Thank you for your question!
You are asking if the situation you’re in where you have had the otoplasty two months
ago whether or not you had an under correction or is it just swelling.
And you described in your question that you feel like your ears are sticking out too much
and that somehow that there was some issue with your surgeon as far as the position of
your earlobe and then you closed the question stating that you want your ear closer to your
head.
And the photos you submitted are certainly helpful.
Well, I can certainly give you my perspective on how I take care of patients who request
otoplasty in our practice.
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 otoplasty is
part of what we do in our practice.
Now, the anatomy and concept of otoplasty is relatively straightforward.
The execution and achievement can be sometimes be a little tricky.
Since there were no photos of your ears prior to the surgery, I kind of have to suggest
to you some guidance that I provide with my patients when it comes to the aesthetics of
otoplasty.
Very often, people who have ears that stick out very significantly, they often want them
very close to their head, almost like a compensation.
I would suggest that there is also a range of normal.
In our medical literature, we kind of use the one centimeter rule as a guideline as
to the distance of where the ear is relative to the skull or to the bone.
When you think of otoplasty, you could think of it in terms of thirds.
There is the upper third of the ear, the middle third and the lower third and the upper third
cartilage, the middle third cartilage and the lower third being most of the earlobe,
the soft tissue of the earlobe – all need to be brought-in in just the right amount
and with maximal symmetry.
So what you show in your photos, the earlobe being pushed inward, clearly that’s not
exactly natural.
The way the ears look now, from the photo, they look relatively pretty symmetric and
I don’t think they look extremely protuberant.
They don’t look like they’re protruding out significantly.
However, this is a communication issue.
If you and your surgeon could not come into terms as to the degree of the ear could be
brought in or what would be ideal, that’s a concern because your surgeon, I’m sure
since you chose your surgeon, you probably had a sense of confidence about your surgeon’s
ability to perform the procedure and you probably had a significant amount of time put into
a preoperative discussion.
Essentially, in terms of the earlobe, the earlobe can potentially stick out after the
upper third and middle third of the ear brought in and there’s surgery to actually bring
it in and sometimes that surgery is done at the time
of the otoplasty surgery.