For people with dark under eye circles, there's a new trend in plastic surgery to fix them – and it's full of gas.
Doctors are injecting the soft tissue underneath the eye with carbon dioxide, which is said to increase the blood flow in the capillaries, and change the bluish circles back to a healthy skin tone color, a treatment called Carboxy.
The procedure, like Botox, requires just a quick needle to the under eye area. But as the carbon dioxide is injected into the skin, the area will start to puff up and swell, though Dr. Lisa Zdinak, the chief surgeon and medical director of Precision Aesthetics in New York City, and one of the first to introduce Carboxy to the U.S., says it will go back down in five to ten minutes.
"By injecting a small amount of carbon dioxide gas into the area, we are 'tricking' the body into increasing the oxygen flow to the area by compelling the red blood cells to pick up all of the excess CO2 that we injected so that it can be carried back to the lungs for elimination from the body with the next exhalation," Dr. Zdinak says.
However, it isn't a treatment that's shown to be long-lasting, which is one reason why Dr. Terry Dubrow, one half of the Botched doctors, doesn't recommend Carboxy.
"There is no scientific evidence that the instillation of carbon dioxide gas into subcutaneous tissues has any real, significant or long lasting effects on local tissue," Dr. Dubrow tells PEOPLE.
"There is certainly no known cosmetic benefits to placing CO2 gas under the eye area and I would caution against any experimentation in an area where sensitive structures that provide vital functions like eyesight are concerned. That's a big no from the Botched doctors."
