Hallo, welcome to my frequently asked questions,
today I’m answering commonly asked questions
about lower blepharoplasty.
How will losing weight influence result
of my lower eyelid surgery
and should I lose weight before the surgery?
We’ll talk about the relevance
of anatomy of the eyelid in,
in terms of the results in surgery.
And I’ll also talk about measures
that you can take to ensure
that you get the best possible result
after having lower eyelid surgery.
My name is Dr. Julian De Silva
and I’m a London based facial cosmetic and plastic surgeon.
And eyelid surgery is the commonest procedure
that I complete for my patients on a daily basis.
The information that I am discussing with you today,
is information that I share with my patients every day.
So, will losing weight influence
the result of my lower eyelid surgery?
Well, in terms of the swelling and fat
that you often see in the lower eye lid.
This fat is orbital fat,
and orbital fat is less affected
by things such as fluctuations
in your weight and losing weight.
The reason is this orbital fat
has a very important function in terms
of protecting your eye when you are walking,
and running and all these kind of activities.
So, it’s not so directly affected
by things like losing weight.
It is influenced partly by genetics
and partly by aging
whereby some of that fat comes forward in the lower eyelid
and that is ultimately what we change
and we shape with lower blepharoplasty.
So, losing weight will not
have a direct relevance on that swelling.
However many patients also have other changes
in the lower eyelid such as a tear trough
and this tear trough can create a depression
and a shadow and sometimes a dark ring
around the eye.
Generally if you lose weight,
this can be influenced in a negative way
in this tear trough area.
So, it may actually make this area a little worse.
Having said that, losing weight
generally will improve your general health
and maybe a positive thing from that aspect.
So, what factors can influence your lower eyelid surgery
and give you an improved result?
Well, certainly stop smoking and smoking
has a negative effect
on healing and recovery after surgery.
So, stopping smoking can be very important
for patients having lower blepharoplasty.
And for some patients it will actually
influence the final result,
and although it’s possible
to have lower eyelid surgery as a smoker.
If you wanted to get the best possible result,
this would be an important step
to avoid smoking before and after surgery.
In addition to that, one should also consider
avoiding medications that thin your blood,
and this can be prescription medications
such as analgesia like aspirin.
Or they can be non-prescription medicines
like herbal medicines and examples include,
fish oil, olive oil, St. John's wort
and there are many others.
I give all my patients detailed instructions
on what medicines and herbal medicines
to avoid before and after surgery,
to ensure you have the best possible healing
and the best result.
In addition to that, what,
if you suffer with certain medical conditions such
as high blood pressure or diabetes
it’s very important that these are well controlled
before having eyelid surgery.
Having high raised blood pressure
will certainly give you more bruising and more swelling.
And controlling your blood pressure
will mean that your healing will be faster
and you will avoid certain risks from the surgery.
And so, it’s very important to control this
and have this measured before the surgery.
And certainly in my clinic we measure all patients’
blood pressure before the surgery.
So, if there are any issues with that,
we can look at that beforehand.
Finally it’s very important to look
at the surgical technique that
is used with the lower blepharoplasty.
As this will have a significant influence on the success
and natural looking appearance of eyelid surgery.
And broadly speaking, eyelid surgery can be done
by the older conventional way which involves incision
or scar under the eyelid.
And a more contemporary and newer way,
where the surgery is done on the inside
of the eyelid and this avoids any scar.
Certainly my preference is to avoid the scar on the lower
eyelid, whatever possible.
Because this can avoid issues such as
changing the shape of the eyelid which can happen with,
with the older technique.
So, I would spend time researching your surgeon
and ensuring that the technique is most suitable
for what you are looking to achieve.
So, in summary we’ve talked about the effect
of losing weight on the lower eyelid
and broadly speaking it won’t have a
direct influence on the swelling
and the fat that you see in the lower eyelid.
We’ve also talked about factors relevant to the anatomy
and factors that you can take into account
and measures that you can take in order to ensure that
you've the best possible result from eyelid surgery.
I hope this information has been useful for you.
Thank you for watching.