LazybumtToT ✌: January 2015

It's been one month since my double eyelid surgery and I have gathered a few tips on how to care for your eyes for optimal results. Let's jump right into it, shall we?

Day 1: Day of Surgery
You won't feel much pain/ discomfort during surgery and a few hours following surgery. However, as the anesthesia wears off you will start to feel miserable due to the fresh wounds and swelling. During this time it is CRUCIAL to ice your eyes. Ice as frequently as possible. I cannot stress this enough, if you are diligent with icing, your eyes/ face will thank you. Trust me on this one. Also, try to elevate your head at all times, lift up or pillows and sleep in a semi-upward position ( I know it sounds super uncomfortable but for the sake of healing, try to stay up right as much as you can). Secondly, make sure you use the antibiotic ointment and pills your surgeon gives you. This will prevent infections since you have fresh wounds. You don't want to develop an infection and have to deal with that, on top of your already wounded eyes. And try to stay away from salty food, salt will retain water in your body, causing more swelling.

Day 2-5: Post-Op
For a few days following surgery, you will be VERY swollen. Especially the second and third. During this time, again, it's very crucial to ice your eyes. Ice as frequently as possible and make sure to continue to take your antibiotics and apply antibiotic ointment. Have lots of rest as well as you do not want to strain your eyes.

After 5 days:
Your swelling should be subsiding rapidly and your eyes should look a lot better already by this time. You can start using warm compress during this time for bruising. You may find that the skin around your eyes will look yellowish or reddish due to lack of circulation and bruising. Warm compresses will stimulate circulation thus breaking down the discoloration. Also try to look up as frequently as you can (even if you feel like it's hard to do so at this point), this will help with the overall shape of the crease.

After removal of stitches:
By day 7, your surgeon should have removed your stitches. You may find that along the incision line you find little bumps and a lot of redness. This is normal. Don't freak out or panic and complain to your surgeon as all of this is normal and will subside with time. You may also find that that scarring is very apparent in the inner corners. This is also normal. This will also subside with time. Fresh scars usually look reddish, overtime they will turn white. When they eventually turn white they will look minimal and can usually be covered with makeup (concealer, foundation etc). After your stitches are removed make sure you are still doing the "lifting" motion of your eyelids by staring straight up into the sky as frequently as possible. Continue to use warm compresses and at this time you can start using a scar gel (although it is not crucial). Your swelling should subside rapidly after the stitches are removed and you should see a drastic improvement within the next few days. Also, you can start wearing makeup a few days after the removal of stitches, although I would recommend holding off as long as you can.

After 2 weeks:
By this time most of your swelling should have subsided and scarring should have improved quite a bit. However, you won't look perfectly normal just yet. You may notice some residual swelling and some scarring, but again, this is totally normal. Have patience and over time they will go away. You may start "massaging" the areas where you see excessive scarring. This may be along the incision line as well as the inner corners (if you had epicanthoplasty). Apply something so that you are not creating too much friction on the skin (some kind of ointment, scar gel, or oil). Gently press along the incision line and also the inner corners. Do this for about 10 minutes, and a few times a day. This will help keep the scar tissue flat and soft. Your doctor may also administer a cortico-steroid (Kenalog) shot to help soften the scar tissue as well. Prolonged usage of cortico-steroids may cause skin atrophy (thinning of the skin due to loss of collagen/ elastin). So I wouldn't recommend doing this frequently. Short term usage of this should be alright if administered carefully and any "damage" done should be temporary and should revert itself with time. Definitely massage the scars though, it really helps!

By one month your eyes should start to look really good. Continue to massage them and always keep them clean. As the days go on they will look better and better. I hope this post can help some of you during the depressing times post surgery. Good luck!

Before I start this post I want to get a couple of things out of the way. First and foremost, please don't post anything offensive or stupid because your stupidity will not be tolerated. This topic can be sensitive to many and your insensitivity is not appreciated. We only promote love and unity here haha. I don't want to go into too much detail in regards to what counts as stupid comments, we should all know how to be respectful and accepting of other people's choices.
Secondly, many of you know that I had the non-incisional double eyelid method done in China a little over a year ago. However, the results were very temporary (despite the reassurances from the doctor who had performed it) and in less than a year's time my eyelids reverted back to the size they were before surgery. (Insert angry face here.) Imagine how upsetting that is, going through all that trouble and only ending up with a temporary fix that didn't even last a year. *SIGH*. I don't even want to talk about that any more. Let's just forever bury that memory and never think about it again. -_- For those of you out there who are contemplating which method to get, I would hands down say just get the full incisional method since it'll definitely be more rewarding once all the healing is done.

Okay, now that we have those things out of the way, let's jump right into today's topic - full incisional double eyelid plus epicanthoplasty.
To be honest, although I've done a lot of research on the different methods of double eyelids and read through many befores and afters from other people I never really did a thorough research on the different practices that offer this procedure. I read through hundreds of pages of comments on Soompi forums but found very little information on actual experiences of people who had gotten their eyelids done in Southern California. I ended up choosing a place called Wave Plastic Surgery & Laser Center in Los Angeles. Going into surgery you never know what you're really getting into because each surgery performed will vary by case to case situations. I know that with anything you do there will be risks of failure, but I was brave enough to just go for it. (I figured if not now, then when?!) There are three doctors at Wave Surgery, two out of the three doctors can perform a full incisional upper blepharoplasty. There's Dr. Peter Lee, who is the more experienced out of the two and, Dr. Goretti Ho, a younger doctor who is just as adequate. I chose Dr. Ho because her price points are more affordable, and due to my not so happy financial statuses right now I really can't afford ~$4,000.00+ on eyelids. Dr. Ho's prices were more comfortable for me, although the initial offer was over $3,000.00 I was able to negotiate for a discount and ended at a price that I was more comfortable with. I don't want to put the exact amount since it'll be different based on each individual but let's just say that it was a bit over ~$2,000.00 (There goes all of my savings :*( tear tear). I had two consultations in the Irvine office (no surgery performed there), one with Natasha back in June, and another one with Dr. Ho in December. We had talked about the shape that I wanted, what the surgery would entail, and of course expenses etc. I figured I'm approaching my mid twenties and if I don't do this now then when am I going to do it? Youth doesn't stick around forever and if not now then I probably won't even need to get it later when I'm old and ugly. JK. But I really wanted this done so I can save the hassle of taping (the reason why I got it the first time) my eyelids every single day and also prevent getting angry all day long at the sight of my droopy eyelids that the first Doctor promised were going to last forever. And so I secured Dec 29th, 2014 as my surgery date. Thought I'd give myself a little Christmas/ New Years present.

A few days before surgery I had to get blood tests done to make sure that my body is suitable for surgery and also take a little supplement (Arnica Montana) that's supposed to help with swelling. 24 hours before surgery I was not allowed to drink or eat anything, so I followed those directions. On the day of the surgery I had to go in a bit earlier to take pre-op photos and be interviewed by their Marketing team. That didn't take that long and before I knew it I was laying on the operating table and everything was in full action! To be honest I really don't remember the details of the surgery. They gave me something in the IV that they hooked me up to and I really can't recall much of the details other than some tugging and MAYBE the smell of my skin burning from fat removal, but really though, I can't remember much. I was at the clinic for over three hours which was longer than I had expected but I doubt the actual surgery took longer than an hour. (I think most of that time I was just resting after the surgery; was totally out of it after everything was done.) When it was time to leave they had scheduled me to come back the next day (Irvine Office) to get shots for swelling. I also already had the antibiotics/ ointment from the week before and I was already taking the Arnica Montana supplement. As we drove out of the parking lot we had to pay $10.00 for parking because they only validate your stay for 3 hrs and since I was in there for a little over 3 hours I had to pay. -_-

It's going to be 1 month tomorrow since surgery and I can say that they are looking better by the day. The swelling had gone down quite a bit although there's still some left. My scars are not as terrible as they had looked in week 1, but again, there's definitely scarring, especially in the inner corners. I also have tiny bumps along the incision line where the sutures were placed but I think all of this is normal and I have patience/ faith that with time these problems will subside. Overall, I really think Dr. Ho did a great job and she was super nice. She really listened to what I had to say and gave me some really good advice. She didn't just take my money and bullsh*t me but really communicated with me on what I wanted and gave me a look that I am happy with. As of now I am content with the progress that my eyes have been making and crossing my fingers that in the future they'll continue to heal well and that they won't drop down like last time. -_- I will include pictures from the day of surgery until recently and also a video (Thank you Alex for sending me footage from surgery) to take you through the day of surgery. If you have any questions feel free to ask me on any of my social platforms (Youtube, Instagram, Blogger). Hope this helped!

Oh before I forget, there was only one complication throughout this whole experience and that happened the day I got my sutures removed. They had squeezed me in on day 7 post-op and for some reason it was a day that Dr. Ho was not at the clinic. Another doctor (I will not mention his name -_-) removed my sutures and I later found out that he doesn't normally take out sutures. SO long story short, he couldn't see very well and left a bunch of sutures in my eyelid. I went home and picked out a bunch of tiny broken sutures...I feel like there's probably more in there that I couldn't get but sigh...let's just cross our fingers and hope they will just peacefully coexist with me for the rest of my life and not cause me any complications. The next day I went in again just to bring this to Dr. Ho's attention and she was very apologetic even though it's totally not her fault. She checked my eyelids again and also gave me some Kenalog shots to soften the scar tissues.