Nasolabial Creases, Folds, Lines in your 30's, 40's and 50's
EDS Skin Care Forums Forum Index » Skincare Tools & Do-It-Yourself Skincare

Sat Jun 26, 2010 5:20 am

i have posted my story many times and won't bore again but I started facial exercises in my late 20's for the begining of eye wrinkles and frown lines and parnethesis around my mouth. Suddenly after a few months I was exercising like mad to get rid of Nasolabial Folds I never had before. After over a year or 2 of facial exercising I stopped and the new fold diminished slightly but not totally - I thought it must just be aging and this was what happened at 30 Sad

I found a new exercise and started to give it a go again and argghhhh.....Horrible folds again. Thought I would try the old flex effect exercise where you snarl and arggghhh, even worse. Got me thinking about how you can awaken muscles and all those exercises trained me to keep the muscle partially contracted all the time and could that be the slight fold - bump you can see. Upon looking and touching and sneering sure enough my fold is indeed a muscle that has never gone down - it almost looks like it's sagging down because it stands out from the rest of my face. I put a frownie on it last night and woke up with it almost gone. By the end of the day it's back and i can now tell I am periodically tensing the muscle thoughout the day. The exercises tuned me into a muscle that should have been left untouched.

I googled and found this article
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ViacvgI6NY0C&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=botox+for+nasolabial+muscles&source=bl&ots=HbVu0lBurj&sig=bhT2G0g29ZfJqQ-yAvHZfy19iJU&hl=en&ei=keslTJSXO4iHcaj81cYC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=botox%20for%20nasolabial%20muscles&f=false - Click on the book Botulinium Toxin in Clinical Dermatology and then read page 147.

that how in the 30's and 40's and even 50's the nasolabial is most often an overworked muscle which means exercise will make it worse. Please read and give me some advice. This isn't a facial exercise hate email - just a personal "help" so please no one take offense.
What do I do??? I can't Botox the area, I might end up looking like frankenstein. How do I turn off this muscle and retrain myself? Some Botox Alternative Serums? Ideas?

free skin care · Sun Jun 27, 2010 8:35 am

Hey Sunlit,

I'm not expert, but quite honestly, I would think over-active NL areas can only cause serious lines when other factors are in place, such as a thin face to begin with or sagging in the cheeks.

I would think that putting botox in your NLs might help in the sense that prevents you from smiling. That is, I doubt the average person's NL area--caninus muscle--ever gets overworked as in tired from overuse, but rather it's the reduction in smiling or similar movements that prevent the temporary faint lines people of all ages get from such movements, but which become more obvious and deeper due to other factors as we age.

But IMO, before you try this or anything else, I think it's important to find out why you got the NL lines. There are several contributing reasons why a person might get NLs. Here are a few of them:

* Sagging of the cheeks into the NL area
* Thinning of the face due to aging, better revealing the different fat compartments and the junctions between them
* Not enough build in the upper and mid-cheeks to lift the cheeks enough to prevent a line
* Dehydration
* Imbalance in muscle size between the caput angulare cheek muscle and the caninus muscle in which the former is larger relative to the latter
* Sleeping on one size
* Mineral, protein, or other deficiencies
* Build of lymph fluid (often due to non-optimal diet, sleep, etc.)
* The cheeks lifting before the skin catches up.

The thread here: http://www.essentialdayspa.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=36083 also covers a lot on this topic. Plus, it can also be a combination of things contributing to the problem.

Realistically, to figure what is/are the causes of your NL lines, I think you'd need an expert to view your photos and review your health habits. I know you may be a little reluctant to do any facial exercises given what happened--totally understandable--but it may (or may not) be that it was because your had a particular response to the facial exercises (maybe you have stronger or weaker muscles in different places) so maybe you just need to adjust your approach. FlexEffect does have a forum http://flexeffect.proboards.com/index.cgi? where the trainers often very generously try do this for people. I suspect some of the other facial fitness experts--Carole Maggio, Carolyn Cleeves, Louise Annette--probably would also do this, but for a fee. I'm not pushing you to go back to facial exercises if you don't want to, but they can at least help you rule out certain factors and perhaps help you identify what it was about your face's responses to the the facial exercises that worsened the issue for you.

Regards of what you do, I think it's important to get to the bottom of what is causing them, before attempting a solution, so that you use your own personal resources (time, energy, money) most effectively. Just my 2 cents on what to do Smile

Good luck! I hope you figure it out and keep us posted Smile

free skin care · Sun Jun 27, 2010 10:00 am

Sunlit with this kind of scenario I think your better off going to a trainer. FE has trainers that have always helped me out with questions like this, so I would recommend you ask one of htem (they even visit here sometimes). I know using the 3rd edition of FlexEffect, the nl's that I have had for over 30 years have almost diminished entirely (and I'm 60 this year!)

sunlit wrote:

i have posted my story many times and won't bore again but I started facial exercises in my late 20's for the begining of eye wrinkles and frown lines and parnethesis around my mouth. Suddenly after a few months I was exercising like mad to get rid of Nasolabial Folds I never had before. After over a year or 2 of facial exercising I stopped and the new fold diminished slightly but not totally - I thought it must just be aging and this was what happened at 30 Sad

I found a new exercise and started to give it a go again and argghhhh.....Horrible folds again. Thought I would try the old flex effect exercise where you snarl and arggghhh, even worse. Got me thinking about how you can awaken muscles and all those exercises trained me to keep the muscle partially contracted all the time and could that be the slight fold - bump you can see. Upon looking and touching and sneering sure enough my fold is indeed a muscle that has never gone down - it almost looks like it's sagging down because it stands out from the rest of my face. I put a frownie on it last night and woke up with it almost gone. By the end of the day it's back and i can now tell I am periodically tensing the muscle thoughout the day. The exercises tuned me into a muscle that should have been left untouched.

I googled and found this article
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ViacvgI6NY0C&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=botox+for+nasolabial+muscles&source=bl&ots=HbVu0lBurj&sig=bhT2G0g29ZfJqQ-yAvHZfy19iJU&hl=en&ei=keslTJSXO4iHcaj81cYC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=botox%20for%20nasolabial%20muscles&f=false - Click on the book Botulinium Toxin in Clinical Dermatology and then read page 147.

that how in the 30's and 40's and even 50's the nasolabial is most often an overworked muscle which means exercise will make it worse. Please read and give me some advice. This isn't a facial exercise hate email - just a personal "help" so please no one take offense.
What do I do??? I can't Botox the area, I might end up looking like frankenstein. How do I turn off this muscle and retrain myself? Some Botox Alternative Serums? Ideas?

Automatic Message

If this is your first visit to the EDS Forums please take the time to register. Registration is required for you to post on the forums. Registration will also give you the ability to track messages of interest, send private messages to other users, participate in Gift Certificates draws and enjoy automatic discounts for shopping at our online store. Registration is free and takes just a few seconds to complete.

Click Here to join our community.

If you are already a registered member on the forums, please login to gain full access to the site.