Plastic Surgery

March 2008 Newsletter

Pampered Hands
Make Sure Your Hands Match Your Rejuvenated Self

San Francisco Hand Rejuvenation

At a dinner party recently I was watching a vibrant woman who took such good care of her beauty she came close to looking ageless. But when she lifted her wine glass for a toast, her bony, spotted hands (complete with prominent varicose veins) sounded a discordant note.

Do your hands talk about you behind your back? Do they tell the whole world stories about how old you really are?

There Are Options

Your hands don't have to live in a time warp. Nowadays medical science can reverse or at least modify most of the damage that makes hands look old. Using a medley of low-impact rejuvenating treatments, we can take 10 to 20 years off the appearance of your hands.

Brown Spots

The most common aesthetic hand complaint is about brown spots, or uneven pigmentation.

To remove brown spots we may recommend:

  • A skin peel or
  • Intense Pulsed Light laser treatments

Which modality we choose will depend on the thickness of your skin. Skin on the hands tends to thin quickly, so we avoid peels in patients whose skin is already fragile.

Those who receive IPL laser treatments on their hands receive a bonus: While removing brown spots, IPL laser treatments restructure the dermis by stimulating new collagen and elastin growth. Your skin will thicken and gain elasticity over time; your brown spots will disappear within a week!

Atrophy

Hands develop a bony look because the underlying architecture of fat and muscles shrinks with age.

  • Fat transfers can remedy this. The good news: hands are among the best locations for fat transfers. New fat cells will take up residence in your hands and live there permanently—they won't be reabsorbed into your body (more likely in other areas). You'll be thrilled with the results—which will be lasting.
  • Fillers—The same fillers we use to plump up wrinkles in the face can be used to thicken strategic areas of the hands.

Veins

San Francisco Hand Rejuvenation

Varicose veins on the back of the hands are the most disfiguring signs of aging. These can be treated with sclerotherapy.

Sclerotherapy is a simple office procedure. A sclerosing solution is injected into the varicose vein through a micro-needle. The vein blanches and ultimately disappears. A typical treatment may take up to 15 to 20 minutes and consist of multiple injections.

Results take a few weeks to appear, and last forever. (If new veins decide to pop out, those can be sclerosed at a later date.)

Maintenance

Once your hands have traveled 20 years back in time you'll want to maintain their new look. We recommend:

  • Always, always wear a SPF 15 or higher sunblock outdoors.
  • Daily use of a good hand cream containing:
    • Glycolic acid
    • Vitamin C
    • Vitamin E
    • Beta-carotene

For some patients we recommend a bleaching cream, to prevent brown spots from reappearing.

Combination Treatment

Using a discreet combination of sclerotherapy, fat transfers, light- and radiofrequency-based lasers, peels and creams, we can take your hands back to an earlier time. Then it's up to you to keep protecting this delicate part of your body.

Neglect Tells Tales

Don't neglect your hands. People versed in beauty maintenance always inspect hands to detect a woman's "true age." Fly under the radar by keeping your hands as graceful and lovely as the rest of you.

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