From a medical point of view it is a small flaw, aesthetically you don't like to see the rings around your eyes. Because shadows under the eyes convey fatigue, exhaustion and age.
Of course there are treatments and remedies if you have dark rings under your eyes. There are a number of solutions, remedies and treatments that you can do yourself or together with a doctor.
In short, the reason for the shadows is the vessels and lymph glands under the thin skin on the eye, which become visible when they do not function optimally.
Dark rings around the eyes
If you want to get rid of your shadows under your eyes, the best way in acute cases is to sleep well, go for a walk or exercise and not drink alcohol. The consequences of long nights or hard working days are thus alleviated the quickest.
However, if you already have a healthy lifestyle in general, but are still struggling with the problem, there are many methods and home remedies to achieve an improvement. If natural remedies do not help, there are in any case medical therapies for an aesthetically fresh eye area.
Reasons
Patients often wonder where the dark circles come from and why do they have dark circles?
The skin around the eyes is three times thinner than in other parts of the face. It is up to 6 times thinner than the skin around the eyes. This is due to the lack of subcutis and connective tissue. The best known are the rings of the lower eyelids.
4 common reasons for dark circles
- Unhealthy lifestyle
- Smoking
- Less sleep
- Aging process
With age, the house loses elasticity and also a loss of moisture in the tissue. The skin under the eyes is particularly sensitive, which is why the aging process can be seen here first.
Medically defined are rings under the eyes:
"Accentuation of the entire nasojugal fold and the naso-cheek junction area".
Eye rings of the lower eyelids are the most common. Rings of the eyes can - more rarely - occur at the same time as bags under the eyes and swellings. They occur as a result of various causes in different manifestations and forms.
The eye area lacks sufficient fat cells to cushion the skin. However, it contains particularly many blood vessels and lymph glands. If the aforementioned factors such as stress, too little exercise, lack of fluid and sleep have an effect on us, then this changes our blood vessels and the blood in the body.
The metabolic processes influence the basic physical parameters. For example, if you get excited, you will turn red because your blood pressure is rising or you will become pale with fear! Ultimately, the oxygen concentration in the blood drops. This makes it flow more slowly and discolour darkly. Cells are not sufficiently supplied with oxygen, are more susceptible, deposits develop due to lack of transport, shorter life span...
Think of a slowly flowing river compared to a rushing mountain stream. This is most evident in the area of the lower eyelids.
The oxygen-rich small vessels are rather light red, the oxygen-poor dark red in their colouring and shine accordingly through the here thin skin so through, how high their portion is, fat appears yellowish on the other hand.
Dark shimmering rings of eyes are therefore the consequence of their higher proportion according to the above-mentioned causes.
If these are permanently present even after changes in lifestyle, allergies, diseases of the paranasal sinuses, kidneys, gall bladder, thyroid gland or even the liver of the heart should be excluded.
What helps against eye-rings?
If the permanent eye rings exclude or have already treated underlying diseases, there are a number of other possibilities for which the treating person must know that the bones of the eye socket, the eye margin and the cheekbone are covered by skin, fat and blood vessels during adolescence. The skin around the eye is particularly thin. The usual subcutaneous fatty tissue is missing or very discreet.
The cause of the dark circles is very often a combination of several of the mentioned reasons. For example, in the case of the repeated occurrence of rings around the eyes, it is important to find out the underlying cause. This can also be a serious disease, with the successful treatment of which the dark circles also disappear.
Their treatment must therefore be differentiated according to the underlying causative factors.
Depending on skin type and vascular density, dark circles always appear differently, but they can be treated optically with care substances and alleviated.
Treatment of eye-rings
When treating dark circles around the eyes, it may not be beneficial if you only use home remedies or alternative creams. Maybe the reason is only a medical diagnosis, which shows a disease.
It makes sense before you start with e.g. creams to rule out diseases. Then you can try to lighten the dark circles with natural methods. If conservative methods do not have a positive effect, there is the possibility of the aesthetic surgeon by means of surgery to remedy. But also this must exclude possible illnesses beforehand.
Natural treatments
The first thing you need is a solution for some proven household remedies. If these show little success, you can first choose a conservative medical alternative. You should consult your doctor here.
Cooling
If the rings around the eyes are not only dark, but also swollen, cooling helps. This ensures that the blood vessels contract and excess water is removed.
This is usually the case in the morning because our metabolism slows down overnight. You can perform a light lymphatic drainage yourself by tapping with your ring finger towards the root of the nose.
Cold cucumber slices or caffeine
Caffeine-containing creams and covering fluids stimulate the blood circulation, so that the thin vessels under the eyes show a higher blood flow speed again, contract and appear less blue. Cool cucumber slices on the eyes provide moisture and reduce swelling.
Arnica or chamomile compresses
Compresses with arnica or chamomile have an anti-inflammatory and thus decongestant effect.
Hemorrhoid creams
Hemoride creams have a decongestant effect and are used successfully in other areas of medicine. However, if they contain cortisone, they should not be used permanently. As a side effect, this results in a thinning of the skin, which would further thin out the very thin parts of the skin and strengthen the rings.
Ointments containing urea
Some doctors recommend trying a weakly concentrated urea-containing ointment from a pharmacy. Urea is a natural, endogenous substance that increases the water content in the upper skin layer and thus normalizes skin flexibility. The skin retains moisture better and becomes more supple.
Lymph drainage
The use of lymphatic drainage is good and helps to alleviate the problem in the short term. However, the medical causes are not eliminated here. In acute cases, however, they are very helpful.
The outer half of the eyelid is drained in the direction of the parotid lymph node (in the salivary gland), the lower inner half in the direction of the lymph nodes of the lower jaw.
Medically conservative
There are a number of conservative alternatives to medical treatment by the doctor when natural home remedies are no longer a solution. Therapy at the doctor's is therefore no less natural. Mostly alternative methods are used which represent a medical device and (mostly) may only be treated by a doctor.
| Methode | Beschreibung |
|---|---|
| Peeling | A gentle peeling of the eyelids is recommended by dermatologists. This can also achieve a firmer, more youthful skin of the eye region (hydroquinone, phytin, kojic, glycolic acid peeling). This peels off the top layer of skin, i.e. thins it out. This method can be questionable against the background of the already very thin skin. |
| Botox-Injection |
Some dermatologists often use botox injections there. The aim is to improve swelling of the lower eyelids and make tired, sunken circles look fresher. Botox injections specifically eliminate the tension of the eye ring muscle, the eye lifters and the eye-lowering muscles and the tendons between the eyelids and the nose. This does lead to the smoothing of the tiny wrinkles that develop there, while bags under the eyes or rings around the eyes themselves can hardly be positively influenced due to their formation mechanism (see above). The Botox injection, however, helps safely against the crow's feet or wrinkles on the lower eyelid. |
| Laser or flash lamp application |
These forms of therapy are technically complex and are intended to reduce pigment deposits and to obliterate blood vessels. A temporary success can be achieved by tightening the eyelid skin. The fibroblasts are stimulated to form collagen and the upper skin layers are smoothed (photoderm, CO2 laser, erbium laser, cool-touch laser, non-ablative skin resurfacing, subsurfacing, etc.). From own experience the successes are of limited duration. If used improperly, there is a risk of side effects such as burns, hyper- or hypopigmentation of the skin. Hyperpigmentations are darkening of the skin. These can be treated. Hypopigmentation means permanent whitening. The effect consists in the supply of energy in the targeted skin areas by means of bundled light. See also there. With correct indication and application this method can lead to success. Whenever the skin hangs, surgical methods are required. |
| Hyaluronic acid |
Injections of hyaluronic acid, performed by an experienced doctor, can actually improve dark circles when the lacrimal duct is underlaid. Hyaluronic acid itself attracts water from the surrounding tissues and thus also cushions the very thin skin there. The choice of the product and the correct placement are of decisive importance. Too tough or too much hyaluronic acid leads to visible and palpable clumps or even to lymph congestion, which in both cases leads to a worsening of the problem. Here it is recommended to visit someone who has already opened this region surgically and is not only familiar with the anatomy, but also with the healing behavior after a belpharoplasty (eyelid correction, lower eyelid surgery, tear sac surgery) has experience. |
| autologous fat injection |
The same applies here as for hyaluronic acid. However, the body's own fat cells are removed, cleansed of other components and then the living cells are immediately introduced, similar to stem cell therapy. This leads to a quick and safe healing. The fat is correctly injected not under the skin but under the eye ring muscle. In order to achieve a lasting result, repeat treatments in the sense of a "touch-up" can be carried out at intervals of approx. 3 months. The patient's own fat cells can be frozen and preserved for this purpose. |
| Fat-away injection | For the sake of completeness, the fat-away injection should be mentioned, with which smaller, superfluous fat accumulations on the lower eyelid are to be effectively reduced. The individually necessary dosage must be tried out here by trial and error. Maybe delicate on the eye? |
Surgical methods - OP
If the methods mentioned above do not help, or if it is clear beforehand that only an operative correction will lead to an improvement of the findings, this must be seriously considered.
An experienced surgeon will inform you about the various treatment methods mentioned above and will show you the correct selection.
If one then comes to the conclusion that the dark circles have come from a slackening of the dark circles muscle and an unwanted fat distribution, then the following possibilities remain:
Reallocation
A surgical redistribution of the existing fat tissue to reduce the tear sacs and thus simultaneously poster the tear channel in one session. Here, living fat cells are transferred from one location to another in a similar way to autologous fat transfer. Only here it lies in the immediate vicinity and is moved without being separated. This is known from surgery. The nutrition of the cells is not interrupted, it is only shifted and at the same time the "too much" is removed.
Tear Duct Surgery
Here the excess fat is reduced, the muscle is tightened and the skin is smoothed over it.
The aim is to eliminate the fat tissue prolapse as the cause of the dark circles. Similar to the abdominal fold, when it begins to hang over the belt and thus creates a deep fold.
Interventions or procedures in the nose or paranasal sinuses
With a cold or hay fever, the eyes are swollen and rings appear. The mucous membranes of the nose and paranasal sinuses are strongly swollen and the lymph and tear drainage are obstructed. If the acute clinical picture turns into a chronic one, this can also be seen from the outside.
In the case of anatomical changes, such as septal deviation (curvature of the nasal septum), conchoidal hyperplasia (enlargement of the nasal swell bodies) and other diseases, small laser or high-frequency interventions and even corrective operations can help to clear the respiratory tract and facilitate lymphatic and tear drainage.
Result
According to today's experience, there are a number of different ways to effectively and safely remove the eye rims. Whichever method is chosen, rings around the eyes can appear again and again:
Bruises, pigment deposits, overcorrections, (cavity eye), tired eye, lumps, scarring, granuloma formation after injections.
First, however, the thorough analysis of the causes is always in the foreground and then the correct selection of the method follows.