Saturday, September 26, 2009

Severe Dry Eye Treatment

The surface of your eyes should remain lubricated constantly. Tears provide nutrients and proteins to your eyes. Tears also provide protection for your eyes and make it easier for you to blink, whereas dry eyes cause abrasions, erosions, scarring and ulcers on your eyes. Tears, like glasses, reflect light, allowing your to see sharp, clear images. When your eyes do not produce tears, or don't produce enough tears, nearly all of these problems will develop. Fortunately, you have options to treat severe dry eyes.

    Artificial Tears

  1. Lubricating treatment should be your first attempt at treating severe dry eyes. Start by placing artificial tears, ointments or gels in your eyes. You might even want to try prescription eyedrops, such as Restasis, or try using a topical steroid in your eyes. Just hold your eyelids open with your thumb and index finger, look to the side, and squeeze the moisture onto your eye.
  2. Punctal Plugs

  3. Punctal plugs are effective at treating severe dry eyes that have been unresponsive to artificial tears. The word "puncta" means the opening of tear ducts at the corners of the eyes. Plugs that are inserted in the corners of the eyes to help keep them moist are referred to as "punctal" plugs. Your eye doctor places the plugs under your eyelids--usually the lower lids--with a pair of tweezers. You can only have this procedure done at your doctor's office.
  4. Hygiene and Heat Treatment

  5. If the artificial tears and plugs fail to relieve severe dry eyes, the next step focuses on treating your glands to make sure they produce enough oil. Eyelid hygiene requires you to gently and thoroughly clean your eyelids be to remove debris and bacteria, in order to stimulate secretions in your glands. Scrubbing your lids, along with heat treatment--which involves placing warm compresses on your eyelids--will help to loosen the hardened oil that might be clogging the glands, allowing it to flow freely.
    Doxycycline, an oral antibiotic, can help with bacteria and with eye infections, too.
  6. Lifestyle Modifications

  7. Keeping hydrated can help with severe dry eyes. Drink at least eight glasses (about 60 oz.) of water each day. Get some omega-3 fatty acids, in the form of fish oil or flaxseed. Use a humidifier to keep moisture in the air. Turn down the air conditioning and heat and redirect the vents. Wear protective eyewear, such as Panoptx during the day and Tranquileves at night. These moisture goggles can bring enormous relief to dry eyes. Identify any medications that are causing dry eyes, and ask your doctor for replacements.
  8. Experimental Drugs

  9. Autologus serum is eyedrops produced from your own blood. It is still in the early development stages and researchers are currently conducting clinical studies. This treatment may someday offer hope to patients for whom other severe dry eye treatments have failed.
  10. Surgery

  11. For severe dry eyes for which all other remedies have failed, surgery might be an option. An oucloplastic surgeon specializes in performing plastic surgery of the eyelids. He can restructure your eyelids in such a fashion that it may cure your severe dry eyes.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

How to Remove Brown Age Spots

It only takes “two” steps to lighten brown skin spots.
1. Protect the area from sunlight and
2. use a good anti-aging cream.

However, the best creams for removing age spots contain ingredients that do “three” different things.

They :
1. repair free radical damage,
2. inhibit melanin production and
3. increase the skin-cell turn-over rate.
Here’s your recipe for success.

Recipe for Fading Brown Age Spots

Materials:
•Clothing or bandage
•Zinc oxide sun-block
•Anti-aging cream

Ingredients for the Cream:
•Coenzyme Q10
•Cyperus Rotundus Extract
•Functional Keratin

To be honest, the recipe for the cream is not something that you can whip up in your kitchen. Coenzyme Q10 molecules are normally too large to penetrate through all of the skin’s layers. So, they must be reduced in size.

Manufacturers of skincare products have access to “reduced” coenzyme Q10, as well as purified cyperus rotundus extract and functional keratin. So, if you want to lighten brown skin spots, the first step is actually to find a good cream that contains those three ingredients.

The clothing, bandages or sun-block are used to protect the area from sunlight. You could use the best cream available for removing age spots, but if you do not protect the area from sunlight, the damage will be redone.

The damage is done primarily by free radicals, which are molecules that naturally exist in all of the cells of the body. They perform some necessary functions in the cells, but sometimes, they get a little “crazy”.

UV rays from the sun and environmental toxins drive the radicals insane. They start to bounce around within the cells and they eventually damage membranes, fibers and cellular DNA. Antioxidants neutralize the radicals before they can do all of that damage. Coenzyme Q10 is one of the most potent antioxidants.

The sun does something else, too. It stimulates the production of melanin, which is what the spot is composed of. That’s why manufacturers of products designed to lighten brown skin spots include an ingredient that inhibits melanin production. Antioxidants and plant sterols, such as those found in avocado and Shea butter, work, too, but not as quickly. Cyperus rotundus extract is the safest and most effective solution for removing age spots by inhibiting melanin production.

Increasing the skin-cell turn-over rate is necessary to lighten brown skin spots, quickly. Functional Keratin is the only ingredient proven to stimulate the production of new cells by as much as 160% in as little as three days. If cyperus rotundus is included to inhibit melanin, the new cells will be lighter in color. So, the spot starts to fade.

You might say that dedication is necessary for fading brown age spots and preventing them from coming back. You have to be dedicated to protecting the skin’s health. The sun, cigarette smoke and environmental toxins are damaging to the skin’s health. Nourishing creams are good for it.

Just be sure that the cream you decide to buy is free of artificial preservatives and petroleum-based alcohols. Those ingredients can actually cause brown skin spots and other signs of aging.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Natural Remedies for Age Spot Removal | Brown Aging Spot Treatment

Age spots occur as a result of the skin not being able to repair itself from the damage to it from ultraviolet radiation. Age spots have also been called liver spots in the past as it was thought that their origins were due to some kind of problem in the liver. The spots usually occur in people over the age of 30. However, there is it can also be experienced by someone younger because the age of skin is measured in terms of exposure to the sun rather than in chronological age.

An age spot is a hyperpigmented blemish on the skin. An age spot usually starts out as a brown blemish that eventually turns black on repeated exposure to the sun. The reason that this happens is the high presence of melanin in the area – the pigment that is responsible for skin color. Melanin exists in the skin for two reasons, the production of vitamin D from exposure to the sun and as a natural sunscreen. Melanin has the ability to protect the skin from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun because it has the ability to absorb it and convert it into heat as part of a very fast reaction. This is why it is considered nature’s natural sunscreen and therefore, over the course of thousands of years of evolution, people who live in areas of harsh sunlight like the tropics are genetically endowed with more melanin to protect themselves from the sun’s radiation. However, this process is not as flawless as it seems and melanin can only absorb so much radiation. After a certain point, which could be within minutes of exposure to the sun, the UV radiation eventually penetrates the skin and damages its DNA. Any damage to the skin cells will prompt the skin to start a process of repair, but over time the ability of the skin to repair itself is diminished and an age spot appears.

There are remedies that cosmetic surgeons use to remove age spots and that is by removing the topmost layer of the skin where the blemish is. This is done by either rubbing the skin of, using a laser to burn it off or using liquid nitrogen to freeze the skin off. None of these methods is permanent and exposing the skin to harsh sunlight will make it reappear. The spot can be removed by applying a plant source of vitamin C to bleach the skin in the area. This source is best acquired from onions and lemons. Regular use of this method is necessary for visible effects.