Get Younger Looking Eyes

(CBS)  Men and women can't stop the aging process but they can slow it down a bit. Even as they get older, they can still look better. In this case, the eyes have it.

After years of thinking about it, Mary Ellen Tortorello decided it was time to put the sparkle back into her aging peepers.

When she turned 40, her face began to change. It was a turning point for her in more ways than one.

"I did Botox because that helped erase some of those bad wrinkle lines," she says. "And a few of them, to me, have totally gone now."

Now 45, she says her eyes, once bright and perky in her 20s, don't reflect the woman she is today.

"As I was getting closer to my 40s, those bright eyes were starting to get an overhang," she says, "I'm happy a lot of the time but the eyes just weren't showing it."

The solution? An upper eyelift. Connecticut plastic surgeon Joseph O'Connell says between 90 to 100 percent of his facial rejuvenation patients have eyelid surgery.

"This is a procedure that many men do have," he says. "When I do face-lifts, just about everybody has their eyes done because the eyes are the first part of our face that ages."

The surgery is considered minimally invasive. Tortorello was given a local anesthesia. She remained awake and chatted through most of the surgery.

Explaining the procedure, O'Connell says, "What we do is make a small incision that's designed to give you a natural upper eyelid increase and remove that hanging skin which is called a hood which blocks her vision and makes us look older and more tired."

The skin that is removed is often fat giving a puffy look to the eye. For lower eyelid surgery, O'Connell says the fat to be removed is much greater. One way to get the fat out, he says, is to make a very small incision along the lash line. Very carefully remove the fat. It's far too dangerous to suck it like liposuction."

When the procedure was over, a slightly swollen Tortorello was on her way to recovery.

"I would recommend this to anyone," she says. "Don't be afraid. It's a piece of cake."

Two weeks into her recovery, Tortorello says the worst for her was when she was under the knife.

"Technically, I was back to doing normal things in 36 hours," she says. "Exercise a week later. Normal, daily routine."

O'Connell says Tortorello is about 90 percent of the way to complete healing. "She still has a little swell that will go away. Her eyes are looking up."

The procedure costs "$3,000 for the upper eyelid or lower, $6,000 with them together," O'Connell says. "Sometimes the insurance will cover the upper eyelid procedure if there is a function involved with blocking the eye vision."

Next for Tortorello? "A little photo facial, get rid of the age spots," she says.

O'Connell says "in terms of the upper eyelids, there's really no maintenance required."