Will Custom Cheek Implants Restore My Face?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am interested in custom cheek implants.  I has severe sleep obstructive apnea and it took maxillomandibular advancement surgery where both jaws were advanced about 8 MM) to finally cure me.  As you can from the attached photos the maxillomandibular advancement surgery changed my face for the worse. Some people do not recognize me, others say I really aged and others say I look totally different. Other people on the internet that had maxillomandibular advancement surgery for sleep apnea say that they got there face back by having cheek implants put in. I would like to augment my cheeks in the best way and have other procedures and/or fillers to get me looking at least as good as I was before the sleep apnea and maxillomandibular advancement surgery.

A: The current state of your facial skeleton/appearance is rather classic when the upper and lower jaws are significantly moved forward when there is no natural malocclusion. These osteotomies are done below the level of zygomas (cheeks) and thus they create a relative state of upper midface/cheek deficiency as there is now a big forward step off between the zygoma and the maxilla as opposed to the reverse step off that normally exists. Cheek and/or cheek-infraorbital rim implants are the logical solution for this induced facial skeletal deformity. There are arguments to be made for either using preformed or custom cheek implants for your midface restoration. But the very altered bing anatomy does make an argument for the custom approach.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana