We will discuss on the Treatment of Dark circles, by splitting this topic into three sections:

1. Self Care & Prevention of Further Progression.
2. Proven Medical Treatments.
3. Natural or Home remedies that actually work!

SELF CARE & PREVENTION:

1. You need to rectify or intervene your lifestyle, to avoid all those 10 Factors responsible for causing these dark circles, like adequate sleep, avoid stress, stop bad habits like smoking and all those 10 factors discussed in the previous episode.
   In addition, you can apply some of these simple changes in life, on day to day basis.
2. Head Elevation using an extra pillow specially if you have baggy eyes or puffiness. This is to prevent fluid accumulation or stasis of blood.
3.  One Extra Hour of Sleep, will help in the long run.

Now, Let’s quickly look into few Short term or Temporary methods to deal with dark circles.

SIMPLE MAKE UP: This according to me should be the first option before you proceed with the actual treatments and remedies for dark circles. You can use makeup foundation or concealer to conceal that darker pigment or color. This makes you feel better and relieves your anxiety and stress to some extent.

WEAR SUNGLASSES: These not only protect your peri-orbital skin from pigmentation from sunlight, but also cover or hide those dark circles. 

Now, Let’s look at the Medical treatment of Dark Circles.

CREAMS: Apply creams containing some important ingredients like Retinols, hydroquinone, green tea, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, peptides, Caffeine, ceramides and hyaluronic acid. These ingredients boost skin elasticity by promoting elastin and collagen production. Use creams containing one or more of these ingredients. Remember these eye creams are formulated specifically for the delicate skin around the eye. You can start with retinol and hyaluronic acid low dose cream for dark circles, because high dose retinol is not recommended to use around eyes. Use Caffeine formulation if you additionally have puffiness.

1.  INVASIVE & NON INVASIVE MEDICAL TREATMENTS:  Will not go into details of these treatments. Will just mention the names of these treatments and then jump to Natural home remedies for dark circles. The non-invasive ones include:
2. Radio Frequency treatment – this non-invasive method is actually helpful.  You can consult with your dermatologist about this simple OPD procedure.
3. Other methods include Q-switched Laser and Pulsed Dye lasers.

INVASIVE TREATMENTS like Chemical Peels and Medical Tattoos have their own side effects.

Natural remedies for dark circles:

1. COLD COMPRESS: Take few small ice cubes in a clean piece of cloth or a hanky and apply to your eyes or under eyes. You can also just dip a clean cloth in cold water and apply for about 10 to 15 minutes two or three times in a day. This works by constricting the blood vessels and reduces swelling and dark circles, if followed for few days.
2. COLD TEA BAGS: Applying cold tea bags to your eyes can actually help. Tea contains caffeine and antioxidants that fight inflammation. Caffiene constricts the blood vessels and reduce fluid retention or stasis beneath the skin.
   Soak two normal tea bags or even green tea bags in hot water for five minutes. Then allow them to chill in the refrigerator for about 15 to 20 minutes. Once they’re cold, apply the teabags to your closed eyes for 10 to 20 minutes once daily. After removing, rinse your eyes with cold water.
3. COLD ALOE VERA GEL: Take a fresh leaf from aloe vera plant and extract the gel. Chill it in refrigerator for about 10 minutes and Then apply the gel on the under eye skin and leave it there for 15 minutes and then rinse if you wish.
4. Other Stuff like Cucumbers, Potatoes, Mint leaves, Coconut oil and even milk are used by many, but the efficacy of these is controversial.

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 What are Under Eye Dark Circles?

They are known by various names like, under eye circles, infra-orbital  or peri-orbital dark circles, lower eyelid bags, peri-orbital pigmentation and so on. These are equally common in both men and women. These dark circles can make you look older than your actual age. And to make matters worse, they can be actually difficult to get rid of. But, if you carefully pick up the reason that’s causing this problem, then it’s very easy to treat these dark circles. Please watch this episode till the end. We will first learn the causes or the factors responsible for this and then we will learn the mechanism, and what actually gives rise to this dark color on your under-eye skin and finally the best treatments to get rid of dark circles.

The Real Reasons for Dark Circles under eyes:

1. Sleep Deprivation and extreme fatigue, or just forcefully staying awake a few hours past your normal bedtime, can lead to dark circle formation over a period of time.
2. Chronic Stress: Any form of stress whether emotional or physical stress, from trauma or chronic illness can lead to this problem. We will discuss on the stress hormone or cortisol hypothesis on this shortly.
3. Natural Aging: This is a natural cause of dark circles because as you get older, your skin becomes thinner and there is loss of collagen and elastin fibres in the skin.
4. Eye Strain from watching too much television or computer screen, can cause blood vessels around your eyes to dilate and produce these dark circles and also eye lid bags and puffiness.
5. Allergies: especially eye allergies. This acts in two ways. Firstly they release histamines which dilate blood vessels, and then, due to itchiness, you tend to rub or scratch your eyes and in this process you trigger inflammation which can lead to these dark circles.
6. Over exposure to Sunlight: This results in production of excess melanin pigment which can darken the skin around your eyes.
7. Nutritional deficiency of vitamins like A, C, K and Vitamin E, can accelerate aging and result in dark circles around eyes. And also Anaemia especially, iron deficiency anaemia can also result in dark circles.
8. Smoking and Alcohol, late night parties and dehydration are also important factors.
9. Hormonal Changes like in Pregnancy, or even menstrual imbalances can result in dark circles.
10. Genetic Predisposition and Family history is another important factor. Remember, if your child is having some degree of dark circles under eyes, this in later part of life can become more prominent.

How are Dark Circles under eyes formed?  The Mechanism of formation.

Let’s look at the First explanation or hypothesis on this:

1. We have very tiny and thin blood vessels, rather a network of blood vessels called capillaries under this loose and thin skin around eyes. These capillaries are so fine that the red blood cells are waiting in queue to pass through them. An in this process, due to stasis of blood, there is extravasation or leakage into the surrounding skin tissues. This stasis causes breakdown of haemoglobin into pigments like hemosiderin and biliverdin which contribute to visible pigmentation or the dark circles under your eyes.
2. There is another theory explaining this.
   There are a number of reasons that cause dark eye circles as discussed already. Most important ones are Stress and Lack of Sleep. So, when you are in stress whether emotional stress or from any reason, like lack of sleep, our body produces the stress hormone called cortisol. The action of cortisol is, it causes constriction of some vessels as well dilatation of some vessels, like those in the loose tissues of our body, like the tissues underneath the peri-occular skin. The lower eyelid skin is one of the thinnest parts in the body and due to this blood vessel dilatation, there is stasis of blood in this region and then there is breakdown of haemoglobin into pigments like hemosiderin and biliverdin which contributes to visible pigmentation or the dark circles under your eyes. The same stasis also explains the baggy eyelids or eyelid bags. These changes are more exaggerated in an ageing skin. 

Let’s look at the medical treatments and natural or home remedies for under eye dark circles in our next post.

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