Thank you for your question.
You submitted a question without a photo and you’re asking how long does it take to recover
from dimpleplasty.
Well, I can certainly give you some guidance on how I speak to my patients about this procedure.
A little bit of background, I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial
plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years.
And the subject of dimpleplasty has actually been an area of focus in our practice to the
point where we’ve actually been recognized by certain few media and other outlets in
the media as being an authority in the world of creating dimples.
And it’s kind of a curious development in my practice.
People do come from around the world for me to create dimples.
And I’ll explain to you a little bit of how I approach dimpleplasty and what I tell
my patients.
The timing of this question is interesting.
In this past week, I’ve done about seven dimple procedures which is unusually higher
than what is typical.
This means that the popularity of getting dimples seems to grow.
Anyways, the point is that the concept is very important to understand and that there
are different ways to do this procedure.
The concept of dimples or cheek dimples has to do with the natural opening that occurs
with people who have or are born with dimples in a muscle called the buccinator muscle.
And so when they smile, there’s this nice dimpling of the cheek which many people find
to be desirable.
Well, when we create something like this surgically, essentially we’re creating a connection
from that muscle through the inside of the mouth to create a connection between the muscle
and the skin of the cheek.
When the muscle contracts or is activated such as when smiling, the cheek pulls in and
you get this nice dimple shape.
So what I explain to my patients is for my procedure, the way I do it, I’d say initially,
you have to understand that you are going to have a dimple in the skin that’s going
to be present all the time.
So you’re going to always have this indentation for the next couple of months.
The point of stating that is that just to be prepared, that in order for the dimple
to hold so that when the person smiles and it occurs more naturally where the skin indents,
you have to do this in a way that’s relatively strong and aggressive in order to make sure
that connection forms.
Now interestingly, most people who I have done this for have absolutely no issue with
that concern.
They’re having a dimple even when they’re not smiling, no way interferes with their
social or professional life which I find pretty interesting.
That being said, what I tell my patients, since we’re working in the inside of the
mouth, you have to take some basic precautions about keeping the mouth clean and avoiding
hot liquids after the procedure.
Generally speaking, we have patients go back to work the next day after dimple procedure
because essentially, there’s no external incision.
Everything is done in the inside of the mouth and therefore, there are no stitches or anything
on the outside.
There’s just the obvious indentation of the dimple.
Now the progression of healing, what happens over several months is that the dimple tends
to soften a little bit and so that it only occurs when smiling.
There can be a subtle indentation there.
And you see this in people who have natural dimples particularly if they’re naturally
lean.
So I would say, in terms of work, depending on what you do and being aware, not so much
of the relative healing process that’s so critical for safety, but really also about
the social appearance of having the dimple present even when not smiling is an adjustment
that you have to think about in terms of your own work, life and whether if people would
notice around you.
So I would say that in a perfect situation, maybe give yourself a few days, otherwise,
like many of our patients, you can go back the next day.
Now there are different ways to do this procedure so the doctor you choose to have this procedure
with will guide you as to what generally feels works for them.
So this is how I basically advise my patients in my practice.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.