Upper eyelid surgery to remove the excess eyelid skin is a great surgery. I hear many people resistant to doing eyelid surgery though because they are convinced it will “make them look different,” “change the shape of their eyes,” or “make them look surprised.”
Does upper eyelid make your eyes look different? No.
Eyelid surgery is one of my favorite surgeries to do because it does NOT change the way that you look. People will think your eyes look less tired. “Your eyes look so blue today.” “Did you get a haircut?”
When you get to be in your 40’s and beyond, your eyelid stretches out. Imagine it is a window shade which has become too long for the window. When this happens, you compensate by raising your forehead muscle to lift it all out of the way. (Yup. That is why your forehead wrinkles get deeper and deeper, and you may get to a place where you cannot botox your forehead wrinkles because it makes your brows feel too heavy.) Eventually insurance may cover some of the surgical costs (and we know how they hate to cover anything) because when the eyelid skin hangs into the eye it causes visual field impairment. You essentially become a horse with blinders. “My eyes are tired.” “I can’t drive at night.” “I can’t drive after a glass of wine.” “That car/skier/cabinet came out of nowhere.”
Eyelid aging is a combination of the forehead and the eyelid. Eyelid surgery is where you remove excess skin (and usually a little fat) to make the window shade the right length for the window again. When done following your natural contours, the eye just looks more open and awake again. Brow surgery is a different beast, and when people discuss someone had their eyes done and now they look “off” or “different” or “surprised”, it is almost always an issue of a browlift.
I don’t know why people put it off. Upper eyelid surgery is a functional issue as we age. It doesn’t change the way you look. It takes pressure off the eye and forehead by getting rid of the extra skin. The recovery for just the upper lid is quick and easy, and you can be back to working (especially with the zoom at home workplace of 2021) quickly.
Just do it.
BLEPHAROPLASTY UPPER EYELID SURGERY: SNAPSHOT
- Surgery name: Blepahroplasty
- Time to do surgery: About an hour. Can be done under local anesthesia or general
- Recovery: Sutures out at a week, bruising about a week (may have faint bruising longer). For the first few days you are resting your eyes (hard to read/computer work). You have opthalmic ointment, you sleep with your head elevated, and you may have cool compresses.
- Driving: When you can see and are off your meds
- Contacts and makeup: Around 3 weeks out
- Exercise: Depends on your swelling and bruising, but likely 3-4 weeks for full activity. Anything that makes you really sweaty or strain can cause increased swelling and bruising until you are fully healed.
- Frequently combined with: Any other facial procedure like lower eyelid surgery and fat grafting to the face, and any other surgical procedure in the OR (breast, body), as it doesn’t add much time to the surgery case, doesn’t add much risk/blood loss, and is usually needed in most people over the age of 40 (just think on the money you’ll save by not doing Botox to the forehead, as you are treating the root problem.)