How often does inflammation occur after facial contouring surgery?

Hello, this is Dr. Jo Hyun-woo of Ipcheok Plastic Surgery.

All surgeries involve side effects and complications.

No matter what surgery you undergo, inflammation is one of the possible side effects.

Today, I will talk about the likelihood of inflammation after facial contouring surgery and why it occurs.

�a0 Contour surgery is broadly divided into cheekbone reduction, square jaw surgery, and chin surgery.

In the case of inflammation, infection can occur during surgery, and infection can also occur in the surgical area after surgery.

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To prevent infection during surgery, the operating room must always be kept clean, and the surgical instruments must also always be properly sterilized.

In fact, it is safe to say that infection during surgery is rare.

So why does infection occur after surgery?

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Smoking and drinking are often mentioned as major causes.

When you smoke, blood vessels constrict, and if blood circulation decreases in the surgical area, problems can occur.

Excessive drinking can weaken the body’s immune system, so the likelihood of inflammation after surgery increases.

�a0 The area most likely to develop inflammation after contouring surgery is the cheekbone area.

The reason is that there are fixation pins used during cheekbone surgery, and during the procedure, the sinus area, which contains a lot of infectious material, may be exposed.

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Sinus location

If the sinus opens even slightly, the Normal flora inside our bodies contains bacterial substances that generally do not cause inflammation, but under certain conditions can lead to inflammation.

These bacteria can enter the cheekbone surgical site, and inflammation may spread around the area where the fixation pins are placed.

To prevent this, preventive antibiotics are taken together, but if inflammation develops beyond that, inflammation will occur in the cheekbone surgical area.

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Also, because most facial contouring surgeries are performed through the mouth, inflammation can occur if food gets caught in the incised area inside the mouth.

It is important to suture the surgical site carefully, but if it is stitched too tightly, the scar may worsen, so there is a small amount of space, and food can get into that area.

I have only seen this happen once myself, but while cleaning an inflamed area, I saw something like rice grains.

Therefore, after surgery, it is extremely important to gargle diligently and keep the mouth clean.

If inflammation develops at the cheekbone surgery site, in my case I would immediately reopen the surgical area, clean it, and then replace the fixation pins with new ones.

By cleaning with a solution mixed with a very large amount of antibiotics and fixing new pins again, most patients recover without problems.

If inflammation is left untreated, poor outcomes such as bone resorption or the fixation pins coming loose can occur, so close follow-up is definitely necessary.

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Another possible cause of inflammation is the suture material.

Although dissolvable threads are used for sutures, in my case I remove the stitches to prevent possible inflammation and significant scarring caused by the sutures.

�a0 However, it can be difficult to remove dissolvable threads completely, and in such cases inflammatory cells may travel along the thread into the inside of the surgical area and cause inflammation. If a long time passes, localized inflammation may occur only around the thread area.

�a0 In the case of chin surgery, if a fixation pin is used and a T-osteotomy has been performed, there are also bone fragments. If inflammation occurs in this area, it is necessary to clean it immediately and replace the fixation pin with a new one. Because the cut bone does not receive nutrients smoothly, if inflammation develops, the bone can quickly resorb, so rapid treatment is needed.

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If you look at this photo, you can see that the left side of the chin has resorbed away due to inflammation.

Finally, jaw angle surgery.

Jaw angle surgery is a procedure in which fixation pins are not inserted, so inflammation occurs very rarely.

Also, textbooks state that areas with a lot of muscle in the body do not develop inflammation easily and heal well.

However, inflammation can still occur in the jaw angle area, and even in that case, you can recover again if the area is cleaned properly.

�a0 What symptoms appear when inflammation occurs?

The symptoms of inflammation described in textbooks are mainly four.

Swelling, warmth, pain when pressed, and in severe cases, pus.

If these symptoms are felt about a week after surgery, it may be inflammation.

Therefore, during the recovery process, it is important to check carefully whether these symptoms are present, and if you receive prompt treatment, you should be able to recover quickly.

�a0 As mentioned earlier, inflammation can occur after surgery for reasons we do not always know.

When we obtain consent before surgery, we also receive consent that inflammation may occur.

Rather than thinking, “Why did this inflammation happen only to me?”, it is better to focus on maintaining good oral hygiene and avoiding smoking and drinking for a quick recovery. Then it should be possible to recover without inflammation.

Thank you.

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