Dark circles why do they come out? And what can we do to mitigate them?

Has it happened to you that when you get up and look in the mirror you see swelling and a dark color on the skin under your eyes?

They are the unsightly bags — inflammation — or dark circles — darkening of the skin — that appear tired or even sick. But not always or not only happens when we get up. These skin disorders may appear for different reasons. Although they should not be cause for alarm or excessive concern, since in general they have a remedy and do not represent any danger.

Both dark circles and "eye bags" are a fairly common problem. The skin around the eyes is very sensitive and thin, just 0.5 millimeters thick, that is, five times thinner than the rest of the face. Skin that in turn is also five times thinner than that of our entire body, according to the Spanish Association of Dermatology and Venereology (AEDV). In addition, it is an area where collagen levels are lower and easily distinguished by the continuous flickering movement.

About dark circles and eye bags

They are disorders that occur in the same area: the lower eye contour. But that is really about different problems. In the formation of these disorders under the eyes influence different factors that can be:

• Genetic
• Renal disease.
• Hypothyroidism: The slow thyroid can cause eye bags and affects 2 percent of the population.
• Inadequate diet: excess salt, processed food and insufficient water intake.
• Toxins

Dark circles

Mainly they arise from lack of sleep - which causes blood vessels to dilate - and over the years - aging makes the skin thinner and thinner. They can also be an inherited disorder due to the special morphological arrangement of the vascularization just below, which is glimpsed through the thin skin of that area. It is possible that they also arise due to lack of iron, which leads to poor oxygenation of the tissues and, consequently, the creation of blood clots in that area, in addition to the loss of fat around the eyes.

We could say that dark circles are:

• Pigmented: increased melanin of the skin of the eyelids due to genetic inheritance, atopic dermatitis or eczema in the area.
• Vascular: violet color for having very thin skin in that area that allows you to glimpse the blood vessels underneath.
• Valley of tears: very marked groove that goes from the inner edge of the eye to the cheek due to aging or decreased fat.

Eye bags

Generally also produced by genetic issues. This swelling or profusion under the eyes appears by loss of muscle tone and the epidermis, with the subsequent sagging of that area, or by herniation of the orbital fat of the eye that pushes the skin forward. When it appears when we get up, it is a fluid retention, sometimes generated by excessive salt intake.

These mild disorders can also occur in children, with dark circles peeking at younger ages, mainly due to genetic predisposition; and the bags without arising until adolescence, normally.

Medical treatments

Each case must be analyzed by a specialist. Especially when you have never had dark circles or bags and appear suddenly. If this occurs, they may be due to kidney or other problems that have to be properly evaluated.

In general, there are different treatments for each specific problem:

• Special depigmenting creams for delicate eyelid skin in the case of dark circles.
• Vitamin K rich contours for violet or vascular dark circles.
• ‘Peeling‘ or laser treatments to depigment dark circles.
• Oxygenation treatments for purplish dark circles, such as carboxytherapy (subcutaneous injections of carbon dioxide) to improve capillary blood flow.
• Injected hyaluronic acid to fill in very marked grooves.
• Surgery: for the bags an intervention called blepharoplasty is usually performed, with which the accumulated fat and excess skin is removed. It is not always possible to reduce the bulge completely. Draining products can also be used in the case of liquid retention.