I originally tended to raise my eyebrows, so I had lots of forehead wrinkles, and although my skin type runs in the family and doesn’t have much elasticity, the folds around my eyes were more severe than I expected. It wasn’t just the extra folds, it made me look too old, sob sob. I’m not sure whether I didn’t notice it because the skin was buried under the flesh, or whether the extra folds increased as I lost weight. (T.M.I. - I gained way too much weight during COVID I lost 16 kg from 2022/5 to 2023/1)
At first, I planned on double eyelid surgery, so when I visited a nearby plastic surgery clinic, most of them recommended ptosis correction surgery and upper blepharoplasty. I also went to a famous hospital that was well known on YouTube, and that hospital also recommended ptosis correction. They said that while correcting the ptosis, because my eyes are protruding eyes, the double eyelid line should be made thin so it won’t look too artificial. Brutal honesty Only one plastic surgery clinic said that my eyelid-opening strength was good, so ptosis correction was unnecessary and upper blepharoplasty would probably be enough, but that hospital was a famous one with more than 20 years of history, and they said the doctor who performs the surgery and the doctor who stitches it afterward are different, so I passed on it for now.
Ptosis correction is a surgery that adjusts the muscles, but when I looked it up, there seemed to be quite a few side effects. And somehow it felt like they were trying to bundle ptosis correction in as an add-on? I started to suspect it was just a plastic surgery sales tactic. Me, an INTJ. More than suspicion, I needed confirmation.
Let’s know the exact condition and then operate. It’s eye surgery, and if something goes wrong, that’s the end, haha. I visited an ophthalmology clinic. For 20 years I had vaguely believed and lived as if I had true ptosis - after all the eye exams, I met the ophthalmologist, and after examining me, they said my eyelid-opening strength was good. Good, huh First shock! Then why had I been raising my eyebrows to open my eyes with my forehead all this time? According to the doctor, the skin had loosened and was covering the eyeball, which was dermatochalasis and pseudoptosis, and if only the skin were trimmed, the condition would improve. They said there was no need to touch the muscles.
Why did so many plastic surgery clinics recommend ptosis correction then? Both experienced doctors and less experienced doctors recommended it. I don’t know. Maybe it would make things look a bit sharper if done a little, and aesthetically prettier too. But I didn’t want to touch areas that didn’t need it, and I didn’t want to get greedy and overdo things. At the same time, it was also a realistic awareness that I wasn’t going to become dramatically prettier, haha.
Still, it could have just been that ophthalmologist’s opinion, so I went to another ophthalmology clinic. There too, they said that although muscles can loosen a bit with age compared with youth, it was not true ptosis. What’s more, they seem to operate on a lot of older patients, and they even told me to go to a plastic surgery clinic because this wasn’t something they would operate on there
I had pseudoptosis. An eye that did not need precise ptosis correction, A complete reality check.
Then should I have surgery at a plastic surgery clinic? Or should I have surgery at an ophthalmic plastic surgery clinic? I searched extensively, but the consensus seemed to be that if you want it to look pretty, go with plastic surgery; if you want no functional problems, go with ophthalmic plastic surgery.
My eyes are protruding eyes with a sunken upper eyelid, long horizontally, and with thin skin and poor elasticity. When I searched, I learned that eyes like this don’t necessarily need canthoplasty, and that double eyelid surgery difficulty is not especially high.
However, because the upper eyelid is sunken, if you do it at a plastic surgery clinic, there is the advantage that they can create the double eyelid while repositioning the fat that has receded backward, such as with upper eyelid fat relocation or upper eyelid fat transposition. But after looking into it more, I saw that upper blepharoplasty alone can sometimes improve the sunken upper eyelid to some extent, and (after surgery the right eye improved, but the left eye was originally more sunken so it didn’t improve) furthermore, plastic surgery clinics usually charge well over 2 million won for upper blepharoplasty, so if there wasn’t much fat above the eyelid, I thought fat grafting might be more cost-effective, and decided to just do the basic procedure.
Then I read reviews of the ophthalmologist who saw me first (they had done epicanthoplasty and buried-suture double eyelid surgery), and seeing posts saying it turned out better than expected, with high satisfaction, I decided to have the surgery at an ophthalmology clinic. At least I thought my eye function would remain fine! And the ophthalmologist said that if I proceeded with upper blepharoplasty, they would also remove the large mole under my eye that had been bothering me for a long time, since it was on the conjunctiva.
What’s more, because the eyelid drooping was severe, national health insurance applied, and I had a first-generation actual-loss insurance plan, as well as a surgery rider on my life insurance that I had paid 20 million won into up to now. I had never once received a surgery payment from the life insurance. Because the diagnosis was bilateral dermatochalasis, I wasn’t sure whether the life-insurance surgery rider would pay out or not, but I had the surgery and filed a claim, and it paid out. 400,000 won for one type, 800,000 won for both eyes. The actual-loss insurance also seems to have paid out more than 85%. A great deal. It seems the surgery rider pays out when terms like muscle, tendon, or ligament resection appear. ( My surgery certificate listed the procedure as levator muscle resection for ptosis)
The ophthalmologist said my eyes could be made into any line, and I briefly debated semi-out, but I asked for a natural in-out line. I thought in-out would better protect the shape even if sagging came later? And another plastic surgery clinic also recommended in-out as the best match, and one famous hospital said an in-line would probably not come out well for my eyes, so I decided on in-out and asked for the thickness to be fairly natural. I just trusted them and went ahead. Thanks to the plastic surgeons. I gathered multiple opinions. haha
It’s been 3 months since surgery, and the swelling is still severe, so I can’t really tell whether the surgery was done perfectly. The swelling in my left eye is twice that of my right eye. The upper area of the left eye is a bit more sunken, and maybe it’s because my body tends to swell easily, plus when they removed the mole under my left eye during surgery, it hurt so much that I strained myself.
The procedure was done under local anesthesia, and the anesthetic injection for the upper blepharoplasty didn’t hurt much either. Just a slight sting. But the anesthetic injection when removing the mole under the eye hurt a lot. It felt like I was caught off guard and taken down, haha. The left eye was bruised much more heavily too, but now the bruising is gone and only swelling remains. Usually they watch progress for up to 6 months, so I just have to wait, and I’ll have to see a bit longer to know whether it was the right choice. ^^ I was so worried that I searched a lot, but it doesn’t seem to have any issue with the line. A few days ago I checked the blog of someone who had buried-suture epicanthoplasty, and theirs turned out really, really pretty. Jealous.
For now, strangely enough, I can open my eyes without using my forehead, so I’m satisfied functionally. I guess my eyebrows had been lifting because the skin was covering the eyes, creating all those forehead wrinkles. I regret not doing it earlier, but what can I do about the forehead wrinkles I already have
Anyway, these days I’m looking into lower blepharoplasty, joining various communities and watching a lot of YouTube, but there seem to be more ptosis-correction side effects than I expected, so I ended up writing this post. Double eyelid surgery has become common these days, and plastic surgery clinics also tend to recommend ptosis correction a lot, so the number of cases has increased and so have the side-effect cases, I think. Double eyelid surgery is something that can be done from middle school age, so seeing younger people struggle, if anyone happens to read this, I’d like to advise them to get it checked by an ophthalmologist at least once.
If you receive consultations from both an ophthalmic plastic surgery clinic and a plastic surgery clinic, you’ll probably arrive at some kind of compromise, and I think satisfaction with the surgery would go up too. I just want my eyes to be bigger. I want to become prettier, and by looking into the functional aspects and the possibility of needing revision surgery in advance, I can judge the situation,
and then decide whether to have the surgery at an ophthalmic plastic surgery clinic or a plastic surgery clinic. Ophthalmic plastic surgery is a more specialized field within ophthalmology, so it would be good to find an ophthalmology clinic that has an ophthalmic plastic surgery department and consult there.
I hope this post helps anyone planning double eyelid surgery, including ptosis correction, and that concludes my self-paid-or-rather-insurance-company-paid double eyelid surgery review. haha