How Safe is a Cheek Lift for Eyelid Correction?

The following is my opinion. I have lectured on this very point to plastic surgeons at international conferences. The Mid-Face Cheek lift is my favorite procedure due to its elegance and power in transforming the facial shape from aged deflation to curved youth. As we age,almost all of us lose facial fat. The pockets of fat in the face are not united, but rather separated by thin walls of collagen. As they go horizontally across our face in our youth, deflation results in the more... more

Laila, a cheeklift is designed to improve the apearance of the lower eyelid and the skin just below it in the upper cheek region.  It can tighten skin and minimize any bulging fat bags.  It may have a small effect on the nasolabial fold (smile crease), but it is subtle.  It will have no effect on the upper eyelid skin excess, but upper lid blepharoplasty is often combined with a lower lid cheeklift in the same operation.  The operation can be safely performed in the... more

A cheek lift (also referred to as midface lift) treats the area from the lower eyelid down the cheek to about the level of the bottom of the nose. It does not affect the upper eyelids. Perhaps your surgeon is also proposing some form of eyelid surgery as well? You should clarify the expectations of the surgery with him before the surgery to make sure you are both on the same page. Unfortunatley, in order to make a recommendation of what I think the best procedure is for you, I would need... more

The main indications for a cheek lift are to improve the grooves from the nose to the corner of the mouth, give the appearance of higher cheek bones , fill the grooves at the bottom of the lower eyelids, and improve the contour of the lower eyelid margin. Upper eyelid surgery can be done during the same procedure, but the cheek lift will do nothing for the upper lids.

 A cheek lift can recruit volume back into the lower lids and make them look somewhat better but it has absolutely no role in upper lid rejuvenation.  This requires an upper blepharoplasty and occasionally a browlift.