Dear Nurse Bonnie:
I’m wrinkled and crinkled. I sag and I bag. There are spots before my eyes…and they are on my hands! I also seem to bruise more easily.
What happened? Is it affecting me other than my appearance? Can anything be done…? Mrs. L.T.
Dear Mrs. L.T. :
Welcome to the club!! As you have highlighted, aging skin becomes thinner and less elastic with a deepening of expression lines and greater vascular fragility.
My nursing instructors would repeat over and over: “An intact skin and mucous membrane is the first line of defense against infection.” It is also our largest sensory organ (temperature, touch, pressure), helps to regulate body temperature, maintain fluid and electrolyte balance, and is the third avenue for ridding our bodies of metabolic waste (right behind the kidneys and liver). We can’t change our genetic inheritance. Less pigmented skin is more susceptible to solar damage.
Some studies have found that smokers of long duration had more fine wrinkling of the skin than non-smokers.
Exposure to the sun is by far the biggest culprit. It causes fine and coarse wrinkling, yellow, lax and leathery texture, blotchiness and pigmentary changes, visible breaking of blood vessels close to the surface of the skin, enlarged pores, freckling, non-malignant, pre-malignant and malignant discolorations and growths.
We can’t change our past accumulation of sun exposure…but we can take precautions now.
USE A SUNSCREEN SPF 30+ COVER UP
LIMIT EXPOSURE TO DIRECT SUN BETWEEN 10-3
GET A FULL BODY SKIN SCREENING BY A DERMATOLOGIST YEARLY
Many cosmetics will claim to recapture youthful skin or build collagen. I would recommend to consult a dermatologist before investing time or $$.