[Rari Plastic Surgery] Short-term recovery after lateral canthoplasty: some cases recover quickly without conjunctival swelling.

When people ask, “After lateral canthoplasty, when do you remove the stitches?!”,

and I reply, “We remove them all on day 14 ^^”,

most people are surprised and say, “Two weeks?”

Keeping stitches in for two weeks is not actually easy. However, the reason many patients hesitate to undergo lateral canthoplasty during a short vacation period is often not the stitches, but conjunctival swelling and the red incision scar.

In fact, while observing countless lateral canthoplasty patients, we have seen many different cases: those without conjunctival swelling, those with conjunctival swelling, and among those with swelling, cases that are very severe and cases that are not severe.

When explaining this to patients, we also need to mention the worst possible case, just in case. So we end up speaking more flexibly about the recovery period, swelling, and scarring, and patients come to think of lateral canthoplasty as a “long and uncomfortable surgery.”

However, not everyone experiences such a severe course. The photo above shows the state before surgery and on the 14th day after surgery, on the day the stitches were removed.

It is the day the stitches were removed, but there is almost no swelling, and the red scar at the incision site is not very severe either.

The reason I am showing photos like today’s is because I want to let those who are overly worried before surgery know that cases like this also exist.

The 2-week photo is not yet a completely healed and settled state, so the surgical area is uneven and the outer corners of the eyes are pulled down quite a bit, making it look somewhat like a triangular white-eye appearance. But at this stage, the visible recovery course is relatively good. (The uneven wound surface will become smoother over time, and the outer corners of the eyes will rise slightly from the initial state and look more natural.)

Of course, not everyone recovers this well, so the decision to have surgery should be made carefully.

However, swelling, scarring, and the recovery period are not determined by whether the doctor performs the surgery well or not; you can only know after actually having the surgery.

It is not only severe and difficult recoveries that exist. There are also good recoveries like this one at 2 weeks, so there is no need to be too afraid of lateral canthoplasty.^^