Face Gallery

A woman in her early 60’s with a double partial cleft of her right ear and a partial cleft of her left hear. She also has drooping of her ear lobes. She was marked for an ear lobe lift by swinging the earlobe back and forth past an imaginary central point. The wedge was carefully placed to include the two clefts of her right ear. In this way the ear lobe clefts were corrected as well as the drooping of the earlobe to restore a normal appearance to the ear. She is shown before surgery and again, 3 months after surgery, just after having her earlobes repierced in the office.

A woman in her early 30’s with a partial cleft of her right ear. After discussions in the office she does sleep with her earrings in and this may be the side that she sleeps on. Her left ear is normal. My theory is that sleeping with the earring in allows the post to move back and forth across the pillow, slowing cutting through the earlobe like a wire cutting through a cheese. She is shown before and again, 3 months after repair, just after re-piercing this in the office.

A woman in her late 20’s who had gauges of the ears when she was younger. Despite removing these her earlobes still had a deformed appearance. She was no longer comfortable with the appearance of her ears. She had recently moved to a new area and felt that people were judging her based on the appearance of her gauges, and this no longer represented how she wished to present herself. She is shown before and again, 3 months after gauges repair in the office under local anesthesia. She is thrilled with the new appearance of her ears. Scars will typically fade over the next 2 years. I re-pierced her ears for her in the office and she is thrilled to be able to wear normal earrings.

A 72 yo woman with a lentigo maligna melanoma/ melanoma in situ of her left temple and forehead with a large defect after modified Mohs excision by the dermatologist. I reconstructed her with a full thickness skin graft from the left neck. She is shown just after modified Mohs and again, 18 months after surgery. The color match of the neck skin is good on the forehead and the scar just above her collarbone on the left is difficult to see.

A 16 year old woman with a partial cleft of her left ear. After discussions it may be from sleeping with her earrings in at night. She is shown before and again, 3 months after repair of her cleft earlobe under local anesthesia in the office. Scars typically get thicker and pinker for 6 seeks after surgery and then begin to fade and improve over the next 2 years. By 3 months her earlobe is ready to be repierced.

40 yo Indian woman with bilateral stretching of her earlobe holes and a drooping appearance of the earlobes. Her right lobe was looser and droopier than the left. An earlobe lift was marked in the office by swinging the earlobe back and forth past an imaginary central point and marking a precise wedge to be removed. She is shown just before and again, 3 months after her surgery when she returned to have her ears re-pierced in the office. Scars will typically continue to fade and improve for the first 2 years. Because she tans easily, she is more prone to “post inflammatory hyperpigmentation”, a darkening of any scar that is still pink when it is exposed to the sun. She will need to continue to protect her earlobes from exposure to the sun over the next 12 months.