Chin Asymmetry

Q: Dr. Eppley, I have chin asymmetry and am looking to get it corrected.  I am a 31 year old trans woman who has been on hormone therapy for about a year. The hormones have significantly feminized my face, however one thing that has been “revealed” in the softening and rounding of the jaw/chin is that one edge of the chin appears to come down a bit more than the other. The jaw is even And the chin “point” is even, it just seems like theres a bit of excess bone on one side. It’s very subtle and the goal would be for no one to notice i had surgery. Please let me know what options you might recommend for going about this in a way thats conservative, and would not affect overall facial proportions (I don’t want a shorter or more rounded chin!, and also i have a somewhat larger nose and wouldn’t want to have a surgery that then required an additional rhinoplasty) Here I have attached some photos to help you get a better idea. All I want fixed is the larger corner of my chin so that it be brought into balance with the other side. I don’t want a chin thats any more “round” OR “square” than what I already have, if that makes sense? In other words, I don’t want anything done to the smaller corner/mid point of the chin. Let me know what you think. Thank you so much!

A: Thank you for sending your pictures. I can clearly see that the one side of the chin is vertically lower than the other side. Your chin asymmetry could be reduced without touching the midline or good side of the chin through an intraoral approach. In doing this from an intraoral approach it would be important to resuspend the mentalis muscle back into place since to get to the very bottom edge of the bone requires some soft tissue elevation. Coming from below through a submental incision makes the surgery easier from a technical and recovery standpoint but there is always the issue of the fine line scar under the chin to do so.

Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana