This is a great case example of what an upper eyelid lift can do to help rejuvenate your overall facial appearance. This middle-aged female from San Diego desired to look more rested and youthful. In particular, she was bothered by the fact that her upper eyelids had excess skin and appeared heavy on initial glance.
When you look at her left eye (right side in the photo), you can appreciate how there is actually a bit more bunching of skin on this side with more skin folds. We call this ‘asymmetry’ in the world of plastic surgery, which simply means there is a difference between the two sides. Now everyone has some degree of asymmetry – and will continue to have asymmetry even after undergoing the best plastic surgery out there. However, this amount of asymmetry is more than expected when it comes to the upper eyelid region. And one additional sign of this is the fact that her left brow is being pulled up higher – just look at the amount of arching seen in the brow on her left side. This is a direct reflection of the fact that she has more upper eyelid skin redundancy on this side and she is subconsciously compensating for this by trying to ‘pull up the skin’ using her eyebrow.
Dr. Hilinski recommended she undergo a classic upper eyelid blepharoplasty procedure – or an upper eyelid tuck – to help remove the excess, redundant skin folds. When performing upper eyelid lifts it is very important that your plastic surgeon leave behind enough skin so that the upper eyelid can actually fully close. So arguably more important than how much skin is removed in an upper eyelid lift is how much skin is being left behind! In addition, a sufficient amount of upper eyelid fat and soft tissue should be preserved so that the eyelid does not appear hollow afterwards. Both of these are part and parcel of maintaining a natural upper eyelid following blepharoplasty surgery.
In this case, Dr. Hilinski ended up making a standard upper eyelid lift incision in her natural skin fold – and extending this out to the side into one of her crow’s feet. In doing so, he was able to carefully hide the incision and scar.
And here are the beautiful results of her upper eyelid lift several months later. As you can readily appreciate, her upper eyelids now look much more defined without the excess, redundant skin folds. In addition, you can see how her left eyebrow is not as sharply arched any longer since the extra eyelid skin has been removed – and there is no longer the need to compensate for this by elevating the eyebrow. Her upper eyelids are now nicely rejuvenated with a well-defined eyelid crease now clearly visible – and above all else, she still looks natural. In fact, she now just looks like a more rested version of her old self.
