Posted April 12, 2013 in Blog, Ears, Podcast, Press Release, Uncategorized
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Video Highlights
0:21 Earlobe repair and rejuvenation
0:42 When ear piercings go bad
1:08 Normalizing the earlobe to restore it’s beauty
1:28 Nearly painless procedure
1:36 Excision of the hole
1:56 Recovery period
2:30 Ready for a new earring!
2:43 Repair of an earlobe that’s been purposely made larger
3:52 Rejuvenation of the large ear
4:40 Rejuvenation of the aging ear
5:02 Solution to volume loss
Hi this is Dr. Michael Persky, I’m a facial plastic surgeon from Encino California. For those of you who don’t know where Encino is, it’s a small suburb of Los Angeles, approximately 20-25 minutes Northwest of Beverly Hills, California and pretty non-traffic.
Today I’d like to talk to you about earlobe repair as well as rejuvenation of the aging earlobe. Earlobes are an often overlooked aspect of facial rejuvenation. And as a facial plastic surgeon we try to not to get caught up just with one aspect of the entire face in keeping it in harmony.
First thing i’d like to talk to you about is when ear piercings go bad. Ear piercings can stretch out making it difficult to wear beautiful earrings the way you would like to. They become hang down and can even fall out when the earlobe becomes too large. When patients present with that problem it’s relatively simple to repair although it needs to be done properly so that the earlobe looks normal once it’s repaired. What we do is, we do this under local anaesthetic, and it’s quite, nearly painless.
If you pinch your earlobe, you’ll find, as hard as you pinch it, there’s very few nerve endings in that area so even the local anaesthetic injection is relatively painless. Once it’s anaesthetize, the hole around the opening has to be excised to freshen up the skin so that we can sew the hole back together. If you are to sew skin to skin it wouldn’t stick when the stitches came out. So by freshening up the inner part of the opening we are able to sew both the front and back together.
The stitches remain in place anywhere from 5-7 days. And then removed after about 6 weeks of healing the patient returns to our office for re-piercing of the ear usually with a gold or stainless steel stud. This stays in place for approximately 6 weeks. During that time once a day, the patient twist the earring and cleans it with alcohol.
After the six week period, the re-pierced ear is ready for any beautiful earrings. Usually a spouse, boyfriend, or significant other will purchased a new present if they are informed why the ears have been repaired.
Second thing that I’d like to talk about is repair of an ear that’s been purposely made larger. If you think of the African tribes with their large ears and large lips, many patients here find the process of “gaging” an ear were that’s pierced and gages were actually put in their like buttons that increase the size of the ear hole over time. Many patients after years of having that, or are looking for a new job or they just want to have their old ear back, present to our office for that repair. And that involves a more artistic vision and planning to get the ear to close properly. Sometimes it involves a little flap. It usually takes us about 15 minutes longer than the usual 15 minute earlobe repair.
The third thing I’d like to talk to you about is rejuvenation of the large ear. We have patients with large earlobes. We have patients who show up and just say, woman will show up with a large ear and say this is my dad’s earlobe. I love the way the rest of my face looks but make this smaller. And that can be done again under local anaesthetic here in the office. Again it takes a little bit more artistic vision and planning. Usually a pie shaped wedge of that earlobe is excised and then meticulously closed. And again the same process for repair of the stretched earlobe is undergone in terms of letting it stay close for approximately six weeks, repiercing after six weeks and the stud stays in place for another six week.
Lastly, I’d like to talk to you about rejuvenation of the aging ear. Two things happen to the aging ear, one it loses volume, some of the fat in the ear goes away like the rest of our face. And again, similar to the rest of our face, the ear can look wrinkled.
So for those two things, for the volume loss, we can add fillers such as Sculptra, Restelin, Radius, actually not Radius, but Restelin, and Sculptra work particularly well. And then for the wrinkles on the ear, some of the oblative and non oblative lasers work very well at rejuvenating the aging ear. So that covers earlobe repair and treatment of the aging ear.
If you have any questions about that, feel free to contact me at drpersky@drpersky.com
