Review of lower eyelid fat repositioning from day 1 to day 24..(+photos)

2 days after surgery. I had the surgery on Thursday evening, and it's Saturday! I put on a cold eye mask every time I sleep and keep sleeping with it.. It's still swollen, but the line of the front aegyo-sal is starting to show a little. The middle aegyo-sal is still so swollen there's no trace of it. The swelling around the eyes has spread to the face, so the area above the nasolabial folds is swollen, and the bridge of the nose is swollen too. In photos you'll be able to see that the central bridge of the nose has disappeared. Overall, because of the swelling, my face seems a bit flatter? One eye had no sensation at all, as if a cotton swab had touched it, but if I split the eye into front and back halves, the back half has sensation now, while the front half still feels nothing like a cotton swab. As for pain, eating carefully is okay now, but when I laugh, the cheek area on the side with no sensation in the eye hurts. Maybe because the area under the eye is swollen, or because of the dressing, my eye doesn't close completely, so it feels dry. There seem to be slight bloodshot vessels in my eyes too

Thanks for the detailed review. It was a big help from the perspective of someone preparing for it.

I’m planning to go back to work 4 days after surgery.. do you think it’ll be okay? haha

[@Mingmingmingji] I still haven’t reached day 4, so I can’t really say for sure.. but at this point, if you just remove the under-eye DuoDERM, it seems like it should be possible.. Still, if it stays like this, you’ll definitely look a bit swollen and less cute lol I don’t know if there’s bruising hidden under the DuoDERM, but visually I can’t see any bruising right now.. But among people who get under-eye fat repositioning, some do get blood vessel ruptures in the eye sometimes (not just simple redness x, it pools bright red), and for those people, it seems to take a few weeks for the bloodiness to go down.

[@Rose213] Day 3 after surgery. The biggest discomfort is dryness. Maybe because sensation around the eyes is gradually returning, the dryness is getting worse and worse. I put in the prescribed eye drops 4 times a day, and artificial tears every 2 to 3 hours, but it still feels dry.. Since it’s after surgery, I’m using single-use artificial tears to keep things clean, and they’re so expensive that I feel bad every time I use one.. Both eyes feel dry, but only one side has severe redness. I think the redness from the surgery has spread and moved upward to the side that’s more visible. I’m self-isolating, so I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube, and when I laugh there’s a poking pain deep in the cheek. That same pain happens when I scrunch my face hard too. And when I wake up, there’s a slight feeling that the eyeball is swollen? I had brief vision shaking. But maybe that could be from pressure from the ice eye mask After a while my vision returned and the swollen-eye feeling went away too. I had planned to take off the DuoDerm at 72 hours, but if I’m not going out anyway, I think it’s better to leave it on, so I’m going to keep it there. Ah, the swelling has now spread mostly to the cheeks and temples, and judging by the aegyo-sal coming back, it seems like the swelling-formation stage is over and the reduction stage has begun. Today I’m not doing any more cold compresses and I’m planning to try warm compresses from tomorrow.

[@user] On day 4, (Monday if the surgery was on Thursday) when I opened my eyes, there was a throbbing pain in the cheek on the side where I had no sensation. It also felt like the sensation was returning. My eye feels more swollen than yesterday, and there is a bit of blurry vision and loss of focus. It seems worse today than yesterday. I can read text, but focusing takes more effort than usual. The temple area is swollen. I removed the DuoDerm. There is quite a bit of pale yellow bruising under the DuoDerm. It is basically only in the DuoDerm area (foundation can cover it easily). The cheek on the numb, aching side feels like the skin is clumped together and like someone else's flesh. As for the under-eye surgery, I don't think it completely eliminated it, though I’ll have to see once the swelling goes down. The originally severe area is actually flat, while the somewhat borderline area seems to still be there. I washed my face, but the black marker lines looked like they would only come off if I scrubbed really hard, so I left the parts that were hard to remove alone. Foundation can cover it, not perfectly, but it probably won’t get into the eyes. If you ask whether I can go to work without my coworkers noticing, probably yes, but I can’t even imagine how I’m supposed to remove the makeup afterward even though I can probably wear it. I can’t scrub it off.. There is swelling and I look worse, but I don’t think it is at the level of “What did you do to your face?” The redness in my eyes is what stands out the most (somehow the red area keeps getting bigger lol). If I just say I stayed out late drinking and snacking with friends, I think they would believe it..? If I have to go to work, I will, but there is still pain and some lumpiness, and when you factor in cleansing after makeup and all that, I recommend resting if you can..

[@Mingmingmingji] It's been 4 days! (Thursday surgery, Monday back to work schedule) For me, if I’m willing to tolerate looking ugly, I could go back to work. But I am worried about wiping my face when cleansing. It feels like residue might stay behind.. The swelling is a bit asymmetric, so that’s a little annoying, but I basically just look like I had something done! It’s not very obvious.. just like a pretty ugly day. I’d go to work, but if I had a crush on someone I wouldn’t meet them. There are bruises, so I’d need makeup, and I don’t think my coworkers would be able to tell that I had under-eye fat repositioning.

You and I are in exactly the same situation. I also did it secretly while my parents were traveling, and from what I read, I think it was probably the same place. I had mine done on day 3, and the swelling went down a lot starting from day 5 Thanks for the detailed review. I hope you recover beautifully!

I’m also finally determined to fix the dark circles that have been an inseparable complex for me since high school.. The fact that your result looks good makes me so jealous!!

[@Rose213] Wow, thanks for the detailed review! I have consultations booked at two places, but they said the earliest available is in a month Could you tell me which clinic it was?

[@Mingmingmingji] I chose it based on the event discount price plus the fact that among the doctors in that price range, there were lots of post-procedure reviews and I liked the review photos, but the doctor is leaving and the event has ended.. Since the reason I picked that clinic is no longer there, I’m just going to make it a review without naming the clinic.. I also couldn’t completely shake the feeling that reviews naming the clinic might be marketing when I was looking for information... The clinic you looked into will probably be better than the clinics I found through the event page lol

[@Rose213] Day 5. Bruising? If you look for it, you can see it, but it doesn’t stand out even on my bare face. If you don’t know it’s there, you probably wouldn’t notice? But I don’t bruise easily anyway, and even if I do, it fades quickly. The redness in my eyes isn’t fading though lol The dryness is still there, but it’s less than before. The blurred vision is worst when I wake up, probably because that’s when the swelling peaks, and today it’s less severe than yesterday. By evening I can barely notice it, but maybe it’ll come back again after I sleep..? One eye at least feels less like other people’s flesh, and when I wash my face I think I could maybe rub it a little (not scrub it) and be okay, but the other eye still feels like other people’s flesh + a lump + something that shouldn’t be rubbed or pressed, so I’m only doing the lightest soap-and-water rinse. That other eye feels like I could probably do makeup removal after makeup, but this eye doesn’t feel like it should tolerate proper cleansing after makeup at all. Oh, and for the upper eyelid, there was no discomfort from the very first day after surgery. I’m only talking about the area under the eyes. The swelling is going down a lot, and since I naturally have a sunken midface, the swelling under the eyes + upper cheek actually gives volume and I like it lol But the swelling that has moved down below the cheeks + the swelling at the temples makes my face look uneven and kind of ugly lol The swelling that has drifted outward is more annoying than the swelling around the eyes. The under-eye groove on the eye without redness still feels like there’s some groove left, and the red-eye side looks more like darkness when you actually see it. But that side is still slower to recover, so I think I need to watch how the swelling goes down.

It turned out cleanly and well. Long post, lots of effort.

[@Rose213] Went for the 6-day follow-up at the hospital.. I had this feeling of, do I really need to go? and after going, I still felt the same lol I was at the hospital for about 17 minutes including waiting.. check-in, photo, doctor visit, and swelling laser for 5 minutes? (It’s called a laser, but people who’ve been to dermatology clinics will know what I mean.. just the light they shine on you. I saw that some places that do under-eye surgery have unlimited swelling-laser sessions, and I thought, oh, so this is what they’d do. Doesn’t seem worth going all the way to the hospital just for this.) The swelling is going down well, and the redness in the eyes can last about 3 weeks. It still feels like someone else’s skin, and I feel like I shouldn’t rub it, but the range of pain when it’s stimulated is getting smaller. Before, even a wry smile hurt (not a lot of pain, just enough to feel it), but now if I lift my cheek and quickly think I should bring it back down, sometimes it doesn’t hurt lol If I just laugh without holding it in, the cheek on the numb side still hurts though. The eye swelling seems to have gone down a lot, but the 2 to 3 cm area on both sides right next to the nose, around the eyes, is swollen, and you know that feeling when the skin gets stretched and looks glossy? It’s kind of glossy like that.

[@roze213] Day 7. Almost nothing has changed, and the bruising is now so faint that even if I look closely, I can’t really see it. Yesterday at the hospital, did they say that as the swelling goes down, some pooled bloody tears might come out? Anyway, on the eye that’s recovering faster, there was just a tiny bit of blood mixed into the eye discharge near the part where the swelling and strange sensation had mostly narrowed down to exactly the area where the under-eye procedure was. The other eye still feels like touching someone else’s flesh when I touch it, and if I press it, the area that feels like I shouldn’t press is about the under-eye procedure area plus 1 to 2 cm? The ugly outline of my face is gradually getting less noticeable, and the dry-eye feeling has definitely improved in the faster-recovering eye. The worse eye is still dry though. The photos are getting too many, so unless there’s some special change I probably won’t keep taking them now.. If anything changes, I’ll add more +++ I met up with friends and my cheekbones feel insanely tight. I did notice that one eye was bloodshot, but they didn’t seem to notice anything else. I agonized over whether to do eyeliner and ended up drawing it, but my upper eyelid was basically the same as usual, so removing it was easier than I thought and not a big deal. But the area right under the eye made deep cleansing a bit difficult, so I just cleansed it lightly several times. Still, one eye doesn’t hurt even when I smile now, but the other eye keeps stabbing every time I smile, so I do wonder whether it’s okay to keep putting that kind of strain on it.. For now I think I should hold back on smiling using my cheekbones too much

[[@Rose213]] Day 8. I think the period of looking ugly is over? The swelling hasn't completely gone down, but the stage of looking unattractive is over. One eye has mostly recovered, so I don't feel much discomfort on that side (aside from a poking sensation when I smile broadly; it doesn't hurt even when yawning, etc.), but the other eye still has no sensation at the inner corner, a lump under the lower eyelid area, pain when smiling, and pain even when yawning or opening my mouth wide, so the recovery being noticeably slower on that side is a bit concerning. The redness in the eye is still there in the darker area, but it's smaller so it's less noticeable.

Day 9. It seems like the swelling in the under-eye area is going down a tiny bit now, and the area that had the groove seems to be sinking in a little too..? The eye on the red side, the slower-recovering side, still has a poking, stabbing ache and feels dry. Now when I touch the inner corner of that eye, I can tell I’m touching it, but it still feels like I’m touching it from farther away than reality, plus it feels like someone else’s skin, and there’s still this feeling like I shouldn’t press on it when washing my face. On the faster-recovering side, there’s a little bit of odd skin sensation when I touch it, but it’s not very bothersome.

[@Roses213] Day 10. There is still a lot of crusty, sticky eye gunk that comes off with artificial tears, because the eye on this side is still healing slowly. It’s a cloudy, sticky crust that sits in front of the eyeball. A tip: tilt your head so it goes toward the inner corner of the eye, flush it out with artificial tears, then gently dab it off with a cotton swab at the inner corner. It’s eye gunk that blocks your vision, so it’s really annoying. When I had submental liposuction, there were times when sensation came back and there was fibrosis, and the skin felt like it was being tugged or released with a tapping feeling. The under-eye area has a similar intermittent tapping feeling.

[@Rose213] Day 11. Since I didn’t go outside over the weekend, the skin in the under-eye area got a bit chapped. Like flaky skin.. I don’t know if it’s because I only wash this area very gently or if it’s just like this normally. When I close my eyes, not only the upper lid but also the lower lid lifts a little. The eye that healed quickly has had no discomfort at all for days already, but the slower-healing eye didn’t lift as much so the eye doesn’t close as fully > feels dry, or if I squeeze my eyes shut, there’s a slight pulling sensation. I had a hamburger for dinner, and when I opened my mouth wide, it felt like the cheekbone on the slower-healing side was being pulled.. The faster-healing eye is basically fully recovered unless something presses on it. The slower one still feels like something is attached under the eye..

[@rose213] I tried contacts on day 12! My eyes seem to dry out a bit faster? Other than that, no discomfort, but instead of opening my eyes up and down like usual, you have to open only the top, so if you're not used to it, putting them in and taking them out could be a little harder? The redness is still there, but other people probably can't really tell + if I wear circle lenses, it gets almost completely covered; + a rash near the surgery area started yesterday, and it's worse today, so it might be an allergic reaction to the swelling cream. Everything where I put it, even up to the bridge of my nose, turned red..

[@Rose213] Week 2! Surgery was on Thursday, and today is the second Thursday after surgery! I forgot to leave an update yesterday. Hamburgers still tempt me a little. The eye that was slower to recover now has its lower lid coming up a bit too when I blink! The dryness is definitely reduced and I do still get some eye discharge, but I was someone who always had that anyway. I met a friend yesterday and took a ton of photos, and I genuinely teared up. There isn’t a single photo that looks like I have under-eye fat bulges. I’m so happy. One eye doesn’t really bother me anymore unless I press on it hard, and washing my face isn’t really uncomfortable either. The other eye still has some numbness and that strange foreign-flesh feeling. As the residual swelling goes down a lot, the wrinkles around my eyes are showing more. I think that’s because the fat that used to pull things tight is gone, so the original wrinkles stand out more. Still, since I don’t have under-eye bulges anymore, I can even wear lighter eye makeup now and look less tired. The dark circles are still there! In fact, I worry they’ll look even darker now that the fat that used to cover them is gone, but the swelling still hasn’t fully settled yet.. So the overall verdict so far is: under-eye fat repositioning is really great, so if you’re debating it, I honestly recommend it. People with under-eye bulges also tend to have a sunken midface, so the nasolabial folds become a concern too. With both under-eye bulges and nasolabial folds, you end up looking wrinkled and really old, right? But once the under-eye bulges are gone, even if the nasolabial folds stay the same, they don’t stand out as much. I was so happy checking the photos I took yesterday that I’m in a Zoom-level high right now.

[@Rose213] If there aren’t any big changes, I won’t come by, but on days when there are events like the under-eye area feeling like someone else’s flesh, the residual swelling going away, and so on, I’ll come leave a comment! Questions are always welcome. I’m a huge TMI type, so I can answer in a super long comment with blood coming out of my eyes.

Why can’t you wear contacts?

[@전갱쓰] Under-eye surgery uses a conjunctival incision, and if you wear soft lenses before that area heals, there’s a risk of infection at the surgical site, and the lens can move around in the eye and irritate the area that was operated on... I think that’s probably the main reason. After under-eye surgery, your eyes already feel dry, and with lenses it gets insanely dry, plus there’s some swelling in the eyeball too, so it seems better to avoid putting pressure on it with lenses. The act of putting lenses in and taking them out itself feels a bit overkill right after under-eye surgery. Even removing eye discharge is something you have to do very carefully with a cotton swab for about a week.. I was worried bacteria might get into the surgical site, so I didn’t use the bottled artificial tears either and bought single-use ones instead. The hospital said not to wear them for 2 weeks, but around day 10 I did start to feel like, maybe I could put them in now?

[@Rose213] Oh, I see Then do people with poor eyesight have to wear glasses no matter what?

[@Jeongaengs] Yeah, I'm usually a contact lens person too, but I just wore glasses for 11 days. If you absolutely can't live without contacts, you really need to think it through.

[@Rose213] Yeah Thank you so much for being so kind and detailed!!!!

Gasp, thanks for the detailed review

[@로제213] 3 weeks in. I even went to the dentist and had my mouth opened super wide, and there was no pulling sensation. If your recovery is fast, it feels like normal daily life is basically back unless you deliberately press on it. Even washing your face doesn’t get in the way at all. If I tap foundation on too hard, it might feel a little sore on the inside? The other side is still numb in sensation (I can still feel touch itself). For washing my face, I only rub gently. For foundation too, just light taps. Sometimes I get that tugging feeling I had when the double-chin liposuction lump would clump up or loosen? And for some reason, there’s suddenly a lot of dry skin. Still a lot. Based on how it feels so far, even if I went back to before surgery, I’d do it again.

[[@rose213]] Day 24. One eye has been set free, and the other still feels like I have double eyelid tape stickers stuck all over it. The swelling remains near the inner corner of one eye, but I just want it to stay like this. Happy. In photos, the dark circles are still there, and it’s not completely annihilated the groove, but if you turn the lighting around, you can just barely see it. I tried really hard to take photos so it would show clearly.. But it really improved a ton, and I’m so satisfied. At this point, I’m so glad I did it.

[@Rose213] One month in. One eye still feels pulled at the inner corner and under the eye every time I blink. I keep wondering if it should really last this long. I guess you could say the eyelid feels a bit heavy? When I close it, it doesn’t shut tightly, so my eyes feel dry. The other eye got past that stage a long time ago, but this one seems way too slow.

I'm looking into under-eye fat repositioning, so thanks for explaining it in detail!

[@zidbsl] https://sungyesa.com/new/plugin/mobile/board.php?bo_table=d03≀_id=659128#c_662406 This post is from someone who had lower bleph surgery too, so if you ask questions, they’ll probably answer? I read this post and thought I should leave my own review too, so I started writing. If you're curious about lower bleph surgery + under-eye fat repositioning, it might be worth reading. I think my recovery is much faster than this person's, but on the first day I had pain bad enough to remind me of when I got my wisdom teeth pulled (maybe a little less..?), so I kept taking my painkillers on time and used the ice pack diligently. The ice pack helped with the pain quite a bit more than I expected. My eyes didn't hurt at all (because sensation still hadn't come back lol), but my cheeks and cheekbones did hurt.

[@Rose213] Thank you so, so much!

[@Rosé213] About 40 days after surgery? So satisfied.. it's such a joy to look in the mirror.. It feels like the nicely edited photos are inside the mirror.. I really love it. Even the slower-recovering eye is starting to get its sensation back now, and the faster-recovering eye feels like nothing was done to it at all. I'm seriously so satisfied.. Very highly recommended for now.. Nobody knows I had surgery, but I'm so satisfied that I want to tell everyone about it..