Eyelid Retraction Surgery Case Study: 1-Week Post-Op (Unilateral Surgery)

Eyelid Retraction Surgery Case Study: 1-Week Post-Op (Unilateral Surgery)

This post focuses on a specific case of unilateral eyelid retraction surgery.

Generally, when performing retraction surgery or ptosis correction, the standard principle is to operate on both sides to achieve better symmetry.

However, there are occasional cases where surgery is performed on only one side.

Personally, I opt for unilateral surgery in the following situations:

• When performing early correction after a bilateral surgery
• When adjusting asymmetry during a follow-up (A/S) procedure
• When achieving perfect symmetry is inherently difficult regardless of the approach

In this patient’s case, the eye on the right side of the photo (the patient’s left eye) opens wider, which caused the patient to feel discomfort in the eye on the left side of the photo (the patient’s right eye).

However, the patient requested surgery only on the right side of the photo (the patient’s left eye). This was based on the expectation that Hering’s Law—which affects the contralateral eye—might help balance the eye sizes symmetrically.

This is a magnified photo taken from a different angle. The patient noted that the inner corner (anterior portion) appeared slightly more retracted, looking overcorrected. This is the area indicated by the arrow.

Looking at the pre-operative state in the video, it is clear that one eye opens significantly wider and does not close completely.

While retraction due to ptosis overcorrection can prevent the eye from closing, in this case, the inability to close fully is due to the effects of repeated surgeries.

Immediately after surgery, there is some swelling and the eye may appear slightly large, but it typically settles into place as the swelling subsides.

This is the appearance 1 week after surgery. The eyes have become much more similar in size.

The swelling of the double eyelid fold itself will take more time to resolve, and the degree of eye closure will return to the patient’s baseline level.

We plan to continue monitoring the progress consistently.

These are the pre-operative and post-operative images.

The surgery appears to have been successful.