Is My Custom Forehead Implant Getting Infected?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am now three months after placement of my custom forehead/brow bone implant. I have a weird tingling sensation on the left side of my brow and I’m wondering if ithe implant is getting infected…When I press on it it goes numb.

Thanks.

A: You are undoubtably referring to the supraorbital nerves that exist the brow bone area and supply feeling to the forehead. These sensory nerves lie right up against the implant as you can see in the attached picture of your forehead implant on your brow bones. (arrows) You can see that the implant design was adjusted to account for where the nerve comes out of the bone at the supraorbital notch. On the symptomatic left side the implant and nerve must be directly touching and this is why you can make it go numb if you press on the skin which pushes the nerve down onto the implant. This is not a sign of infection but speaks to the proximity of the implant and nerve which is unavoidable when the brow bones are augmented. Interestingly there is the exact same situation of the right side side and you have no such symptoms.

Whether this will completely resolve I can not say. But for now I would just give it time and see what it does.

Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana