You are complaining of saggy upper eyelids. You go to your plastic surgeon.The question is: “Brow lift or blepharoplasty? Or both?”   About 70% of patients coming to me requesting rejuvenation of their upper eyelids have no aging problems with their upper eyelids at all. Instead, what they are really manifesting is a pseudo excess of eyelid skin caused by a sagging of their forehead and its associated eyebrows ( brow ptosis). The skin between the eyebrows and the upper eyelashes is now compressed into folds, giving the impression age- related excess eyelid skin. It is imperative from an aesthetic and functional standpoint that the plastic surgeon makes the correct diagnosis, differentiating brow ptosis from true excess eyelid skin. Sometimes the two conditions can coexist like in Kenny Rogers pre-surgery.

The treatment for brow ptosis is an endoscopic Browlift (which I will discuss in a future blog post and how to avoid the “surprised-look”) while that for excess eyelid skin is an upper blepharoplasty. Sometimes strategic fat transfer or filler injection above and into the brow can help reversed brow ptosis to a moderate degree. I have seen many unfortunate results of upper eyelid surgery or blepharoplasty, stemming not from poorly performed surgery, but simply from a wrong diagnosis. In other words, the wrong surgery was correctly performed for the wrong diagnosis. I have also seen the correct surgery performed but carried out too aggressively such as in the case of Mr Rogers. If you compare his presurgical picture to the post surgical picture, one could see that his eyes are too recessed because too much fat and skin was removed.

Unnaturally deep recessed eyes as seen in these male celebrities can result- the upper eyes are bizarrely punched out in a feminized fashion not usually seen in nature. Yes , the upper lids are clean, but they are too sculpted and when placed adjacent to a still sagging brow, they results are just plain unattractively weird. Don’t confuse this condition with people who have naturally deep set eyes such as Jeremy Irons.

Mr. Irons still has his natural character embedded in his countenance, whereas the aforementioned public figures who have had overly aggressive brow and eyelid surgery seem to had their essence extracted from their face.   For further information or to make a consultation with Dr. Randal Haworth, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and specialist in eyelid and browlift surgery,call 310 273 3000 or visit him at www.drhaworth.com.