When you talk to someone, you generally look them in the eyes, don’t you? The seat of our emotions, the mirror of our soul… and age! Unfortunately, the area around the eyes is often the first to suffer the effects of passing time. The skin thins, sags, the subcutaneous fat decreases… Result? The upper eyelids appear to droop, the area seems more emaciated, and bags may appear. Furthermore, these phenomena can worsen after considerable weight loss or just due to your morphology and your bone structure.
The eyes change: tired, sad, aging. Eye contour surgery seems to be the ideal solution. However, a successful blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery) involves not only removing excess skin but also restoring overall harmony to the entire area around the eyes.
A comprehensive assessment of the eye area
When you hear the term blepharoplasty, it usually refers to upper eyelid surgery. This involves removing the excess skin and sometimes a little muscle and/or fat. But in reality, if we want to improve and successfully but subtly rejuvenate the eye area, the whole area needs to be treated. To achieve the right correction, it is necessary to examine the whole eye area: the upper and lower eyelids, the temples, volume, hollows… Sometimes the eyes look sad; the eyelid is more sunken but the skin is not necessarily overstretched resulting in an inverted V appearance.
Combine techniques for a natural result
The art of eye surgery, and more broadly plastic and reconstructive surgery, is therefore to treat an entire area, and to achieve corrections using a combination of techniques and procedures.
Consequently, the solution is not to remove the skin but to fill the hollows, or combine the two for a natural result that ages well.
In some cases, this hollowed appearance is also due to a previous somewhat aggressive blepharoplasty. Surgeons used to remove the skin by excision, as well as a little muscle and fat. However, with aging the dark circles and orbits become even more sunken. Dark circles can be hollow and the eyes as well, as if they are sunken in the socket giving the impression that the eyelid is sagging. Now, it involves rather redistributing the fat – when we treat under eye bags in particular – or adding it where it is lacking using a technique known as lipofilling. This is known as « augmentation blepharoplasty » and it will restore ultra-natural volume thanks to the addition of the patient’s own fat.
As a bonus, rejuvenating the eye area sometimes requires a minor eyebrow lift, as this area is also subject to aging with ptosis that is more or less visible at first but that pulls the tail of the eyebrows down. According to the natural shape of your eye and your bone structure, this drooping can accentuate even further the impression of a round or drooping eye.
In the eye area, it is also be important to ensure the correction of a hollowed forehead or temples, as these areas also lose fat with age and will make the eye area look harsher and older.
Rejuvenating and beautifying the eyes without ever changing them therefore means ensuring a comprehensive treatment, from the forehead to the tear trough and maintaining the continuity with the eyebrow, upper eyelid and lower eyelid.
In this respect, a modern blepharoplasty requires skills in occuloplasty, as well as reconstructive and enhancing ophthalmological surgery of the orbital and periorbital area.
Rapid recovery
Augmentation blepharoplasty is a relatively quick procedure and recovery is straightforward. It can be easily combined with other eye enhancing techniques.
In the case of a traditional blepharoplasty – upper eyelid lift – bruising and edema are minimal and naturally fade after a few days. During the first 24 hours, it is recommended to use a decongestive mask to reduce the swelling, as well as to apply eye drops or topical lubricants to avoid the sensation of dry eye.
If the surgeon also treats the lower eyelid, recovery can be longer; it depends on the complexity of the procedure carried out.
In any case, the incisions are minimal and as discreet as possible: either along the lash line or hidden under the natural folds of the eyelid. The surgeon can also make an incision on the inner surface of the lower eyelid if the skin is elastic enough. To perform an eyebrow lift, the incision is hidden under the hair on the temple and therefore totally invisible.
The first results can be seen 8 days later and the result is considered as final after between 3 and 6 months.
How long does the result of a blepharoplasty last?
It is a permanent technique but the result will inevitably change over time. Unfortunately, there is still no operation to stop passing time! Nevertheless, a successful blepharoplasty – whether it is combined or not with other procedures – helps you gain a few years and it is noticeable. The eyes are illuminated, wider, more appealing.
Aesthetic medicine techniques are the perfect addition to eye contour surgery, and especially help to smooth minor periorbital wrinkles (crow’s feet or under the eyes), and wrinkles between the eyebrows and on the forehead with subtle botulinum toxin injections.
When should I consider surgery of the eye area?
- Thick, drooping upper eyelids
- Looking tired all the time
- Dark shadows under the eyes, a hollow
- Eyes that look as if they are sunken in their orbits
- Fine, loose skin with wrinkles on the upper and/or lower eyelids (bags)
- Swollen bags (bags of fat) that do not disappear after a good night’s sleep