Can My Chin Be Reshaped And My Ears Reduced At The Same Time?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I would like to reshape my chin. My chin doesn’t stick out, it just looks boxed look especially when I started losing weight. Also my ears don’t stick out, I feel they look big as in length for my small head. What do you recommend? I have a front and side picture for you to see.

A: Thank you for sending your excellent pictures. Your square chin can be contoured fairly simply through an intraoral approach where the square corners are removed (chin ostectomy) and the chin made more rounder as a result. The vertical height of your ears is a more challenging issue. It can be seen that what makes your ears long is that the upper half of the ear is big compared to the lower half.  While they can be reduced substantially in height, this necessitates a scar which would run across the outer helix in the upper ear area. I am not so sure this is a good aesthetic trade-off. There is an alternative approach for ear height reduction that is done from behind the ear, which leaves no scar on the outside, but it would only reduce the height of the ear a minor amount. So you can see neither approach is ideal, substantial reduction with a scar or minimal reduction with no scar.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana