The loss of 2 crucial proteins known as elastin and collagen, the building blocks within our dermis that are essential for keeping our skin supple, firm, and young-looking, causes our skin to lose its firmness as we get old. While elastin offers elasticity in the skin, allowing firm skin to snap right back once stretched, collagen helps tighten and firm our skin.
Skin laxity causes sagging skin, which is among the most common worries about skin aging in a lot of women. Sagging skin is frequently related to fat loss. Those who’ve already lost a substantial amount of weight quickly are likewise more vulnerable. Other factors, such as certain medical problems, might also contribute to drooping skin.
Firm skin may stretch and bounce back into place quickly and effortlessly. Skin that loses collagen, on the other hand, loses its ability to snap back. It’s when the skin begins sagging. Saggy skin could occur practically anywhere on your body; aside from your cheeks, which are the most noticeable, other typical places include your chin, eyelids, throat, jowls, stomach, and upper arms.
Sagging Skin Types
Drooping Cheeks
Once the cheeks lose their fullness, they are not smooth and plump (which provides the look of freshness) anymore, but have instead flattened. Once elastin is reduced, it weakens your underlying muscles.
Sagging Jowls
The skin from the cheekbones to the jawline loses a significant amount of elastin and collagen as you age. A protein called collagen builds up the body’s connective tissue. Elastin is yet another connective tissue protein that allows the skin to revert to its original form after getting stretched. When such proteins are depleted, the skin around the mouth loses tightness and firmness. Gravity makes it sag and droop on either side of the chin and mouth eventually.
Double Chin
Submental fat, often called double chin fat, could affect women and men of all weights and ages. In truth, slender people can develop a double chin. It’s because double chin fat accumulates as your metabolism slows because of skin aging. One more reason you might get a sagging neck skin or a double chin is loss of collagen. The development of a double chin is also caused by a loose neck and under-chin skin. Genetics also play a role in Asians having what is known as a receded or “small” chin.
Liposuction fat reduction treatment is not required for treating double chin fat. It could be reduced, contoured, or tightened loose, drooping skin underneath the chin using non-surgical sagging skin treatments.
In-office Treatments
Laser Treatment
Laser beams deliver heat deep within the skin, tightening sagging, loose skin and smoothing wrinkles and lines without damaging the skin’s top layer. Several forms of laser therapy procedures could aid in collagen formation and overall skin tone improvement. Laser treatment could help with firming, but it would need several treatments over several months.
Dermal Fillers
Hyaluronic acid is a component naturally occurring in the skin (glycosaminoglycan polysaccharide) that helps pull and bind water to itself and the skin around it. It could be injected under the neck and chin to fill in jowls and cause them to appear less sagging. Injectable fillers, whether semi-permanent or temporary, are also employed to assist develop a firmer jawline and increase collagen formation. Temporary ones are the most preferred since they may compensate for the loss of volume.
Radiofrequency Treatments
Radiofrequency utilizes a handheld device to send heat into your skin at a shallower level in order to stimulate collagen formation. Thermage is a prominent name for this therapy, which is commonly utilized to tighten the chin and neck’s surrounding skin.
There’s minimal downtime, and the risks of problems or adverse effects, such as infection, are quite minimal. This collagen regeneration and skin quality enhancement would continue for the next 6 months. A touch-up procedure is usually required within one year to allow you to keep the effects.
Ultrasound
Ultherapy, the most well-known leading brand in ultrasound therapy, utilizes ultrasound energy to heat your skin. This causes the natural healing process of the body to restore the skin using its own collagen. Ulthera administers heat to the muscles and muscles, resulting in more noticeable skin lifting and tightening results, and improved drooping skin look.
HIFU is another sagging skin treatment that employs ultrasound energy that permeates deeply into your skin to stimulate the creation of collagen and elastin-producing effects that are similar to surgical facelifts. This could also be utilized to remove a double chin by adding skin contour and lift. Results with these procedures are noticeable only after the 3rd month, accompanied by incremental improvements throughout the months. One year later, touch-up procedures are required.