Many times patients come to see me at Advanced Concepts in Plastic Surgery in Sacramento and they don’t like the way their eyes look.  They know that they look heavy, tired, full, squinty, and request eyelid surgery and sometimes even think they need a full facelift.   In reality, what they need is a brow lift.

In some people the brow skin stays tight for a lifetime.  In others it starts dissent and stretches as early as their twenties.  As the brow drops the upper eyelids also drop and make the eyelids look full or droopy.  The best way to check this is to put a finger on the brow and lift directly upward to see how much the brow contributes to the look of the eyelid.  If the brow is the main factor in the appearance of the lids, eyelid surgery alone is never enough for good results, therefore, a brow lift is needed.  In fact aggressive eyelid surgery when a brow lift is needed can make a future brow lift impossible because the eyes may not close.

So if a brow lift is needed, which one will work the best?  Like most things in plastic surgery there are many choices.  The best choice for most people is the endoscopic brow lift: five small incisions behind the hairline.  A TV camera is put in the incisions to help separate the skin from the bone, the skin is pulled up just the right amount and reattached at a higher spot.  There is no skin removed and a tiny amount of hair is cut to close the incisions of the brow lift.

However if the patient has a high hairline you don’t want to pull that even higher.  Therefore, for these brow lifts, the incisions are made right at the hairline so the scar is hidden by the growing hair.  Therefore the skin is lifted, pulled, and just the right amount is removed.  What this does is lift the brow and make the high forehead a normal size at the same time.

A brow lift surgery is just like all plastic surgery procedures, anatomy dictates everything.  The right procedure for the right anatomy gives the right results.