Thank you for
your question.
You submitted your question with two photos.
You stated in your question that it has been 1 month after you’ve had Asian eyelid surgery
using the suture technique and that you did some fat removal.
And you stated that you did have some dry eye before surgery.
And that you are noticing this mucus discharge every day particularly in the morning and
you wear soft contact lenses.
And so you’re asking what is going on.
Well, in the absence of a physical exam, I can certainly share with you how I counsel
my patients operatively and post operatively particularly those who wear contact lenses.
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.
Asian eyelid surgery is something I perform fairly routinely both incisional and non-incisional
as well as non-Asian eyelid surgery to help people improve their eye appearance whether
it’s upper lid ptosis, extra skin or under eye bags.
And having an ophthalmology background certainly has worked to my advantage in guiding patients
who also have concurrently dry eyes.
So to begin with, it’s very important to understand that even though you have a little
bit of dry eye before surgery, you are probably capable of producing enough tears to be able
to tolerate contact lenses which is a good thing.
One thing to understand is that it is not unusual to have some degree of dry eye after
eyelid surgery.
When you are working in the eye area, even though you may have no problem with eye closure
or anything dealing with exposure, it is typical to have some degree of decreased tear production
after eyelid surgery.
So I explain to my patients who already have dry eyes, if they’re not contact lens wearers,
I tell them to use liberal amounts of artificial tears both before surgery and after.
And I tell them to use the artificial tear drops with meals that way it’s easier to
remember, breakfast, lunch and dinner and then bedtime.
This way, at least they’re getting drops to help lubricate the eyes.
Mucus production can be a reflection of that dryness and an increase in relative friction
between the eyelid and the contact lens and your body produces more mucus as a way to
help compensate for the dryness.
The other possibility that I’m sure your doctor should or if you haven't already checked
out is that when you do suture technique or non-incisional Asian eyelid surgery, it is
pretty much the norm to place a suture from the outside, flip the eyelid and pass it through
the surface that is over the eye and then pass the suture back.
Now what that means is that there could possibly be the relatively low risk of a suture exposure
but it is something that when you’re doing this surgery, you pretty much make sure it
isn't the case.
Essentially, the technique of non-incisional Asian eyelid surgery, when you place the stitch
going through, you put the suture back into the same opening or basically the same area
such that it is unlikely, especially after the sutures are tied, it is very hard for
those sutures, unless they get exposed or unraveled, to actually ever touch the eyes.
So it’s very rare.
But just to make sure, it’s good to make sure to have your doctor check that out.
Generally speaking, if there was a suture that was touching the eye, you would feel
it and it would be extremely uncomfortable.
It seems more likely that this is just a reflection of relative dryness associated with eyelid
surgery and so my non-contact lens wearers, I tell them to use lubricating drops liberally.
Now for contact lenses, you would always need some type of drops that are specific for contact
lens wearers.
Otherwise, I would say that just periodically, depending on how you feel, you may want to
take a break from the contact lenses as for the tear production for your eyes goes back
to normal baseline.
So discuss this with doctor or discuss this as well as with your eye doctor to just make
sure you get the optimal lubricating regimen done so that you can really get the proper
lubrication of your eye surface.
And as the months go by, these symptoms should improve.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question.