The patient is a 54 year old man who complained of difficulty with his vision, especially in the afternoon and evening. He sought plastic surgery consultation because he thought the reason was that his eyelids were getting in the way of his vision. At consultaion, the patient’s entire eyebrow was covering his pupil and blocking his field of gaze. There was wrinkling of the forehead and Crow’s foot wrinkling and folding of skin in that area. The patient also had a deep fold in the skin between the eye brows at the root of the nose. In addition to the vision blocking problem, the brow descent had created a sullen appearance to the patient and made the patient look as if he was sad and also gave an aged appearance.
The patient had a brow lift and the incision for the procedure was in the hair bearing skin of the top of the head. Because of the tremendous blood flow within the scalp skin, skin healing is quick. Swelling lasts generally for approximately one week and patients can generally return to being in public view in a few days. The laser can also be used to remove wrinkles about the eyes, especially in the Crow’s foot area but this patient simply wished to not have folding of skin in this area and he didn’t want to wear make up for camoflauge of the pink skin of the laser after its use, as women typically do after the laser to hide the skin while it is healing.
As can be seen from this patient’s photographs, brow lifting can change patient’s appearance besides giving function vision improvement. The appearance generally goes from sullen, pensive and even angery, to a look of restfulness and calm. In addition, brow lifts make the patient appear younger because the lift smooths out folded skin and restores the natural youthful lines of the face. With the skin excess moved away from the eye, the natural color and brightness of the eye can be more easily seen and the patient and so the face can even be seen as to be more expressive and better able to communicate expression.
In fact, a brow lift may be a better option in men because it can be less feminizing than removing excess skin of the upper eyelid when hooding of the upper eyelid occurs. A brow lift in men raises the brow but there is still some hooding left to create a natural look which keep the manly look. So its the holowed out look in the upper lid area that can be feminizing in men. This can be avoided by choosing the correct procedure for the patient.
