Hospital name: ㅊㅈㅅㅁ Plastic Surgery Doctor: Director Kang ㅇㅈ Consultation fee: 37,000 won
I got a lot of help while researching second eyelid revision surgery, so I thought I’d share my in-person consultation review too. I’m posting this after changing only the honorifics from what I originally wrote on another forum, and since I lost it once while editing and had to rewrite it, there may be typosㅠㅠ I’ll write in casual style, please understand. I visited a total of 30 clinics: 21 clinics focused on revision surgery and 9 clinics focused on epicanthoplasty reconstruction. Since mid-September, I went to 2 to 3 places a day whenever I could, adjusting my route well, and that’s how it added up... During consultations, I only kept records of the clinics that seemed okay, and left out the ones that felt like a no. The reason I’m posting about ㅊㅈㅅㅁ first is that there don’t seem to be any recent reviews of Dr. ㄱㅇㅈ after the time he was at Daejeon ㅅㅁ, so I thought this might help. If there are other clinics you’re curious about, leave them in the comments and I’ll slowly go through them. The consultation hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, and Saturdays are even-numbered morning sessions. If you check the doctor’s blog notices, there’s also a phone number for reservations, so take a look. The clinic facilities are... better not go in with high expectations~ And there’s a consultation fee of 37,000 won. Parking is free if you receive treatment, and since I live near Cheongju, I went by car. Of course, it’s hard to read all the blog posts beforehand, but I think it would be good to read at least some basic posts and posts related to your own issues. That way, you can at least roughly catch the context of what the doctor is saying... It’s okay to prepare questions, but... I couldn’t find the right timing to ask mineㅠㅠ
I booked a Friday 10 a.m. appointment, but I arrived a little early, so the consultation started around 9:40. Unlike other plastic surgery clinics, they didn’t make me fill out a chart separately; I went in and was asked basic information like: when and where was your first surgery? (Mine was incision, ptosis correction, and epicanthoplasty in 2012), whether I had any illnesses, whether I was taking any medication, and whether I drink or smoke. Then I was asked what was bothering me. - Honestly, it wasn’t that I had one specific problem; I came here while looking into revision eyelid surgery, so I couldn’t say it very clearly and ended up stumbling a bit while explaining that I had mild eye discharge issues, that my right eye crease loosens at night, and that my eyelids feel heavy (from the other reviews, it doesn’t seem like the doctor only looks at strictly functional issues, so...). The doctor probably also sensed that I wasn’t here because I was about to die or anything. Still, maybe because my eyes aren’t completely normal either, he seemed to take a look at themㅠ Then the actual photo-taking took about 5 minutes. As in many other clinics, there are usually front, up, down, right, and side photos before consultation, but here they took more shots than that. I saw them also taking photos while I closed my eyes or looked downward while pulling the skin, so it seemed like they were measuring the crease height and position in several ways. That took a little under 10 minutes. When the doctor consults, he plays music and mutters to himself a bit, and switches between casual and polite speech. His tone does seem a little blunt, but he definitely is not the type to handle consultations carelessly; it just seems like his habit... I just took it as that, but if that kind of thing bothers you, you may be better off not going. After the photos, he told me to come closer and measured the crease height and other things with a ruler. Then he made me look up and down... probably 10 times. He seemed to be checking the amount of excess skin. And then again, while having me look up and down, he checked a lot of things. He asked if I was satisfied with my current crease shape. - Not 100% satisfied. In what way? - There is asymmetry, and the amount of iris exposure differs between the two eyes. I don’t hate the crease shape itself, but if it can be improved, I’d like to improve it. (I couldn’t explain properly because I was worried about going there for a functional issue.) He had me look up and down again. He said I have very little eye fat... and that it had all descended downward (below the eye). - I also had the eyelid fat removed during my first surgery... It seems like too much was removed. - ...ㅠㅠ Both of my parents also originally didn’t have much (I was just mentioning this because the director at ㅈㅇㅈㅇ said that, regardless of whether it was removed or not, it gradually hollows with age and is 100% genetic.) He said my orbital bone protrudes quite a bit and my skin is thick. And regarding the first issue I mentioned, the difficulty closing my eyes, he said: My left eye had severe epicanthoplasty and the crease design was wrong, so to fix the fact that the excessive epicanthoplasty and the crease line don’t connect, they overcorrected the front part of the eye, which caused a major problem, and he judged that damage to the aponeurosis is also very likely. For the right eye, it was likely somewhat hooded before surgery (correct - I showed pre-op photos). So the surgeon probably thought that this eye showed less of the pupil and made the ptosis correction stronger so the eye would open more. But if one part of the aponeurosis is pulled that strongly, eye fatigue can come easily and discomfort can increase. If someone has a lot of pressure from above on the skin and then it is pulled upward from below with ptosis correction, the eye just feels heavy and uncomfortable rather than opening well (the eyelid) properly. So in reality... it doesn’t close as badly as the left side, but I think the right side was the one with discomfort. Also, the right-eye ptosis correction and the crease line are not separated and are almost attached, so they can be viewed as one. In that case, if there is another adhesion in the upper part or if too much fat was removed and caused a problem, resistance forms above, so (probably the eyelid?) doesn’t lift well, and even if you apply the same force, it gets stuck and can’t go up or come down properly. In cases like that, the symptoms I mentioned appear: in the morning, when you first wake up, the eyes feel briefly lighter, but as you go about your day, strangely this eye (the right one) feels heavier, more tired, lifted, and... it gets worse in the evening, which is usually what that means? (While rereading this review as I write it, I remembered that I often felt my right eye was slightly less open all the time, but sometimes when I went for rehab or physical therapy and got a shoulder or head massage, my right eye would suddenly open wide... That made me wonder whether that meant I normally wasn’t fully opening my eye...)
Conclusion For the left eye, the inner part of the crease should be redone slightly higher so it connects with the epicanthoplasty, and the inner area should be checked for the condition of the aponeurosis and adjusted depending on how much it is being pulled (but it may be very difficult). For the right eye, focus on the middle crease and the ptosis-corrected area, check for aponeurosis damage and adhesions, and see whether any fat pad remains. If there is too little fat pad, even if adhesions between the aponeurosis and the septum are released, there is a high chance of readhesion, so whether to do fat grafting has to be decided. For both eyes, the outer part of the crease is too high relative to the position of the orbital bone, so it needs to be lowered. Depending on the result, if fat grafting is needed, a second surgery is done, and the second surgery is usually performed within 1 to 2 weeks. Fat is taken from the abdomen and placed into the fat pad to help restore the sunken area... - You mean fat grafting is necessary not only for cosmetic reasons, but also to prevent adhesions, right? It may be necessary... the possibility is quite high right now... there’s a lot... there’s also a pretty good chance that the aponeurosis and even the fat pad itself may have disappeared, because if we do fat grafting for this eye surgery, we have to take the fat from the abdomen or somewhere like that and use it during the eye surgery. Since revision eyelid surgery can take at least 2.5 to 3.5 hours, around the 2-hour mark we decide whether to release adhesions and whether fat is needed. But if we then start harvesting fat at that point, it takes another hour... and by then the eye area is already swollen, so the procedure can’t continue. But if we take the fat out from the beginning and it ends up being useless... that happens sometimes too. Then it’s awkward, right? So in a case like this, it would be better to first examine the eye surgery thoroughly and then decide whether to add fat. After about 10 days, once the swelling has gone down, some people develop more creasing on top after the adhesions are released, or the septum? fascia? loosens and the hollowing becomes more noticeable. In that case, doing fat grafting around 10 days later is more likely to work. After looking for a realistic method, that seems better in a case like this... It seems clearly necessary to add fat... In that case, it would be better to harvest fat first, do the eye surgery, and then add the fat at the end, right? - I’m okay with harvesting the fat first, even if it ends up not being used. From what I can see, there’s no need to go that far. First, the eye surgery itself seems like it will have a lot to do, and the question of whether there is aponeurosis damage inside is important. I also need to think about epicanthoplasty reconstruction, but that has to be pushed all the way to the end. If it’s done now, it won’t hold because of the swelling... (Here I again got the final confirmation that epicanthoplasty reconstruction is needed. I’m frustrated that I still have to keep going around to clinics that do epicanthoplasty reconstructionㅠㅠ)
Afterwards, I got surgery booking guidance from the nurse, paid the consultation fee, and left. The cost was in the 3 million won range, based on surgery fee only.
I did set a surgery date for now, but the things I’m worried about are... Putting accessibility aside for now... Other than the functional aspect, I actually prioritize cosmetic improvement more, but I keep thinking that while getting surgery from this doctor, I may not be able to strongly emphasize that cosmetic improvement part... There are also reviews saying it keeps loosening or becoming an inner double creaseㅠㅠ And even if I take his skill into account and assume he is really excellent... is it really impossible that there’s no doctor in Gangnam, Seoul with comparable skill... I wonder that tooㅠㅠ Then again, if I ask whether it’s easy to find a plastic surgeon who consults like this doctor and can improve the fundamental issues too... I don’t think so either... But if I take this diagnostic information and go to another plastic surgery clinic saying, “I was diagnosed like this and I want surgery this way,” that also doesn’t seem respectful to this doctor... The best option might be to choose a clinic among the ones I’ve already consulted or plan to consult in Seoul, where the doctor is a bit younger and gives a diagnosis as similar as possible... that’s what I’m leaning toward... What should I doㅠㅠ
If there are any other questions, everyone, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer based on what I know... Thanks for reading this long post