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Sagging Skin: The Most Effective and Non-Invasive Treatments

In HIFU, Pico Laser, Skin Booster

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Dr Lee performing HIFU

Ageing

Ageing is a process of growing old according to age that may affect the body internally or externally, including skin sagging and weakening of the immune system, resulting in falling sick easily. 

How Ageing Leads to Saggy Skin?

Ageing leads to saggy skin when the body loses its ability to produce a proper amount of collagen. Collagen is one of the important factors that plays a big part in terms of ageing. Collagen provides lots of benefits to the skin that allow the structure to form. 

The specific role of collagen includes replacing dead skin cells with the growth of new skin cells by supporting fibroblasts to form in the middle layer of the skin, also known as the dermis layer. Collagen contains elastin that is responsible for providing a smooth and soft texture to the skin, giving the skin its elasticity and firmness, preventing saggy skin. 

Therefore, when the amount of collagen that the body produces naturally starts to lessen, the skin’s elasticity starts to weaken, resulting in saggy skin, including droopy eyelids.

What is Saggy Skin?

Saggy skin is an excess layer of skin and fat which can be affected by an expansion of a rapid weight loss, pregnancy or adipositas. For example, firm skin is stretched and snapped back to its place easily and leading to the skin from sagging as it loses its ability.

Saggy skin can occur anywhere on the body including jowls, chin, upper arms, stomach, and eyelid. 

What Causes Saggy Skin?

Collagen and elastin production declines as people age, and the amount of both productions that are produced naturally by the body lowers down. However, there are many factors that cause or speed up saggy skin.

  • Ultraviolet Rays is one common reason that speeds up the process of saggy skin, as known as skin ageing. With too much sun exposure, ultraviolet rays speed up the process of collagen breakdown by penetrating the middle skin layer, also known as the dermis layer that leads to an unusual growth of collagen and elastin production. 
  • Alcohol speeds up the skin ageing process. Alcohol will lead to a loss of fluid and nutrients in the body after drinking. These are what keeps the skin vital for a healthy-looking skin. A loss of fluid and nutrients will result in dry skin, equivalent to dehydrated skin and the body internally. When the skin is dehydrated, fine lines or wrinkles start to develop and look dull and gray, as well as a bloated and puffy face.
  • Cigarettes destroy collagen contained inside the body. As smoking increases enzymes that break down collagen, it decreases the elasticity of the skin, which leads to saggy and wrinkled skin.
  • Pregnancy expands the skin especially on the tummy area and that is when stretch marks develop. After the pregnancy, skin that was stretched has become loose and saggy skin appears.
  • Rapid Weight Loss can lead to the development of saggy skin because extra weight gained that remains for a certain period of time can bring damage to the collagen and elastin fibers in the skin. This causes difficulty for the skin to go back to its pre weight gain appearance. 
  • Poor Diet including too much sugar intake and consumption of processed food can result in premature skin ageing, including acne breakouts and inflammation. 

Types of Skin Layers

The skin is made up of three layers of tissues to function as it is the body’s largest organ. The three layers of tissues include the epidermis, dermis and hypodermis. However, what is the purpose of the skin?

  • Epidermis refers to the outermost layer of the skin which can be seen or touched. This layer of skin is made up of a protein inside the skin cells known as keratin together with other proteins to form this layer.

Epidermis acts as a protective barrier of the skin and prevents any interaction between the skin and the germs or bacteria, keeping it away from the skin. It also acts as a provider for the growth of new skin cells to make way for new skin to develop. 

Epidermis also serves as a protection for the body to fight off germs and infections and provides immunity to the body, it also gives off colour on the skin as epidermis contains melanin, providing pigmentations to the skin. 

  • Dermis refers to the middle layer of the skin. This layer of skin contains collagen that keeps the skin cells strong and elastin to keep the skin flexible and help skin that is stretched to get back in shape.

Dermis is also beneficial for hair growth as the hair follicles are attached to it. It also help the nerve receptors to feel pain so that it sends signals to the brain that something is too hot to touch, itchy or super soft. 

Dermis produces oil glands to keep smooth and soft skin and also serve as a prevention for the skin from absorbing too much water during swimming. However, it also produces sweat glands for sweats to release via the pores and control the body temperature.

This layer of skin helps to supply blood and keep the skin layers healthy as blood vessels contained inside the dermis give off nutrients to the epidermis.

  • Hypodermis refers to the fatty layer that is situated at the bottom of the skin that acts as a protection for the muscles and bones from injuries while the tissues are connected to both the muscles and bones. 

Hypodermis is also another layer of skin that controls the body temperature from getting too hot or too cold, as well as helping the nerves and blood vessels to connect hypodermis to other areas of the body when the size increases in this layer. 

How Do You Know if Your Skin is Sagging?

Saggy skin starts appearing around the age of 25 and can become quite noticeable, lasting for weeks to months or even years. However, how do you spot when the skin is sagging?

  • Wider and slacker jawline
  • Less defined facial features 
  • Forehead wrinkles
  • Eye wrinkles
  • Frown lines
  • Laugh lines
  • Droopy eyelid

How can we Boost Collagen Production for the Skin?

Collagen boost and getting rid of saggy skin does not necessarily require surgery. Non-surgical aesthetic treatments are widely popular these days to reduce or solve these concerns. Aesthetic treatments that require surgery usually have a certain downtime or complications while those that do not require any surgery are much safer and require a minimal to no downtime. 

  • HIFU is a treatment that lifts up the skin, melts away facial fats on areas like the double chin, cheeks, jowls, and face using ultrasound energy to penetrate the deep skin layers and stimulating collagen and elastin production to reduce fine lines or wrinkles. 

HIFU is one of the most common non-surgical facelift treatments allowing high-frequency beams for deep penetration into the skin without causing any damage to the surrounding skin tissue at no downtime. 

  • Pico Laser is a non-ablative laser treatment that targets pigmentation including freckles, melasma, sun spots, acne marks, and more. As well as promoting skin rejuvenation to reduce fine lines and wrinkles via collagen and elastin stimulation.
  • Skinbooster is an injectable treatment targeting anti-ageing. This anti-ageing treatment improves skin hydration and boosts overall skin elasticity and brightening, smoother skin texture, acne scars reduction and whisking away fine lines or wrinkles.

Conclusion

Many reasons can cause saggy skin, however, the most common cause is due to skin ageing that is unavoidable as we age. But we can always solve these concerns using non-surgical aesthetic treatments.

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