Possible Side Effects And Risks Of Retinoids
Although retinoids are effective, their strength also has a downside: potential side effects. Dryness and irritation are possible, especially when you first start using the products.
Because of their ability to promote cell turnover, retinoids can cause some dryness and subtle peeling of the skin. Some retinoids can also make acne slightly worse before it improves. When new, healthy cells are brought to the surface of your skin, it can cause pores to clog and worsen breakouts. The purging process tends only to last a week or two.
Youre also more likely to experience side effects if youre using multiple products for mature-looking skin at one time.
You should always do a patch test for any new products and introduce them into your routine one at a time. Try to space new additions out by 2 to 3 weeks at a time to allow your skin to adjust.
When introducing a new product, you may be able to reduce your risk of side effects by applying the product every other night and gradually working up to a nightly application.
You may also reduce your risk of side effects by using products with lower retinoid concentration and gradually increasing the strength as needed.
If youre new to retinol, its recommended that you begin with an OTC product since they come in many concentrations. These products are generally less irritating and come in milder formulas. You can eventually work your way up to prescription retinoids from there.
Here are some of the options to consider:
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This exercise will tone your upper abs effectively. You can perform it by using a dumbbell to make it much more challenging.
- Lie flat on your back, legs up at a 90-degree angle
- Arms straight, then curl the shoulders along with upper back off the floor by using your abs
- At the same time, pull the arms up straight ahead
- Maintain this pose for a second before lowering the shoulders and back down the floor
Remember to keep your legs up and arms straight while practicing this exercise.
Exercise 2: Lying leg raise
This exercise will tighten and tone the skin around lower abdominal muscles.
- Lie flat on the floor with your chest up, legs straight and raise up at an angle of 90 degree from the floor
- Maintain legs straight, lower them slowly down till they are nearly touching the floor
- Repeat this routine a few times again
Exercise 3: Pelvic thrusts
The exercise will tone your lower abs.
- Lie on your back with your legs raised up in the air of 90 degree from the ground
- Keep your legs up and lift your pelvis off the ground and raise upwards by using your lower abdominal muscles
- Lower the body back down to the ground
- Repeat this routine a few times again
4. Weight Resistance Training
5. Limit Your Sun Expose
6. Drink More Water
7. Exfoliate Your Skin Regularly
8. Add Protein To Your Diet
9. Avoid Smoking
10. Changes In Diet Plan And Lifestyle
11. Coconut Oil
Whats The Difference Between Retinoids And Retinol
The terms retinoids and retinol are often used interchangeably. Despite being fairly similar, there are a few differences between the two.
Retinol is a milder OTC class of retinoid. Retinol works in the same way that prescription retinoids do but is milder than its prescription counterparts.
While retinol can be very effective, it can take longer to yield results. This means that retinol is slightly weaker than prescription retinoids but still works to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and treat mild forms of acne and hyperpigmentation. It might just take longer than a prescription retinoid-based formula would.
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How To Avoid Having Excess Loose Skin In The First Place
If youâre worried about loose skin and its possible impacts on your health and wellbeing, itâs worth having a chat with your GP. Thinking about losing weight, but keen to avoid getting loose skin? A dietician or nutritionist should be able to help you work out a way to slowly lose weight while staying healthy.
8 June 2020
Sign Up To Pilates Or Yoga
Both pilates and yoga are also very gentle but effective ways of toning muscle. You can ask your instructor to show you specific movements that would tone the arms and then practice them in the comfort of your own home.
As a bonus, you will also improve your posture and strengthen your core muscles.
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Tighten Skin After Weight Loss Naturally
One of the problems with extreme rapid significant weight loss is you could very well end up becoming skinny fat.Skinny fat is kinda like deflating the balloon. You might lose a lot of weight but you also lose a lot of muscle too.
So even though youre losing weight your body fat percentage wont change or might even get worse. This what happens when you end up starving yourself to lose weight. You waste away a lot of your muscle mass in the process.
The good news is if you dont have a ton of extra loose skin then you might not even need surgery. But if you lost more than 100 pounds really fast then theres a chance you might still need it.
The integrity of your skin will also affect how easy it is to tighten the loose saggy skin on your body. Depending on how your skin responds to your weight loss is critical.
Try losing weight slower and healthier since crash dieting can make your loose skin even worse. When you lose weight too fast it doesnt give your skin enough time to retract into a tight new formation.
This can end up giving you the loose, saggy skin that can drive you crazy. Your skin can only stretch so far before it stretches beyond what is repairable. But the good news is if the damage isnt too bad then you can definitely fill out your loose excess skin.
Plus Radio Frequency Skin Tightening Treatment
The PLUS Radio Frequency Skin Tightening Treatment is another effective method to reduce saggy skin during weight loss. Similar to FORMA, this is a non-invasive procedure that uses radio-frequencies to stimulate the production of collagen. The treatment is used to tighten loose skin on the abdomen, the under arm, as well as the inner and outer thighs.
During the treatment, you will feel a warm sensation on your skin that is akin to a hot stone massage. There is little downtime involved after the treatment, other than some slight redness that will fade away after a few hours. PLUS helps to even out any saggy skin, making it look healthier and more youthful.
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Should You Use Firming Creams
There are many firming creams that contain collagen and elastin. For example, this cream promises to tighten up your crepey skin. While this cream claims to slim, tone and firm loose skin.
These creams may temporarily give a boost to skin tightness. However collagen and elastin molecules are too large to actually penetrate the skin.
How Do Retinoids Work
Retinoids are vitamin A derivatives. They work by neutralizing free radicals in the skin that may be causing collagen damage, overall reducing oxidative stress on the skin.
Retinoids also increase cell turnover in the skin, making way for new cell growth. According to an older but well-cited 2006 study , they can boost the production of hyaluronic acid and collagen in the skin and reduce the breakdown of collagen that already exists in the skin.
Collagen is essential to strong, youthful-looking skin. As you mature, your body begins to produce less collagen and elastin. Your body also begins to break down your collagen, elastin, and fat stores. This can contribute to more thin and sagging skin, fine lines, and wrinkles.
In addition to preserving your collagen stores, retinoids can also promote new collagen production.
This may help fill in or reduce the appearance of existing wrinkles and help prevent new ones from forming.
You may also see improvements in:
- skin texture
- age spots
- overall pigmentation
For retinoids to work, you must use them on a continuous basis. You may also need to switch products over time.
Remember
Retinoids are used to help reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. These types of wrinkles develop in the surface of your skin. If youre trying to address deeper wrinkles, talk with your dermatologist to discuss the different options available to you.
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Why Do You Have Loose Skin
You will get loose skin if a significant amount of weight is gained on your body. Also, if you remain like this for a long while before you lose weight, it may be quite difficult to retract the loose skin. A study conducted indicated that the skin of a group of obese patients who eventually lost weight was quite weak as a result of the thickness of collagen fibers and lower density. What this means is that the longer you are overweight, the more difficult it would be for your skin to go back to its original shape after losing weight.
The tricky aspect of the whole thing is in defining what can be defined as a significant amount of weight. Unlike what you may believe, there is no definite number of pounds you should lose before you can end up with loose skin. For instance, the older you get, the less your collagen levels and this means that you will more likely have loose skin when you lose weight. Also, factors such as smoking and sun exposure may lead to damage to the quality of your skin. Hence, if you belong to any of the categories, you may find it quite difficult to recover your skin after you lose weight.
What Causes Loose Skin
Loose skin after weight loss is a result of several contributing factors. Our skin is partially made up of proteins called collagen and elastin fibers. These proteins give skin its firmness and allow it to snap back in place after being stretched. When the skin is stretched for an extended period of time, the collagen and elastin fibers become damaged. After weight loss, your skin may lack the necessary proteins to return to its original shape. The skin loses its firmness and tends to just hang on the body.
In addition to losing elastin and collagen, the makeup of the collagen left in the skin changes as well. After losing weight, our skin contains less collagen and its composition is different than the collagen in young, healthy skin. The makeup of your skin is also determined by other factors like age, history of smoking, general health, and family history.
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Factors That Influence The Loss Of Skin Elasticity
Several factors contribute to loose skin following weight loss:
- Length of time. In general, the longer someone has had overweight or obesity, the looser their skin will be after weight loss due to elastin and collagen loss.
- Amount of weight lost. Weight loss of 100 pounds or more typically results in a greater amount of loose skin than more moderate weight loss.
- Age. Older skin has less collagen than younger skin and tends to be looser following weight loss (
17 ).
In a controlled study, skin elasticity, along with texture and hydration, increased significantly after 12 weeks of taking a liquid collagen supplement. The drink also contained vitamins C and E, as well as biotin and zinc .
Collagen hydrolysate is also known as hydrolyzed collagen. It comes in powdered form and can be purchased at natural food stores or online.
Another popular source of collagen is bone broth, which provides other health benefits as well.
How Do I Get Rid Of Extra Skin After Weight Loss
I’m 15 and I’ve been overweight most of my life. This past year I lost 50 pounds and I have some extra skin on my body because I was big for so long. It’s been tightening up because I’m still young. But can I speed it up? I already work out every other day. Misha*
Congratulations on losing the extra weight!
Losing a lot of weight can leave a person with saggy skin, especially if weight comes off quickly. Unfortunately, there’s no magic lotion or cream that can get rid of extra skin after weight loss. You should keep seeing improvement, but you may need to give it more time. As you said, being young is definitely in your favor, but you can’t speed up the process.
Working out like you’re doing is a great way to care for your body. Regular exercise, including cardio and strength training, will help you maintain your weight and tone your body. It also may help your skin look tighter.
Talk to your doctor if you’re concerned about extra skin. Some people who lose very large amounts of weight may consider plastic surgery after they’ve kept the weight off for a while.
Besides talking to your doctor, keep taking good care of yourself: Eating right, getting exercise, and caring for your skin can help you look and feel good.
*Names have been changed to protect user privacy.
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Is It Loose Skin Or Just Stubborn Fat
In general, immediately after weight loss, the majority of loose skin is actually just excess subcutaneous body fat covered by skin. So even if you have hit your goal weight, you may actually still have some of this body fat hanging around.
Subcutaneous fat is referred to as “soft fat,” which can be easily confused with plain old skin. This type of fat can be very stubborn, which means it can take a long time to disappear after you’ve lost weight. And before you ask, yes, “stubborn fat” is a real thing!
Our adipose tissue is full of alpha-2 and beta-2 receptors. A-2 and b-2 receptors interact with the catecholamines to cause stored body fat to be set free. Without getting too biological, B-2 receptors are associated with easy fat that we can lose, well, easily. A-2 receptors are associated with stubborn fat, which can be harder to lose. In particular, the fat around our belly has a notoriously low b-2:a-2 ratio, which is one reason why the spare tire is often the last part of the body to lean up.
If the area of loose skin that you are focused on is more than a few millimeters thick, that’s a good sign that it is actually residual body fat.
But if the skin you pinch is quite thin , or you’ve already been dealing with loose skin for quite some time with little or no change, this may not be the case. You are likely dealing with loose skin, not stubborn fat.
Ways To Tighten Excess Skin After Weight Loss
Losing a lot of weight within a short period of time can sometimes result in unwanted areas ofexcess skin. Individuals who undergo weight-loss surgery often tend to develop loose pockets of skin, as well as those who do cardio exercise frequently without adding strength training to their routines. In some cases, you might even have loose skin due to switching to eating healthier foods, but have difficulty tightening and toning your skin through exercise.
There are multiple different ways to tighten excess skin after weight loss, such as through establishing a solid strength-training routine, or by having one or morecosmetic procedures that can help contour your body, such as liposuction ortummy tuck surgery. Check out these five effective ways to tighten loose skin after youve lost weight.
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Undergoing A Tummy Tuck
Why Skin Doesnt Snap Back
The elasticity of your skin depends on how long you were obese. It doesnt matter if you dropped pounds quickly or slowly. The longer it was stretched out, the less likely it is to bounce back.
Its like a balloon, says Marie Jhin, MD, a dermatologist in San Francisco. When you first blow up a balloon, its really small and tight. You have to stretch it first, she says. But when its deflated, it doesnt return to its original shape.
A lot of it has to do with age and genetics, too, she says. Everyone starts to lose as they get older.
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