By Dr. Julia Gotlib
We can achieve optimum results by combining eyelid surgery and filler injections.
Eyelid surgery is the most common facial cosmetic surgery procedure carried out in France and worldwide.
We tend to think that, once surgery has been performed, whether on the upper or lower lids, the expression will stay looking young for many years, as though protected from aging. However, the longest-lasting results are those that have not only been achieved through surgery but also regularly maintained with aesthetic medicine. How? Here is an overview of the techniques that have proven the most effective.
Why prepare for healing before surgery?
Review your lifestyle: stress, alcohol, diet. The first thing to avoid is smoking, as its adverse effect on healing has been clearly proven.
Nourished, hydrated skin will deal with surgery better, and will heal quicker.
A few months before the operation, a skin revitalisation treatment around the eye contour, such as mesotherapy or Skinboosters, will reduce fine lines and boost radiance, while providing the nutrients and vitamins the skin needs to regenerate itself. These treatments pre-empt collagen production and strengthen the tissue structure.
Hyaluronic acid, when injected several weeks or months before surgery, improves the skin quality and boosts healing, by hydrating the cutaneous and subcutaneous tissues.
Finally, botulinum toxin is excellent for relaxing the muscles before surgery, which allows for gentle healing, without any movement-related muscle tension. Botulinum toxin injections also open up the expression and position the eyebrow where we want it to be, and thus adapt the surgery by creating a “toxin effect” over the long term.
In this way, these pre-op treatments enable us to lay the foundations for the face’s future healing.
How to prolong the results after the surgery?
To prolong the results of eye contour surgery, it is vital that we look after the tissues in the eye area.
After upper eyelid surgery, the repeated contractions of the orbicular muscle of the eye – the muscle that causes the tail of the eyebrow to drop – speed up aging in the eye area. By regularly relaxing this muscle with botulinum toxin injections, we can achieve an immediate improvement, and also a longterm one, by slowing down the negative effects of this muscle’s hypertonicity.
The results of lower eyelid surgery, whether it concerns eye bags or excess skin, or both, can also be prolonged with hyaluronic acid injections into the eyelids, the area under the eyes, and the tear trough.
It goes without saying that it is important to maintain good skin quality after surgery. To help the skin to heal properly, it is a good idea to use the latest generation of cosmetics coupled with photomodulation using an LED lamp. You might also have some hyaluronic acid injections and mesotherapy, which help keep the tissues hydrated and radiant, and maintain any volumes.
Surgery alone will correct a number of flaws linked with aging, but by combining surgery with medical treatments both before and after the operation, the skin quality, tissue healing and durability of the results can be vastly improved.
Doctor Julia Gotlib
Dr Julia Gotlib is a cervicofacial surgeon practising in Nice, who specialises in facial cosmetic surgery and aesthetic medicine. She trained at UC Davis (California, USA) and teaches anatomy and botulinum toxin and filler injection techniques at the University of Nice.
