Aging is supposed to be a reward, not a punishment.  However, we live in a culture of youth, with media stars and fashion models all being (at least temporarily) young.  So images of health, happiness, sex appeal, charisma and energy are all demonstrated by young people, as if they owned all of these positive qualities.  By default, we think of our elders (if we think of them much at all) as having none of these attributes.  This is the basis of many misconceptions about our aging population, and, even more importantly, about the stereotype that we all carry about our own future.  The reason plastic surgery is so common today is that people are horrified to see themselves getting old.  Yet much of the prejudice about how our own body will age is wrong.  Let's take a look at some of the myths of aging (and take a bit of the pressure off ourselves in the process!):

1.  As we age, we can expect arthritis.  Wrong.  Arthritis is something that can happen at any age, including childhood.  When we see Grampa in shorts in the summer, we notice huge knees in the middle of noodle-thin legs.  Gramps is sure slow to get up from a sitting position.  But this does not mean the problem is arthritis inside the knee joint itself.  When muscles are not exercised, they atrophy.  Thigh muscles that once bulged are now concave.  Even with no change in the joints, the knees will start to look "nobbly" like those of a giraffe.  If Gramps is slow to get up from a sitting position, it is more likely from the lack of muscular strength rather than from arthritis.   

Action item: Exercise, but first consult your doctor and a fitness professional.  Pick activities that suit your interest, or you will quickly lose your enthusiasm.  Also pick something that suits your abilities, and won't cause any harm.  Consider yoga, pilates, aerobics on land or in the pool, or any one of the thousands of sports available from tennis to skiing.  

2.  As we age, our spines will become hunched over, like we are looking for quarters.  Wrong.  Ballerinas and professional models, even in late age, maintain great posture.  This is not by accident, but by discipline; they do daily routines of stetching and toning to keep standing tall. 

Body builder Jack Lalanne, at http://www.jacklalanne.com/jack.html shows amazing posture and energy at age 94 by keeping his muscles toned.  My partner, chiropractor Dr. Brian Stutz, just returned from a convention where he met hundreds of his colleagues, some still working in their 90's.  Even in their tenth decade, all had youthful posture.  Obviously there is something to all the alignment work they do on each other!   

Action items:  Modern work ergonomics are static, drawing our shoulders and necks into forward flexion.  We can see this when we are driving, working in front of our computers, or hunched over a desk reading.  To rebalance the body, start excercising the  muscles that extend in the opposite direction.  For instance, using pulleys or rubber bands to do "rowing" exercises will pull the shoulder blades together, and help oppose the stronger muscles on the front of the chest. Doing daily stretching will lengthen muscles that spend all day contracted: the hamstrings, as well as the pectoral muscles of the front of the ribcage.  Visit a chiropractor for an initial assessment, and consider occasional maintenance visits to treat your alignment.  By doing this you should be able to keep your spine from curving forward, and keep your body fit for vigorous activities for extra years.

3.  Wrinkled skin:  To be sure, none of us will be as smooth-skinned at 80 as we were at 20.  But much of what we assume to be "normal aging" of the face is nothing more than muscle atrophy.  Just like in the legs, this leaves concavities where the muscles once bulged.  Hence the sunken cheeks, drooping eyelids, and downturned mouth.  But your skin does not need to look as wrinkled as this photo: alright, this is an elephant, but you still don't want these wrinkles!

Action item: consider toning your facial muscles the way the professional spas do it.  Use the power of micro-electric current to stimulate your face, and to pump up all 22 muscles on each side.  The skin over top will still age, but muscle toning will take years off your face.  Visit http://www.facemaster.com/ to see Suzanne Somers show how it's done.  In today's economy, it is cheaper to buy your own machine than it is to have even one single treatment at a spa. 

So look aging directly in the face, and don't fear the future.  Not all the answers come from the plastic surgeon's menu.  Take control of your own muscles, and you will have more spring in your step, more height in your spine, and more joy in your face. 

Dr. Hanson welcomes your comments.  Visit Dr. Stutz at his site at http://www.peterhansonmd.com/. 

Not All Plastic Surgery Guarantees A Youthful Look!

In the movie business, cameras are everywhere.  Close up images of stars' faces are broadcast on the big screen, the television, and the internet.  Needless to say, those who are in the public eye are always mindful of the changes that age imposes.  In Hollywood, where plastic surgeons abound, there are unlimited options for facial rejuvenation.  The list of menu items is mind boggling, or one might say face boggling:  injections of fillers, implantations of plastic cheek "bones", threads looped under the chin and under the skin, liposuction, and, ultimately, amputation of unwanted skin through traditional face "lifts".

Peer pressure is a huge factor here.  For example, many teenagers are now getting breast lifts, nose jobs, cheek implants, and are competing with their mothers' age groups for cosmetic procedures.  In some cases these procedures can be justified as one-time fixes.  But often there is a temptation to become "addicted" to constant tinkering, and the results are not always satisfactory. 

Toned muscles always look more natural than injected ones.  That's why people go to the gym to lift weights, not just shoot injections into their biceps!  And nothing provides a better substrate for the skin than great tone on the underlying muscles.  
 
In today's economy, people are looking for ways to save money by following the "DIY" or "do it yourself" model.  Instead of going to a spa or medical setting to have your facial muscles toned (temporarily) using a $12,000 machine, why not capture the same results with your own machine.  For less than the cost of one spa treatment, your own FaceMaster will become your favorite beauty secret, just like it is for hundreds of thousands of satisfied users.

It is clear that many people will want many services on their faces.  But none of the surgeon's list will tone their facial muscles, in fact they usually need more toning after procedures. If you have had plastic surgery the FaceMaster is an ideal way to re-tone your facial muscles, and to maintain your youthful appearance, the natural way.

To read more about Lisa Rinna's comments on her face, visit http://www.usmagazine.com/news/lisa-rinna-i-looked-like-a-freak-after-too-much-plastic-surgery. 

To learn more about the FaceMaster, visit FaceMaster.com. 

Dr. Hanson welcomes your comments, and would be pleased to take your questions.

Bell's palsy is a paralysis of the motor nerve to one side of the face. Most sufferers wish Sir Charles Bell would take it back, even though the Scottish surgeon has been dead a couple of centuries.  The nerve in question is the facial nerve, otherwise known as the 7th cranial nerve.  The cause of this paralysis is largely unknown, although it can be created by trauma to the nerve, including pressure from a tumor along its pathway, or surgical "nicking" during complicated operations.  Most often, however, it is considered "viral". 

Now a quick word of medical lingo is in order here.  When a patient wants to know what caused their disease, Doctors have hated to say "I don't know" .  So they substitute euphamisms such as "agnostic", "essential", or (my personal favorite here) "idiopathic".  If your doctor tells you your disease is caused by "essential agnostic idiopathy" then you KNOW he/she is stumped!

But an even more obvious clue your doctor has no idea what is causing something can be found with the word "viral".  A thousand years ago, medical writings would blame diseases  like this on "evil spirits".  If we substitute this for "viral" in the modern medical literature, we are right back in the dark ages!  When modern experts further want to sound knowledgeable, they may further identify said virus as "herpes simplex type 1" or whatever.  Sounds like a much more impressive bluff.   But why only one side of the face?  Wouldn't any virus find it just as easy to settle on both sides?  Why not on the back of the head, or for that matter the arm or the leg; they have nerves there too!  Don't ask too many questions, as the experts may start to confabulate here.  And yes, sometimes we just don't know it all!

 Bell's palsy affects men and women equally, from childhood to old age, and on either side of the face .  About 40,000 Americans each year will develop this condition.  Usually it appears spontaneously, with no fever or incedent to announce it. It can get better by itself, with about half the patients seeing recovery in a few weeks.  However, some cases will last months, and many will last for years.  Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Cretien acquired his Bell's palsy in his youth, and still has it in his senior years.

In any event, when half your face is paralyzed, you do look odd, as this picture shows.  

But in terms of function, this half-faced paralysis can be a real problem.  The eyelids usually don't close fully, leaving the corneal surface of the eye to dry out.  Often eyedrops and tape are required to moisten and shut the lids at night.  Also, eating soup can be a catastrophe.  Not to mention spaghetti.   A crystal wine glass becomes a dribble cup.  You need to wear a bib just to give a toast.  

So the real question here (for those cases unlucky to not clear up quickly on their own) is not "what causes it?".  Rather it is: "can anyone please fix this?"

Oral steroids are the standard here, but they are more of a "hail mary pass" to use the football vernacular.  Side effects are a concern, and the drug goes everywhere, not just to the one nerve on one side of the face.  Much better results are seen with medical acupuncture, which inserts needles strategically into points along the underlying nerve branches.

 I have treated literally hundreds of Bell's cases with electrical micro-current applied to sterile acupuncture needles, with virtually full recovery in most, including some with over ten years of non-response to other treatments.  I have also trained dozens of M.D.'s from around the US in my offices in Denver, and they have had similar success in their own practices.  E-stim with micro current is particularly dramatic, as it can be seen to work immediately.  The muscles visibly "twitch" as they are selectively stimulated, and the nerve-muscle connection begins to resume its function.  Usually within a three visits we can start to demonstrate recovery, and further visits will take the face back to full normalcy.  We normally treat twice a week for the first six visits, then cut back to weekly or even monthly depending on speed of recovery. 

Between visits, find great improvement is seen with e-stim in a home machine version.  The same microcurrent is applied as that which we use through the needles, but no needles are used.  Simply by touching the moistened wand tips to the correct anatomical sites on the face, the home unit will make the 22 muscles on each side of the face start to twitch, and begin to resume their tone.  The machine I recommend to my patients is the FaceMaster.  Full disclosure (if not full modesty) compells me to  mention that I co-founded the FaceMaster company (with former Apple Notebook lead engineer Rodger Mohme), and have been delighted to see it pass through rigorous FDA study, to gain clearance as an effective cosmetic device for toning the facial muscles.  Suzanne Somers loves hers so much she tells everyone it is her "best beauty secret", and the first thing she wanted replaced when her home burned down. 

So, even if you don't have Bell's Palsy (and especially if you do!), use electrostimulation to tone your muscles.  Volume builds up beneath the skin.  Eyelids firm up their droopiness, cheek muscles lessen their sagging, wrinkles diminish, and the angles of the mouth turn from frown to smile.  Once my patients have seen how effective it is they do not want to stop using it on both sides of their faces. 

We welcome your comments and questions. 

For more information on Dr. Hanson's medical acupuncture practice, visit www.peterhansonmd.com For an MD in your area, visit http://www.medicalacupuncture.org/. 

For more information on the FaceMaster, and to read other blogs by Dr. Hanson, visit FaceMaster.com. 

Nothing typifies aging as much as muscle atrophy. We see it in the whole body, unless active measures like sports and weight training are introduced. In the face, there are no gym stations to help, but we still need to tone the 22 muscles under the skin. The FaceMaster is ideally suited to the task.

There is more to medicine than medicines.  Not every symptom is caused by the lack of brand-name drugs, and not every facial wrinkle is caused by the lack of surgery or injections.  Famed NY dermatologist Dr. Nick Perricone has written his practical theories into book form, one of the first of which is "The Perricone Prescription" (first published in 2002).  In it he takes away the medical myths of aging, and offers excellent solutions for each reader.  For example, he discusses the importance of a good diet, rich in salmon, raspberries and blueberries, as well as flaxseed powder or oil.  He also points out the dangers of eating the more common fast food diet: high in processed sugars and full of chemicals and hormones indroduced into the food chain for corporate profit (not consumer health) reasons. 

As we age, the skin certainly shows it.  And nowhere is this harder to hide than on the face.  But rather than have people all start off with surgical procedures as their only menu, Perricone wisely empowers the reader to take active control over their own skin.  Not just from the perspective of nutrition, but he also covers the application of products like DMAE from the surface as well.

But under the surface is where the real secret lies; the facial muscles.  Twenty-two on each side of the face, all conveniently located close to the skin, and all reachable with stimulation from the surface.  By tightening and toning these muscles, he notes, the face looks younger, increases its volume, and overall reduces wrinkles.  Now, traditionally there has been no way for a patient to do this on their own, and Perricone notes many thousands of patients do the opposite: they ask their doctors to paralyze these muscles with Botox. 

Perricone then looked to the world of microstimulation (with a very small electrocurrent).  He notes that there were no easy machines to try this on, but he was able to conduct an early experiment using a glove to hold the positive/negative points on the skin, and the results were astounding.  He noted that the lips became plumper, the sagging under the surface became more toned, and the patients were delighted with the resulting youthful appearance.  Unlike surgery or shots, the muscles were restored to their youthful form, and not slackened, cut, or altered.  

As a fellow practitioner, I can readily concur with Dr. Perricones findings in this book.  Since his manuscript was written, however, there indeed is now a practical way of applying what he titles "The Miracle of the Ageless-Electrical and Chemical Stimulation of (facial) Muscles for a More Youthful Appearance".  Suzanne Somers has introduced her FaceMaster, as she mentions in her bestseller "Ageless", which does all the "miracle" work Dr. Perricone recommends. 

If you are worried about your face and the aging process, please read "The Perricone Prescription", visit his site at perriconemd.com, and read his blog at dailyperricone.com.   And if you are impressed by his rave reviews of electrostimulation to the facial muscles, consider visiting facemaster.com to learn how to tone your muscles like Suzanne does at home.  Save yourself a trip to the spa, a shot, or a surgery. 

Review written by Peter G. Hanson, M.D.

Author, "The Joy of Stress", Co-developer of the Facemaster, and Medical Acupuncturist in Denver.  www.peterhansonmd.com