Facelift

Q: Dr. Eppley, I’m wanting to get a post tragal incision from a facelift reversed to create the incision in front of my ear to re-expose more of my ear. Can this be done?

A:Thank you for sending the excellent pictures which show the transposition of facial skin up onto the tragus of the ear from your facelift surgery. It is easy to see the very dramatic difference between the thinner skin of the ear and the thicker hair-bearing skin of the face. This has resulted in loss of the ear-facial skin demarcation as well as the natural buffer of non-hair bearing skin in front of the ear. You can not really reverse the effects of the facelift on the ear per se as the natural tragal skin has been removed during the facelift and replaced with the facial skin flap. All you could do is remove the facial skin from the tragus and replace it with a full-thickness skin graft from the back to the ear. Whether this would be considered an improvement is open to debate as this has the potential to create a bit of a patch-like appearance based on  how the skin graft heals. It may also look fine but it is all in how the skin graft heals.

Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana