Our eyelid surgery practice regularly sees patients who wish they would have seen an eye plastic surgeon (an eyelid specialist) for their eyelid surgery. While there are risks with any surgeon performing your eyelid surgery, we regularly see these kinds of complications from those who are not eyelid specialists.
1. Plastic surgeons here in San Diego often make the incision too high which makes the scar after eyelid surgery visible (Kenny Rogers). Ideally, the incision should be placed in the eyelid crease. Working in millimeters to make careful measurements requires patience and repetition. Our practice performs these eyelid measurements multiple times a day.
2. Underneath the skin of the eyelid, there is a muscle called the orbicularis oculi. This is the muscle responsible for closing your eyelid. The eyelid skin is the thinnest in the body and sitting just below this layer is a very critical muscle. Taking the time to remove just the skin and preserve this muscle is what results in a natural-appearing rejuvenated appearance and maintains the ability to close your eye. Here are a few examples of patients that saw San Diego plastic surgeons and wish they would have seen an eyelid specialist (oculoplastic surgeon) before they decided to schedule surgery. This is because the plastic surgeon did not take the time to preserve this muscle and now they can't close their eyes.
3. While there are many plastic surgeons who perform blepharoplasty, only oculoplastic surgeons have the expertise in ptosis surgery. Ptosis is a drooping eyelid which requires more skill to correct and should be identified before having any eyelid surgery. There are specific measurements that eyelid specialists perform to evaluate for ptosis. Plastic surgeons who are not eyelid specialists often do not perform these measurements because they don't do ptosis surgery. Here are several examples of patients that had eyelid surgery by a plastic surgeon here in San Diego and were disappointed with the results because they had ptosis--and the wrong operation was performed. Our practice was asked to fix these cases after a suboptimal outcome.
4. Everyone has 3 fat pockets in the lower eyelid. These fat pockets come forward with time resulting in the appearance of lower eyelid bags. The old way of addressing these fat pads was to make an incision in the lower eyelid and take out the fat. This, we now know, causes people to look hollow and more gaunt. Oculoplastic surgeons have the most experience in a scarless approach taken from the inside. Our San Diego eyelid surgery practice favors a more advanced    technique of fat respositioning which avoids this hollow look.This is an example of a patient who had surgery by a San Diego plastic surgeon who completely missed the fat pads located near the nose. We were able to fix this suboptimal outcome and she was pleased with the result.
5. We believe the risk of complications from any procedure are reduced when a surgeon performs them more regularly. We recently had a patient call a local plastic surgeon's office and ask if they regularly do eyelid surgery. The staff member at their office responded with "Our plastic surgeon likes to do eyelid surgery." This astute patient read between the lines and realized that many plastic surgeons like dabbling in the eyelid surgery and wanted someone who did this surgery everyday.
