When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting?

Hello, this is Dr. Park Seong-hyeok from Nunhight Plastic Surgery.

When I provide plastic surgery consultations, there are cases where I recommend under-eye fat repositioning surgery and additionally suggest under-eye fat grafting.

Because some people may misunderstand this as simply increasing the cost of the under-eye fat repositioning surgery, I do not often recommend doing both at the same time...

At our hospital, let’s look at how fat grafting helps treat under-eye hollows and dark circles, and why repositioning alone is not enough.

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 1

Treatment for dark circles Have you heard of stem cell therapy? They are all-purpose cells that contain various growth factors. These stem cells can be obtained from bone marrow or fat.

The use of stem cells is still an area that needs more research, but when fat is harvested for fat grafting, not only the fat cells that provide volume but also SVF, which corresponds to growth factors, are included in large amounts.

Because these growth factor components help reduce dark circles, we use fat grafting in the treatment of under-eye dark circles.

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 2 Under-eye fat repositioning + nano fat grafting + 1 laser session for dark circle treatment Can you see that the dark area under the eyes has become narrower in the case above?

Under-eye fat repositioning and nano fat grafting are performed at the same time, and after surgery, once a month, performing under-eye fat repositioning laser treatment is Nunhight Plastic Surgery’s protocol for treating dark circles.

The case below is of a person who underwent BBL and Genesis toning laser treatment up to 3 sessions...

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 3 Under-eye fat repositioning + nano fat grafting + 3 laser sessions for dark circle treatment

Nano fat refers to fat particles that are finer than ordinary fat.

Through a filter like the one below, the fat cells, which are the volume component, are removed, and only the growth factors and SVF components are extracted and used.

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 4 Nano fat kit used at Nunhight

This is a method that can help treat dark circles, while reducing the risk of the under-eye area becoming uneven after fat grafting!

Revision lower eyelid surgery: when too much fat was removed in a previous surgery The principle of lower eyelid surgery or under-eye fat repositioning is to move the eye-bag fat into the hollow area under the eyes...

By moving it like this, the tear trough is filled, and the bulging under-eye fat is also improved.

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 5 Under-eye fat repositioning surgery If shown schematically, it looks like the above.

In the end, if you want to fill a hollow area, you need to have enough protruding fat for that to be possible!

But what if someone had a lot of fat removed in a previous lower eyelid surgery? There would be no material left to fill the hollow under the eyes.

In such cases, tear trough fat grafting is helpful. Shall we look at an example?

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 6 An example of treatment at Nunhight for a person whose Indian wrinkles worsened after a previous lower eyelid surgery In the case above, it may look as though there is a lot of under-eye fat, but upon direct examination, the bulging area turned out to be sagging skin.

After revision lower eyelid surgery, with fat grafting and nano fat, the deep tear trough and Indian band were treated, and this is the appearance 7 weeks later.

Shall we look at another case?

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 7 An example of treatment at Nunhight for a person whose under-eyes became hollow after too much fat had previously been removed This is a patient who had surgery back in the days when too much fat was often removed (link), and this is what they looked like 3 months after Nunhight treated the sagging skin and under-eye hollows with lower eyelid surgery + fat grafting.

As such, when there is not enough material to fill the hollows because of a previous surgery, fat grafting is very useful.

When there is little fat in the face Lastly, at Nunhight Plastic Surgery, one situation in which we recommend under-eye fat grafting together with under-eye surgery is when there is not much fat in the face.

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 8 Appearance 2 years after lower eyelid surgery + fat grafting The case above is my mother, and she does not have much fat under her eyes. The bulging is sagging skin. Therefore, after cutting the tear trough ligament (link) in lower eyelid surgery and repositioning as much fat as possible, fat grafting was performed in the areas that were lacking.

Perhaps because of a family tendency for little facial fat, if I ever undergo surgery myself, I think I would also need fat grafting 😭😭

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 9 Comparison of how I looked in my 20s and my 40s

The case below is another patient who underwent under-eye fat repositioning + fat grafting...

When Is It Better to Have Under-Eye Fat Grafting? image 10 Under-eye fat repositioning + fat grafting: 2 months later The person had too little fat of their own, but a wide hollow area, so treatment was performed together with fat grafting. Compared with under-eye fat repositioning alone, you can see that the under-eye hollow is filled more effectively.

That concludes our look at why under-eye fat repositioning is performed together with fat grafting in procedures for under-eye hollows, along with before-and-after photos.

Did you find this post helpful? I will come back next time with useful plastic surgery information as well.

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