Can Cheek Implants Lift Sagging Tissues After Cheekbone Reduction Surgery?

Q: Dr. Eppley, a while ago I had asked you about cheekbone surgery and expressed the concern about sagging. After some time I am now thinking if it could be an option for me to do the cheekbones surgery to reduce the width and then subsequently get cheek implants in order to take care of the sagging and any loss of frontal cheek projection, if it occurs. However I still came across a couple of people telling me that ‘some other people they contacted’ did not get any improvement in sagging despite getting a cheek implant. I wanted to confirm from you if this has been your experience or this has come under your knowledge. I am willing to take the long road of getting cheekbone reduction and then cheek implants to do away with their portruding width, but I want to know if it is true that even getting implants afterwards the reduction does not do away with the sagging. 

Also, I won’t like implants exactly where I get the cheekbones reduced, since then it would be of no meaning. I want to reduce the cheekbone width, but maintain the projection and do away with the sagging with an implant on the front later. Please let me know your insights and guide me one more time, I’d be really grateful, thank you!

A: Like all types of upper midface implants, their lifting effects are limited and are related to their size and placement location. The midface implants that are most likely to. have any lifting effect are those that are placed through a lower eyelid incision where the cheek tissues are lifted on top of them during closure. It is a fallacious concept that any type of cheek implant placed intraorally would have a lifting effect unless they were massive in size.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana