Fat Transfer: Stories

At 41 after 2 kids, I felt like I had lost a lot of volumein my face... especially around my eyes and cheek bones. I felt like I looked much older than I did.

I got an upper and lower blepharoplasty and full face fat transfer from Dr. Karam two weeks and a few days ago. I won't really see the final results for a few weeks, but so far it looks great.

The only negatives are these:

• The donor sites (my outer thighs) are incredibly tender still. I did not expect this and it really does still hurt. I can't lie on my sides very easily.
• There is significant (also surprising) tenderness around my eye socket bones. They really hurt to the touch.
• Looked awful for about 9 days, but then was totally ready to go out with just a touch of makeup on.

The positives are:

• Looks great already and very natural.
• Nobody has noticed, just complimented me on how I look.
• Dr. Karam's office is great and he is just a laid back, but totally focused and nice guy.
• He only does faces and that shows.

Now I am 2.5 weeks out... the eyes have deflated almost back to where they were (though with the blepharoplasty, still much improved). The main goal of the eye rejuvenation was to get rid of the hollowed under eye area. That seems to be close to where it started volume-wise.

The doctor's office said it was only my perception.... but perception or not, I am fairly disappointed with the under eye at this point.

So, I am 7 months out and the results are not good. Under my eyes is kind of lumpy and discolored. The cheeks and temple changes are virtually undetectable. The upper bleph is fine.

Still pretty bummed.

So, I had to go back to Dr. Karam for a redo one year later as every single cell of fat seemed to have disappeared (I think even he would admit this) and there was a fairly deep trench under one eye that curved down into the cheek into a dent. It looks like one eye has an eye bag and when I smile there is a big indentation in the apple of the cheek. The second round did seem to inflate the cheeks a lot, but the eye trench/bag and cheek dent are still there and a bit more prominent. The upper bleph that he did also needed to be redone as the incision he did led to mini bags of skin drooping down on the inside of the eyes near the nose. He fixed this to my satisfaction, but it was head scratchingly sloppy in the first place.

Karam did the redo, but when I sent the photo a few weeks ago of the eye trench and cheek dent, he basically said he hoped I found something good about my fat transfer and if I want to fill the dent I should pay a local doctor to fill it in with Restalyne. He said his definition of success was increased volume, which I have. My definition of success is not looking in the mirror and seeing a giant dent in my cheek and bag under my eye that wasn't there before. I was hoping to look better, not worse. I think that is a reasonable expectation of plastic surgery.

So, it is like here is the beautiful Rolls Royce you just paid full price for... sorry it has a huge dent in the car door. I hope you see the good in driving a Rolls at some point, even though I rammed into something before I delivered it.

I think you can't put yourself out as this world expert on fat transfer with these incredible results and that it people fly in from all over to see you, but then say, essentially, "best of luck to you" when there is a problem with your work. He is a nice guy, but who cares if you get a heart sinking feeling every time you look in the morror. My eye and cheek look like crap and either I have to live with it for the rest of my life, or go to someone else to fix it.