Eyelid Surgery or Blepharoplasty Overview

The eyes may be the windows into the soul, but for some people their eyelids act like drawn curtains. Age and gravity can interact and cause your eyelids to droop. Your upper eyelids may start looking like crepe paper and your lower lids have permanent half-circles of puffiness. The pads of fat that are above and below the eye may have started to slip out of place, causing bulges below or above the eye. These changes add up to a look that is aged and tired. Cosmetic eyelid surgery can help rejuvenate your face and make you look more refreshed and alert.

Eyelid surgery is called  blepharoplasty, although surgery to the lower lids alone is sometimes called canthopexy or canthoplasty. Although blepharoplasty can be performed just to improve appearance, a drooping upper eyelid can interfere with vision and a gaping or turned in lower lid can cause eye irritation and infection, making eyelid surgery a reconstructive process.

There are dozens of different surgical procedures that can be used to enhance the appearance of the eyes and which one is used depends on what your needs are. However, they all can remove and redrape excess skin, remove some herniated fat, and rejuvenate your face. Blepharoplasty will not remove crow's feet at the corners of the eyes nor will it raise or change the shape of your eyebrows. Eyelid surgery can be combined with a face lift or a brow lift, however.

Eyelid surgery usually takes between 1 and 3 hours to perform. If surgery is being done on both your top and bottom lids, the surgery may take a bit longer. It can be done in a surgical suite in the surgeon's office, in a surgery center, or in a hospital. Most eye lid surgery is done with local anesthesia and oral sedative drugs that keep you calm and relaxed. In most cases, you go home a few hours after your surgery is finished.

Usually, a surgeon performs cosmetic upper eyelid surgery by making an incision in the crease of the upper eyelid, where any scarring will be hidden in the fold. He or she will loosen the skin from the underlying structure of the lid and adjust the muscles of the lid. In a lower lid surgery, the incision can be made just under the edge of the lower lid below the lower eyelashes, but more commonly the incision is made inside the lid through the membrane of the inner lid called the conjunctiva. Your eye will be protected during the surgery with a special shield that looks like a thick contact lens.

In the past, plastic surgeons used to remove a lot of the fat around the eye during blepharoplasty. However, this often caused the person to look gaunt or hollow-eyed in later years when fat is naturally lost around the eyes. Now, surgeons rarely remove more than a little fat.

After the surgery is complete, the incisions are closed. The surgeon will put drops of an ointment in your eye and bandage you.

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