Thank you for your question.
You submitted your question with several photos.
And essentially, you are asking how many months after you underwent dimpleplasty can you have
the procedure redone.
Well, I can certainly share with you my experience performing 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.
I have actually became well-known for dimpleplasty.
We’ve been featured in the media and people come to us from all over the world for dimples.
So I can certainly share with you how I explain this procedure and what I do when enhancement
is indicated.
So to begin with, the concept of dimpleplasty is basically to create a natural appearance
where there is a connection between a muscle that lines the inside of the mouth called
the buccinator muscle and connecting that with the skin so that when you smile, you
get this nice and natural dimple.
Now interestingly, for something that seems fairly straightforward in concept, is actually
not that straightforward in execution.
The procedure has different variations.
I like to think that what we’ve done in our practice has been an evolution of this
procedure and results in a pretty consistent rate of success.
But we’re working in such a small opening inside of the mouth.
And the variables that affect outcome include things such as relative thickness of the skin,
the amount of fat under the skin, the elasticity of the skin.
There are a few variables.
And of course, the technical aspect of connecting with the stitch between the skin on the outside
or I should say the external skin and the muscle in the inside and getting a nice and
symmetric result.
Now sometimes what happens is, even though it looks good in the operating room, some
variables can cause the dimple to release.
And that could be anything from a suture not engaging the tissue or separating.
Swelling can have an impact.
Movement can have an impact.
And so there is certainly an opportunity to enhance this procedure.
So when this question comes up from our patients, basically I’ll examine them and I’ll usually
find the following.
During the first few months, there’s still some healing process going on in the area
that was operated.
And that healing process is marked by the presence of almost like a nodule or hardish
area that can be felt when you place your finger in the inside of the mouth and put
pressure on the outside of the cheek.
So with your index finger and thumb, you can feel this little bump.
And usually what I tell our patients is that there is still an active healing process.
Now technically, you can probably do this at any time but I generally recommend doing
this when swelling related to healing, inflammation related to healing is stable.
And so, as a rule of thumb, I’ll tell our patients that after 3 months, that’s probably
a time that it’s reasonable to go ahead and do the procedure.
People who travel, sometimes the challenges of timing can require that sometimes we expedite
things but I would say that waiting around 3 months is a good rule of thumb.
And if there is any concern or question about the level of healing or the inflammation or
other issues then certainly those particular concerns are dealt with as a case by case
basis.
And once that healing and swelling has resolved, it is relatively straightforward to go back
and reattach the skin and hopefully the dimple will work out favorably for you.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.