Custom Facial Implant Revision

Q: Dr. Eppley, I wanted to get an idea of what my options would be should I need a custom facial implant revision should it end up being too big or too wide. How many months after surgery could the implant be reduced in size? 

A: When revising any facial implant it is first important to determine what its final size and shape will be. Thus it takes about 8 to 12 weeks to have all swelling go down, tissue contraction to occur and the patient to psychologically accommodate to the change. This is a process you undoubtably know well from your prior experiences. The other reason for the ‘3 Month Revision Rule’ is the quality of the tissues. Entering too early after surgery in intraoral incisions whose wound edges have not full recovered and returned to normal tissue quality runs a big risk of them not healing when traumatized too soon. As a result the incision may break donw, exposing the implant for which an attempt at secondary wound closure will not work for the same reason it came apart in the first place. It is important to remember that intraoral incisions are not like zippers, they can not be just opened and closed repeatedly in close time intervals and go on to normal healing.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana