What Can Be Done About Behind my Ears for Red Skin, Ridges and Scars, Please, Now I
Am 7 Months Post Neck/facelift?
I have reddened skin, ridges & white scars behind my ears, a very tight scalp & sore
tightness around ears.
Plastic surgeon attached my lobes but they weren't before.
Now I have little pixies & pockets behind which are sore & tight, & they will need a
release.
He says he did me extra tight for a good result but I think he may have pulled me too tight.
The scars have now moved from behind my ear & widened so now I can't wear my hair back.
I have still have some swelling & discomfort under chin.
Thank you.
Thank you for your question!
In the world of face lifting surgery, certainly you are concerned and results are not that
unusually.
You know, there's a lot of discussion and debate of what the best techniques are and
how much tension to put on the skin but reality is that there is art in doing surgery and
then there's the way of how the patient's body heals.
And anyone who has experience in face lifting can recognize that the challenges that you
are dealing with such as the widening of the scar behind the ear and the thickening of
the scar behind the ear and the crease as well as the pulling down of the ear lobe is
something that a lot of surgeons have to deal with in their own patients.
So your plastic surgeon, who he or she pulled your skin extra tight, is not unusual because
sometimes you have to pull someone extra tight because their elasticity, their skin is such
that you can anticipate from experience a certain amount of regression.
So you know there is how a person looks when you do a surgery and the application of proper
closure and the amount of tension and there's how someone heals.
In almost every surgery that is done in the field of cosmetic surgery, the long term healing
factors are almost independent of the initial surgical technique.
So for example tummy tuck surgery, the bikini line incision can be beautifully done and
closed very nicely and thin and yet the scar can be wide and thickened and this can be
applied to any part of the body including facelift.
So the question that has to be addressed is, how to you deal with what's going on and moving
forward?
Well, I would say when a situation is such that there's a maturing process that's going
on and surgical healing is really about one year.
Now what that means is that there's something called collagen remodeling or tissue remodeling
that goes on as the year progresses.
So that any type of scar revision surgery or any other adjustments have to be made,
you want to have as much skin to work with that isn't too tight.
So I think about all the things you are concerned about such as the widening of the scar and
the incision behind the ear, sometimes some people come camouflage the scar with the hair
style.
A lot of time, and I know this from doing hair transplant, the hair follicles that are
inside the scar go into a shock phase.
And with time, hair can go out through the scar especially when it's done in a particular
angle in terms of the initial incision.
And if that's not the case and you want to wear your hair back, then you may want to
consider a scar revision or in some cases the placement of hair follicles basically
a hair transplant and that would probably address anything about the widening.
As far as the thickened scar behind the ear crease, we routinely would use a combination
of 5-Fluorouracil and a drug called Kenalog and inject that area so that the scar would
soften and it would become flatter.
And last not but not the least, anything related to pixie ear deformity where there's a pull,
it just depends on how much skin is available.
If your incision heals very nicely even if it's a widened incision but your skin is light,
and you're able to counter camouflage that area sometimes, it's a minor procedure to
just get that ear to get tucked back in.
and in other cases where there's a lot of drag, it's a little bit more challenging because
you have to move skin up.
But if there's not enough skin to move up, you don't have a lot to work with.
A lot of my patients have come in for pixie ear deformity correction will often be 5-10
years out from their initial surgery so now they have enough skin.
So they actually benefit from another lift and revise the pixie ear.
But nonetheless, it is something that is doable but again it depends a lot on how you heal.
So usually, in these cases, there is a combination of management during the post-operative healing
period and after one year maturity point, you can make some decisions about what you
can do that would be okay for you to do to get the result that you want.
So although it is distressing to have these things to happen, it is tough that everyone
deals with and unless you feel comfortable and confident with your surgeon, then I would
suggest that you continue following-up with the doctor.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.