Are you considering otoplasty? First things first – otoplasty is surgical manipulation or reconstruction of ears that are too prominently splayed In other words, otoplasty surgery fixes prominent ears.
If you all too clearly remember a childhood marred with taunting and teasing from other children because of your prominent ears, an otoplasty procedure at this stage cannot undo those memories, but it can help you to feel more confident about how you look NOW.
Otoplasty is the surgical procedure known familiarly as ear pinning. While that sounds somewhat medieval, it’s nothing of the sort; the ears are not pinned, or stapled, or nailed down in any way.
What occurs is that a cosmetic surgeon will remove a small sliver of skin from behind the prominent ear and then suture the skin flaps together. In some instances, if the ear protrusion is not so pronounced, the surgeon will not have to remove a skin flap at all; merely a bit of suturing will suffice.
The surgical procedure, which may take up to two hours or so depending on the complexity of the ear reshaping needed, can be done either with local anaesthesia, or under general anaesthesia. Which type of anaesthesia is chosen will depend on several factors; generally, the younger (or more fidgety or nervous) the patient, the more likely the choice will be general anaesthesia.
After the procedure, the head is usually wrapped in a secure bandage so that the ears are given time to heal. The sutures will either dissolve naturally, or be removed within a week or two.
Some people consider otoplasty surgery as an operation for children only but in Ireland today the reality is that this procedure knows no age limits.
Occasionally the otoplasty procedure is not only for ear pinning, sometimes a more complicated re-modelling procedure needs to be undertaken. This can happen if the ears are sized differently from each other.
Whatever your reason for otoplasty, this cosmetic surgery can be confidence-enhancing, no matter what your age.
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