A General Understanding of Facial Contouring Surgery

Beginning,

Because I neglected blog posting for far too long, it is true that starting again now feels daunting and unfamiliar :))

In the meantime, I was commissioned as the author of the revision section on revision facial contouring surgery for the supplement edition of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (published by the Korean Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery), a textbook for board-certified plastic surgeons and trainees, and I recently finally published it as a book!!!

Writing based on personal experience in an official book was, unlike posting on a blog, not something free and easy; in fact, it was very careful and burdensome,

especially when it came to mentioning and explaining revision surgery. It was extremely difficult work because I had to bring to the surface the assessments and problems of cases in which a fellow doctor walking the same path may have performed the primary surgery, explain the surgical direction that board-certified plastic surgeons should avoid, and also present another reasonable way to improve it.

The biggest reason was my caution toward the fellow doctors who may have performed the primary surgery for the people considering revision surgery.

However, I felt that sharing even my limited experience openly and honestly could become an opportunity to reduce trial and error and help junior doctors who are walking the same path, or who will need to walk the path I have walked, develop further.

While preparing this manuscript on revision surgery, the materials that helped me most were the posts I had personally written on my blog over the years.

With that in mind, as I reviewed my past blogs, I deeply reflected on the fact that the content was not well organized, was somewhat rambling, and that the explanations were composed of very rough and difficult terminology and concepts.

Therefore, I thought I should start again with content that is easier to understand and better organized.

Based on the common questions and curiosities I most often encounter in my clinic, I will begin a series on facial contouring surgery.

One of the questions many people ask in my consultation room is,

"How is zygoma reduction surgery different from facial contouring surgery?"

Then I answer like this:

"Zygoma reduction surgery is part of the larger category called facial contouring surgery. It is a subset."

Then they ask again,

"Ah~~~So facial contouring surgery means shaving the bones, that is, surgery that reduces all the facial bones overall (jaw, zygoma, etc.; the three types of contouring surgery), right?"

Therefore, I think it would be better to first organize and explain what facial contouring surgery is and its definition, and then move into the detailed content.

Facial Contouring Surgery is a comprehensive term that refers to surgical methods that change or alter the shape of the face.

The methods used to change the shape of the face range from surgeries that alter the form of the facial bones (Facial Bone Sontouring Surgery) to procedures that change the conditions of the soft tissues (muscle, fat, skin, etc.) covering the bones (Procedures for the facial soft tissue).

Surgery that changes the shape of the facial bones (Facial Bone Contouring Surgery) can include mandibular contouring surgery and genioplasty, which are responsible for the contour of the lower face, and malarplasty, which refines the shape of the zygomatic complex that defines the contour of the middle face; in cases accompanied by malocclusion, orthognathic surgery or two-jaw surgery may also be considered.

The procedures and surgical methods that can change the condition of the facial soft tissues (The Procedures for changing Facial Soft Tissues) can be considered in various ways as follows.

Facial liposuction, fat injection, buccal fat removal, Botox injection that changes muscle conditions, and broadly speaking, lifting procedures or surgeries that pull up sagging skin can also play a major role in changing the shape of the face.

Therefore, if you want to change the shape of your face, it is primarily important to consider the facial conditions in order to determine which of the various methods described above is appropriate.

When I consult with many people who come to see me, there are often cases in which they have a somewhat limited understanding of the elements that make up the shape of their own face.

For example, there are people who come expecting that if their face has "small facial bones," but relatively thick facial soft tissue (with a lot of fat or muscle), reducing the contours of the facial bones will dramatically make the face smaller. On the other hand, there are also many cases where the facial bones are prominent, but the amount of facial fat and muscle is small, and they come expecting that liposuction will bring about many changes.

If you hope for major changes through some kind of surgery or procedure without first having an accurate understanding of your own facial condition, you may end up with great disappointment after surgery and repeatedly undergo unnecessary procedures or surgeries.

To help with understanding, I will explain the facial shape created by the combination of my facial bone structure and soft tissue conditions through 3DCT.

The photo on the left shows the shape of my facial bones, and the one on the right shows the final facial shape produced by adding my soft tissues.

Now I feel like it might be time for another injection of masseter Botox~~~:))

If you are someone who is starting to think about facial contouring surgery,

it is necessary to first understand the elements that make up this final facial shape (the shape enclosed by the skin),

and it is appropriate to understand which components of your own face are overdeveloped and to consider what methods would be suitable to improve those areas.

Sometimes, among people who made a difficult decision after long deliberation and received contouring surgery from me, there are cases where they are disappointed with the changes in their appearance after surgery, but once the swelling has settled to some extent and additional relatively simple procedures such as facial liposuction are performed, their satisfaction becomes very high.

On the other hand, among people who had contouring surgery elsewhere and were even considering revision surgery, I sometimes suggested that we first try buccal fat removal and cheek liposuction. In fact, after those relatively simple procedures, there were also people who said the effect was better than the contouring surgery they had previously undergone.