Thank you for your question!
You’re 23 years old and you described in an uncertain terms that you hate what you
described as a massive hollow upper eyelids and that you’ve done some investigation
and doctor told you that it’s dangerous to do injectables around the eyes but you
want to do something about your appearance.
Well, I can give you some information to help guide you.
I’m a board certified cosmetic surgeon and fellowship trained oculofacial plastic and
reconstructive surgeon.
Dealing with hollow eyes is certainly a significant part of my practice and I can tell you something
about what we do in our practice to help patients and of course, I may share with you a little
bit more about what I would do for someone of your age who would come to me with the
same kind of concern.
To begin with, understand that the appearance of your eyes is mostly a genetic result which
means that there is a combination of factors such as bone structure and the way your eyes
are shaped that create this very large zone where your eyelid crease is very high.
Interestingly, a lot of people want that look and will undergo cosmetic surgery to achieve
that look.
And with that being understood, I can tell you that we have patients who are young or
maybe a little bit older than you but who come to us and have volume placement for cosmetic
reasons.
And we also commonly help people who have had surgery where they felt that too much
fat was removed or they felt that their eyes were hollowed and we use fillers such as a
hyaluronic acid filler to restore this volume.
Now, I’ve done procedures such as fat grafting and ways to restore volume and basically,
all of this is contingent on having something to push against and that means the bone structure
of the orbit, the eye socket.
Essentially, you can’t change the true anatomy of why you have the shape that you have but
an illusion can be created by adding volume to what we call the sub-brow area.
By adding volume in that sub-brow area, we are able to restore this in a way that can
look more full.
We’ve done this for people who are Asians who had Asian eyelid surgery and they looked
relatively hollow or as people have gotten older, they look like they’re hollowing.
There’s opportunity there.
I’m hesitant to recommend anything to you because I think that at 23, as distressed
as you are with your appearance, I think you’ll have more distress with the challenges of
achieving the optimal final result.
Fillers still have a certain amount of unpredictability.
Even though it’s a small amount but in areas such as this, it might be difficult to get
just the result you want.
It may be a challenge to get the right volume.
It means that you may need to come in several times in order to achieve a certain desired
end point.
And then at a certain point, the material goes away.
So I think that, although this is a procedure that is common for patients ours who are in
their 40s or older, it’s fairly uncommon for people who are in your age range.
Plus, something to understand, your skin right now is in a very tight youthful zone and it’s
very difficult to actually add volume when the skin is relatively tight.
Now again, a physical exam would be helpful but I would also agree with my colleague who
is saying that it’s dangerous to do things around the eye.
The answer is yes, it is dangerous to do things around the eye and there is always a balanced
risk.
As an oculofacial plastic surgeon and I trained first in eye surgery, it’s not in any way
hesitant to work around the eye but there has to be a balance of a justification to
perform a procedure to try to help someone like yourself.
I think you may find yourself dealing more with bruising, swelling and other problems
that I don’t think justifies the effort.
I think that if you want to learn more and maybe seek additional opinions, you should
but I would say wait before you do anything else.
There may be other concepts and ideals in the future that are still not fully developed
that we’re not using as of yet and until then, I think that you should try to learn
to live with what you have understanding that also in your 20s, all of us who are long past
that, recall how good we looked at that time but didn’t appreciate it and so that’s
just a little side comment for you.
I think that you may not be appreciating the benefit and you may be a little bit over critical
of your appearance and I would suggest that you have this discussion with the people who
are closest with you before you move forward with doing a procedure.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!