The other day I received an email newsletter from Total Beauty letting me know about an article they recently published about dark circles and puffy eyes. I immediately clicked and started reading through a ton of information about dark circles, which seemed helpful, but I don’t have a problem with dark circles. Finally on page 8 of the article was information about temporary puffiness with the usual advice I had known for years. I clicked on to page 9 and got the following information for constant puffiness around the eye area:

If your eyes are constantly puffy due to a significant protrusion of the fat pads under your eyes, you will only get major improvement with surgery or injections — creams and home remedies just won’t cut it. You’ll potentially need a lower lid blepharoplasty (eye surgery) — to remove or reposition the fat pad. (Warning: if you do opt for this procedure, make sure your doctor doesn’t do too much or “you can trade a puffy lower lid for a hollow lid,” Waldorf says.) Or, some people may be able to get away with adding a filler like Restylane, Juvederm or Radiesse to the cheek area below and along the bony area under your eyes. “By elevating that area, you add structure and blunt the difference with the lower lid,” Waldorf says. Your dermatologist and/or surgeon will be able to tell you which option is best for you.

And so it goes. There’s nothing you can do at home or buy at a drugstore to cure constant eye puffiness short of injections or surgery. There is nothing I can do for my hereditary EYE FAT short of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to watch needles or scalpels coming straight for me. My father has puffy eyes, his mother has puffy eyes, and her mother had them as well. Sometimes you get dealt a weird list of genetic traits, and even though you get straight teeth that never need braces, you will also wind up with EYE FAT.

Even if I had the money to do it, I would pass, mostly out of concern that if something went wrong, I would be paying out of pocket for years for the mistakes. I don’t want the risk of a mistake on my face, and thoughts of Tara Reid’s butt often come to mind as a reminder of the horrors of plastic surgery gone wrong. I’d rather appear to be on a constant crying jag than wind up having the appearance of a melted face.

I have no bony area under my eye, so the Restylane, Juvederm or Radiesse fillers would be of no help, not to mention I have very high cheekbones, so it would be noticeable in that “cat lady” type of way. No thanks, I say in a very resigned way. Other people will just have to accept my EYE FAT and move on. It’s here forever.