Adrian Richards, Leading Plastic & Cosmetic Surgeon at Aurora Clinics provides valuable information on having Low Eyelid Surgery and how long it will take to recover, along-with the possible implications involved with this surgery. For more information, please contact one of our fully qualified Patient Advisors on 01844 214362.

Eyelid Surgery – Lower Blepharoplasty – Recovery Period and Possible Complications

Hello. My name’s Adrian Richards, and today I’m going to be talking a little bit about lower blepharoplasty. I’ve talked in a previous episode about the operation and who’s suitable and the different techniques. Today I’m going to be talking a little bit about the recovery period, some of the complications that you can get from lower blepharoplasty.

First of all, as I mentioned in the previous video, a lower blepharoplasty can either be an external approach, with an incision below the eyelashes and coming down in the crow’s feet area which is good if you’ve got skin excess and puffiness. Or it can be internal or transconjunctival blepharoplasty, which is best just for puffiness.

Recovery period, lower blepharoplasty can take slightly longer to recover than upper blepharoplasty. The reason for that is the bruising tends to stay longer. The swelling tends to stay slightly longer than an upper blepharoplasty. Recovery, really a week off work, perhaps returning to sort of light work in the second week. Probably you would be okay, really, for most social activities after two weeks.

Lower blepharoplasty is an operation which has a significant complication rate and it’s important to realise this. The risk basically of lower blepharoplasty has to do with the amount of skin removal and the laxity or tenseness in your lower eyelid. Because the lower eyelid is very important, the lower eyelid lies against the globe of the eye. It should lie against the eyeball.

If you look at your eye straight on, the lower aspect of your pupil should just abut your lower eyelid. Your lower eyelid should just cover the lower area of your pupil. If it doesn’t, you’ve got something which is known as lid retraction where the eyelid is pulled down a little bit. It’s important to realise that before you consider having a lower blepharoplasty.

The other important test you have to do is called the snap test. This test, basically, assesses how tight your lower eyelids are. With age, generally, the lower eyelids aren’t quite as tight as they used to be. The test is to pull your eyelid away from the eyeball and release it. It should snap back, quite snappily. If it doesn’t snap back, if it goes back slowly or doesn’t go back completely, you’ve got some lid laxity and that needs to be addressed at the time of the lower eyelid surgery. Because if you remove skin and there isn’t sufficient tension in the eyelid, you can get pulling away of the eyelid from the eyeball and lid retraction where it’s pulled downwards.

Pulling away of the eyelid from the eyeball is known as ectropion. Pulling downwards is known as lid retraction. Either of these can cause problems with the eye. Principally the tears don’t drain properly. It feels very uncomfortable because the eye is going to get dry or conversely too wet. That’s a functional problem. Also, obviously, you have the aesthetic problem. It’s very important with lower blepharoplasties that the surgeon assesses your eyes adequately before.

If the surgery’s performed correctly, because if you do have some element of lid laxity, the surgeon will perform a technique to tighten up the eyelid slightly, to restore the sort of youthful tightness at the time of surgery. You really need to discuss that with the surgeon.

I generally recommend that lower eyelid surgery is performed by someone who really specialises in lower eyelid surgery. It’s not an operation that should be done by someone who does it occasionally. It’s a very specialised operation. I think it would be worthwhile quizzing your surgeon on how many he does and what sort of outcome you’re likely to have. Ask him frankly, has he had complications and to discuss those with you.

Thanks very much for listening to this video and watching this video. If you would like to arrange complimentary consultation with any of our eyelid specialists, please do so by either ringing us on 01844 214362 or just e-mail us via the website, which is Aurora-Clinics.co.uk. Thanks very much for listening, and we look forward to seeing you soon.