Dallas Facial Plastic Surgeon Dr. Sam Lam talks about a new medication to help one’s eyes look more youthful in a matter of a quick eyedrop

Full Audio Transcript:

One of the things I talk about all the time during consultations is when patients have a very mild degree of Ptosis, p-t-o-s-i-s, which basically means their upper eyelids are a little bit
weaker. It’s not talking about extra skin or saggy brows, but we all have a little bit, not we all, but a lot of us have a little bit of weakness of our upper eyelids and especially that occurs when people get older.

There are two types of Ptosis, there’s congenital Ptosis, people that are just born with a with a very low set eye which is not as common as aging Ptosis where people, as they get older, their eyes starts to just disinsert from the levator, which means that the muscle gets weaker.

I have it myself. I’m in my mid-50s and I have a little bit of sag left worse than, right, and it’s not again extra skin or sagging tissues. It’s just that the muscle becomes longer the eye doesn’t open quite as much.

There’s a new product called Upneeq and It is pretty amazing because what I’ve started to notice now is that patients with an eye drop can have their eyes fully open and look really good very quickly.

The product is very inexpensive. It comes in a 45-case package for two hundred some dollars and it’s meant to be only used once but you could use it for a couple days if you wanted to. It can last quite a long time, especially if you don’t use it every day, but you only use it for social engagements, and it just helps pop-up that eye a little bit and what it’s doing is its opening a second muscle called Mueller’s muscle that is used for fight or flight.

So, for example, if you say look, I don’t want to pay for that. What else can I do? You can get very excited or scared before a photograph. You’ll see your eyes will open up by about 1 or 2mm and this is a to me a big revolution because it allows my patients to look as best they can in a treatment that is not easy to fix.

You say “well, is there a surgical option?” Yes, there’s a Ptosis repair. The problem with Ptosis repairs
is there’s a high revision rate. I used to do it about 20 years ago. I stopped doing them and they’re also not that great when you’re dealing with a very minimal degree of Ptosis. Like one or two millimeters, it’s very hard to make that correction. So, this is a way to help patients get a really nice result, In a very short time.

What you need to do is take out your contacts for about 15 minutes. You put it in your eyelids, and you should see in about 15 minutes your eyes starting to open up pretty quickly.

Its maximum effect is about 2 hours. It starts to wane a little bit about eight hours and most times is gone at 12 hours. It can last longer. Some people have reported up to two, to three days of their eye being open. But I cannot guarantee that.

Some contraindications and other words people that are probably not suitable candidates for this treatment would be, if they get some iron rotation. Sometimes, there’s some redness of the eyes.

If you’ve got untreated narrow angle glaucoma. Which is a very specific type of disease process. You should not be treating it. But if you’ve already had that fixed, that’s not an issue or a medical therapy for it or you don’t have a closed angle variety.

And if you have chronic dry eye, there’s actually some studies that show that it can actually help that but sometimes it could actually make it worse. So, if you have dry eye I’d that is not improved and you try it and it’s gotten worse and I would definitely say look don’t continue to use it but it really oftentimes does not cause issues with blurred vision or any other problems.

It can just be that added little bonus for a very small cost and it takes a second to put it in to make your eyes look better.

So, something else that’s been a nice, adjunct to my practice.