Can Skull Reduction Improve The Shape Of My Melon Head?

Q: Dr. Eppley, my skull has a congenital deformity, which looks like a melon (they say due to premature closure of the skull sutures), which is elongated from the back of the head and protrudes from the forehead and The width of both sides of the skull is small, and this matter has bothered me a lot in these 25 years. During school and in the army, I was ridiculed by others. Even now that I have reached this age, I don’t appear in the crowd much, I don’t have the energy to do anything, and my self-confidence has taken away Is it possible to make my skull rounder?

A: Thank you for sending your head pictures. While you have an elongated back of the head  and some slight forehead protrusion the actual diagnosis would not be a true sagittal craniosynostosis. Probably some lesser variant of it. But diagnosis aside all that matters is what can be done for it which is burring reduction of the upper forehead and back of the head. The question is not whether this can be done but the extent of reduction achievable. This would require a 2D CT scan to assess the thickness of the bone.

Dr. Barry Eppley

World-Renowned Plastic Surgeon