Many individuals have stated that after retirement, they won’t care about cosmetic procedures. The reality is that we are living longer, healthier, and more social lives than ever. Cosmetic procedures, both nonsurgical and surgical, in our 70’s have increased exponentially and have become more routine. And why not?! The whole point of retirement is to celebrate your life.
Individuals in their 70’s can still take advantage of preventative protocols to maintain the collagen, elastic tissue, and volume they currently have to look their best. In general, however, surgical treatment is more common in this decade but results can be maintained and further aging can be slowed with nonsurgical therapies.
Skin Care
- A daily skin care regimen is just as important now as it was in your 60’s. With a fixed income, it’s even more important to get the most out of your investment and a daily skin care regimen will continue to pay dividends.
- The focus in your 70’s is to increase collagen production, preserve current collagen levels, treat thinning skin, reduce age spots, and prevent skin drying, in addition to blending pigmentary changes. A secondary goal is to prepare the skin for any surgical or nonsurgical procedures that may be needed to optimize results.
- The skin continues to thin this decade so efforts are made to increase the tone and turgor of the skin to minimize the crepey appearance of skin around the eyes, in the neck, and around the mouth by increasing collagen formation. This requires a combination of a daily skin care regimen, monthly skin treatments to boost your home skin care regimen, and resurfacing with either a fractionated CO2 laser (gold standard), radiofrequency microneedling, or both.
- As in your 60’s, the daily skin care regimen should consist of an exfoliating cleanser (Gentle Cleanser), antioxidant (CE Brightening Serum), medical sunblock (Visage SunGuard), and Retin-A (Exfolibright-C) at a minimum; however, a low dose retinoid eye cream (Dual Eye Restorative Care), an active neck and decollete cream (Neck Enhance Complex), hand cream (MoistureRiche), and a hydrating moisturizer (Hydrating serum or HylaCream) are common additions to this decade and highly recommended. Our skin gets much drier during this decade so hydrating moisturizers for the face, neck, decollete, and hands are more important than ever especially during the dry summer and winter months.
- Begin alternating medical microneedling with your medical grade superficial peels (Hydrafacial MD) every other month to maximize collagen production. Radiofrequency microneedling can be performed in fewer treatments and can increase collagen production even further than regular medical microneedling. Adding growth factors to the Hydrafacial MD and adding Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) with microneedling doubles your skin’s ability to produce collagen and heal from sun damage. These treatments also improve texture, color, tightening, dryness, and crepey skin. Again, on a fixed income, there are few things that have a great return and boosting your daily skin care regimen is one of them.
- Brown spots can be treated with topical brightening agents (Exfolibright C), Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) treatments, Visage MD pigment peels, or fractionated CO2 laser. A conversation with your plastic surgeon can help determine which one of these is the most beneficial to you; however, fractionated CO2 is most beneficial in this decade.
Lines, Wrinkles, Folds, and Volume
- Botox or Dysport is essential during this decade to treat the lines in the upper face and around the eyes, but more importantly, to lift and hold the brows in place. In many cases, filler may be needed to treat the tapering effect of the forehead sinking into the temples bilaterally or simply to fill the deeper lines in the forehead and between the brows. Botox or Dysport is frequently used in this age group to treat bands in the neck or drooping of the corners of the mouth as well.
- From a prevention standpoint, volume is of paramount importance because the skin is becoming lax and sags. Support, in the form of volume, under the skin helps to hold the facial tissues upwards and slows down further sagging and stretching. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Volumizing fillers used during our MM Lift™, such as Restylane Lyft, Sculptra, Bellafill, Radiesse, among others, are used to lift and hold the cheek, jawline, brow, lower lid, perioral, and posterior face tissues up. Going to a plastic surgeon who specializes in nonsurgical modalities and who trains other physicians can help you determine the best filler based on the characteristics needed for your face.
- Lip volume significantly decreases during this decade. Using filler or implants to provide your lips with an age appropriate appearance also helps with supporting the corners of the mouth, lip border definition, improvement in lipstick lines, marionette lines going forward. Given a fixed income, the cost savings with lip implants becomes more attractive.
- Stretched ear lobes appear from decades of heavy earring use and from volume loss. Adding filler to the earlobes can reduce the appearance of a stretched or large earlobe and can also help earrings point straight forward instead of downward. Usually, the earlobes are reduced at the time of a mini facelift first followed by the addition of volume to rejuvenate the earlobe and the appearance of earrings in the future.
- Many times Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) is combined with volumizing fillers to enhance longevity of the filler during this decade and improve collagen stimulation in addition to skin radiance.
Skin Tightening
- During this decade, most individuals are seeking ways to tighten loose skin present along the jawline, neck, brows, upper eyelids, and lower lids. Surgical intervention with our Natural Mini-facelift, natural eyelid lift, and natural mini-browlift are the most popular treatments during this decade. They provide natural refreshed results without the weeks of pain and downtime of traditional facelifting techniques nor the stigma of facelift surgery. This is another great investment for those on a fixed income; you get the greatest result for the least amount of spend over the following 10 years. Nonsurgical skin tightening modalities, though available, are best used after surgery for maintenance.
- Our Signature Natural surgical procedures provide a refreshed and natural finish. The idea is for someone to be able to sit right next to you and not know you had anything done.
- In most cases, the best way to proceed is to tighten the skin by first performing a brow lift, eyelid surgery, neck lift, or facelift and then using ultherapy as a maintenance therapy. Ultherapy is the closest modality we have to a surgical facelift but it is not a facelift. Ultherapy can provide a 30-50% improvement in lifting (assuming volume is addressed) whereas a facelift can provide a 90-95% improvement (again, assuming volume is addressed).
- Many individuals have both loss of volume and skin laxity so it’s important to determine if volume is needed in addition to skin tightening to avoid an underwhelming result. Patients who are unhappy with their facelift results are usually disappointed because their volume loss was not treated adequately.
Skin Resurfacing
- Because the skin is thinner during this decade, efforts are made to increase the thickness of the skin to minimize the crepey appearance of skin around the eyes, in the lower cheek, around the mouth, and in the neck by increasing collagen formation. Of course, a daily skin care regimen with active ingredients is essential; however, monthly medical grade superficial peels (Hydrafacial MD) alternating with medical microneedling is a proven way to increase collagen in the top layers of the skin, smooth irregularities, improve acne scars, but most importantly, tighten thin skin. Radiofrequency microneedling (Infini Genius) has grown in popularity because it requires fewer treatments than routine medical microneedling.
- Many times, despite daily skin care and regular medical grade superficial peels and microneedling, the skin is damaged from excessive sun exposure, radiation, tobacco use, tanning, or aging and treatment with resurfacing is more appropriate than prevention.
- Fractionated CO2 laser treats damaged skin, and though it has a week’s worth of downtime, it can tighten skin, remove precancerous lesions, improve brown spots, decrease pore size, improve visible scars, thicken thin skin, and smooth fine lines. Once the skin has been resurfaced, the results can be maintained using superficial peels and medical microneedling.
- Radiofrequency microneedling (Infini Genius) provides the same improvements in skin resurfacing such as decrease in pore size, improvement in visible scars, thicken thin crepey skin, and smooth fine lines without the downtime CO2 creates.
- Fractionated CO2 is not recommeded for skin that tans easily, and as such, radiofrequency microneedling is used for tightening in darker skin types.
Hair Treatment
- A thinning hairline, eyebrows or eyelashes can change the framing of the face making the face look older. Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) injections for thinning of the anterior hairline are very popular to thicken the density of hair long the hairline and to make the hair darker and longer. PRP can also be used for eyebrow hair thinning as well. PRP cannot make hair follicles that have not produced hair in over a year come back to life; however, hair follicles that are showing signs of thinning can be treated well with PRP.
- A large forehead can often be reduced at the time of a browlift or minifacelift to advance the hairline anteriorly and to reduce the appearance of a recessed hairline or prominent forehead. PRP injections are generally used afterwards to maintain the appearance of the anterior hairline.
- Latisse is commonly recommended during this decade to help the eyelashes become longer, thicker, and darker. Eyelashes improve the framing of the eye and enhance the appearance of eye procedures performed in this area. It also distracts from a low brow or a heavy upper lid.
Unsure where to start? Call us for a complimentary cosmetic consultation and we can create a customized treatment and prevention plan just for you!
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