John F. Reinisch, MD

Your ears should look pretty normal a week after surgery. If the rim doesn't improve, it is possible to correct, but would wait about 3 months to from surgery to give your ears every chance to improve withut additional surgery.

Secondary repair can be done.  I would need to see photos of your ears to know what is needed and if improvement is likely with another surgery.

Cartilage does tend to become stiffer with age.  Stiff cartilage has a greater tendency to relapse after otoplasty.  For that reason, weakening the front of the cartilage to more effectively allow backward folding is a common technique.  I generally use an otobrader to score the anterior cartilage on most otoplasty patients if the antihelical fold is not present or needs to be better defined to move the upper portion of the ear inward.

There is no standard approach to ear cartilage harvest. The amount of cartilage, and the location of the skin incision (front or back) varies.  The donor ear should not look different after cartilage harvest.

Your left ear is probably smaller than your right ear without a canal.  The condition is called microtia and aural atresia (absent canal).  Your hearing has a conductive hear loss on the left side which makes it more difficult to locate sound direction and hear in noisy environments.

Both the canal and the outer ear can be reconstructed. It is possible to reconstruct the ear in a single surgery.

If you are only interested in improving your hearing, you can either get a CAT scan of your temporal bone to determine your suitability for a canal or uses a bone conducting hear aid.  The hear aid can be tested by wearing it with a strap to help you decide if you like it.