Hi, It’s Dr. Mabourakh from Folsom Plastic Surgery.
I wanted to talk a little bit about otoplasty. That’s what we do to correct protruding ears. It’s a very common problem. It used to be that we treated these as kids. As they’re going through school, you know young kids they tend to get teased a lot in school, and when they become aware of this, this is when we usually correct protruding ears. But that has changed, now we’re doing it mostly on adults.
It is a very common procedure and easily done in an outpatient setup. It’s about an hour to an hour and a half of surgery in the operating room, and you can have multiple types of anesthesia. It can be done under pure local, maybe a little bit of valium by mouth. Sometimes we do it under sedation, or for people who are very nervous, it can be done under general anesthesia under care of anesthesiologist. The procedure involves correcting two issues with the ears.
When I have a patient with protruding ears you find that they have what we call the cup of the ear is enlarged and it extends out. That’s one part of the problem, but in some people, they’re also missing what’s called antihelical fold. This part of the ear here that also gives shapes to it. Sometime there is none and it really comes out. So, the procedure involves making an incision in the back of the ear, we’ll go ahead and tie the concha, which is the cup of the ear, back to keep it in position. Once that’s done, we’ll go ahead and recreate these folds. Again, coming from the back of the ear, placing some sutures to keep it in place. There are special measurements we do to make sure the two sides are equal, and while doing this now the ear goes back into position so you no longer have to wear your hair down to cover the ears so you can’t see them. Recovery is relatively quick, pain is minimal, return to work the next day or maybe two days later. If you have any questions on this procedure or any cosmetic surgery procedure, please contact the office and we’ll be happy to go over it with you. Well enjoy the rest of these Q & A sessions, hope they are fun.
