3 Reasons Why Your Facial Features Have Sunken In (and What to Do About It)

While it’s natural for your face to start to hollow out as you age, it does make you look significantly older. Once this process begins, it can be difficult to stop. You can attempt to maintain your skin as much as possible, but your features may continue to sink. If you want to slow this process, you’ll need to understand why it’s happening, and what treatments are actually effective. 

At DiGeronimo MD Advanced Plastic Surgery in Miami, Florida, Dr. Ernest M. DiGeronimo can restore your ideal facial profile with facelift surgical procedures that leave you feeling like a whole new person.

3 reasons your features are sinking 

Generally speaking, the majority of aging is caused by sun damage, collagen loss, and a lack of elasticity. Ultraviolet (UV) light prematurely ages skin cells, damaging their structure and causing hyperpigmentation. Combined with decreased protein production, the skin naturally begins to lose volume and sag. 

However, these are just general causes of aging and don’t always lead to gaunt features. A sunken face is often caused by additional stressors. 

1. Dropping body weight 

Excessive exercise, eating disorders, health issues, and digestive conditions can all cause weight loss. While your face isn’t the first place to lose fat, it is the most noticeable. When you’re young, your skin has enough volume and elasticity to remain tight and supple. Some degree of sinking and sagging is normal as you age, but a low body weight can make it more prominent. 

2. Smoking 

Not only does smoking cause specific wrinkles, such as lip lines, but tobacco use (whether smoked, vaped, or chewed) actively ages you. Smokers experience higher rates of inflammatory responses in the body, placing stress on your immune system and shortening telomeres, which determine the lifespan of your cells. 

3. Physical and emotional stress 

It’s common knowledge that stress accelerates aging. This includes both physical and emotional stress, such as poor sleep, grief, overwork, anxiety, and things like post-traumatic stress disorder. While you cannot go back and erase pressures you’ve already experienced, you can cut down on sources of stress in the present. 

What you can do about gaunt features

A gaunt face can make you look old, tired, sick, and even malnourished. Unfortunately, rejuvenating a sunken face can be a tall order. Botox only helps with dynamic wrinkles that haven’t deepened into permanent lines, and dermal fillers are designed to fill in skin wrinkles, not hollowed cheeks.

If you want to successfully fill out your face and achieve a more youthful look, you’ll need to go deeper. With the help of a plastic surgeon, you can discuss solutions like rhytidectomy and fat transfer. 

Rhytidectomy, commonly known as a facelift, is one of the most common antiaging surgeries available. However, a delicate touch and anatomical knowledge of the face is necessary to avoid the “stretched” look associated with the procedure. 

Dr. DiGeronimo performs each surgery according to his patients’ unique needs, adjusting skin and connective tissue to sculpt and tighten your face for a natural, younger look. Depending on which areas you want treated, he offers full, deep, and lower facelifts. 

To learn more and determine which suits you best, call 305-376-0378 or request an appointment online.