PATIENT EDUCATION
SCLERODERMA
The professionals at The Dermatology Center of Memorial believe that informed patients are better equipped to make decisions regarding their health and well-being. For your personal use, we have created an extensive patient library covering an array of educational topics, which can be found on the side of each page. Browse through these diagnoses and treatments to learn more about topics of interest to you. Below we include a brief description of some of the Cosmetic Services we offer. Please feel free to contact our offices with questions.
As always, you can contact our office to answer any questions or concerns.
Cosmetic Services
Botox Injection
An excellent treatment for wrinkles caused by muscle movement, Botox injection is a simple procedure taking only 10 or 15 minutes which involves minimal discomfort. Botox is used to treat forehead wrinkles, crow's feet, and frown lines between the eyes. It can also be helpful on the lower face.
Juvederm
Juvederm is a hyalurinc acid filler which can be used to improve wrinkles in the lower face, plump up aging ear lobes, and fill in deep troughs under the eyes. It is not a permanent filler, lasting between six and nine months. Dr. Schwartz has found Juvederm to be a great improvement over the injection of bovine collagen which lasts a shorter amount of time and introduces and an animal substance into the body.
Restylane
Restylane is a hyaluronic acid derivative which absorbs water and adds volume to skin giving a youthful look. Hyaluronic acid is a substance which occurs naturally in skin and which diminishes with age. Injections of restylane are used to diminish deep large smile lines (nasolabial folds) and to fill out the lip and diminish wrinkles around the mouth. It can also help to fill in scars and indentations, to plump up floppy earlobes, and to decrease hollows beneath the eyes.
Other filler materials are available at our office including Radiesse. All injections of botox and filler materials at our office are personally administered by the doctor.
Roughly 300,000 people in the United States suffer from scleroderma. This chronic connective tissue disease results from an over-production of collagen in the skin and other organs. Scleroderma usually appears in people between the ages of 25 and 55. Women get scleroderma more often than men. The disease worsens slowly over years.
There are two types of scleroderma: localized scleroderma, which involves only the skin, and systemic scleroderma, which involves the skin and other organs, such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, intestine and gallbladder. Typical symptoms of the skin include skin hardening, skin that is abnormally dark or light, skin thickening, shiny hands and forearms, small white lumps beneath the skin's surface, tight facial skin, ulcerations on the fingers or toes and change in color of the fingers and toes from exposure to heat or cold. Other symptoms impact bones, muscles, lungs and the digestive tract.
There is no known cause of scleroderma, nor is there a cure. There are individualized treatments that are designed to help alleviate certain symptoms and decrease the activity of the immune system to further slow down the disease.