Blepharoplasty

A blepharoplasty is another term for an eyelid lift. Like everything else in the body, foreheads, eyebrows, and eyelids typically sag and droop with aging. The eyes are one of the areas on the body where patients age the earliest and the most dramatically throughout their lives. Normally with an eyelid lift, we can have more of a profound effect on somebody's appearance than we can with an entire facelift. It is truly one of the best procedures that we perform in plastic surgery in terms of being minimally invasive but also maximally effective. When evaluating somebody for an eyelid lift or an eyebrow lift, we look at the whole picture. We like to see what's happening with the forehead, with the eyebrows, with the eyelids, with the cheeks, and really establish that these procedures are going to have the effects that they would like to achieve. For a blepharoplasty, these procedures are typically done as outpatient procedures, where patients can have them performed and go home the same day. Normally for the upper eyelids, we remove a fair amount of extra skin from the upper eyelid with a little bit of extra fat. For the lower eyelids, we often have removed more fat than skin. Most patients have a relatively easy and uncomplicated recovery. We ask them to take it easy for about a week after the surgery and to avoid unnecessary bending and lifting. They can also decrease the swelling and bruising by keeping their heads elevated and using ice packs after the surgery. The brow lift surgery normally takes anywhere from about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and the eyelid surgery takes roughly about an hour for upper eyelids or an hour for lower eyelids. For a brow lift, the incision is normally made behind the hairline, then the skin is lifted up, down across the forehead, and the eyebrows are repositioned to a higher and more youthful position after the surgery. There is more information for this and other procedures throughout our website. We offer free consultations. We encourage anybody with additional questions to contact our office to schedule an appointment.