Lower Eyelid Surgery One Year Ago and I Have These Suture Marks (train Tracks) Scars Under my Eye? (photo)

Your scars underneath your eyelid appear significant.

You may want to consult a surgeon with considerable midface (cheek lift) experience who uses lasers on a daily basis for your options.

Your next step will be very critical.  Only select the very best at this point if you decide to have revisional work on your eyelids.

Those suture marks are the result of having lower eyelid blepharoplasty done from the outside where an incision was made and skin was overlapped with stitches. When it healed, you developed these marks.

When someone has adequate skin, my approach in removing the stitch scars would be to excise the skin that has the marks or at least much of it as possible. Sometimes, we can improve this area with laser but because the skin is so thin, it’s a very tricky thing to consider given that you also have retraction and ectropion.

You’re dealing with an issue where there are multiple problems in terms of tissue availability. That means if your eyelid is rotated out, there can be a skin shortage so you need more skin. If it is retracted, then the middle layer of the skin needs some vertical height. So you might need more than just dealing with these suture marks, but this dependent on your perception of your cosmetic outcome as well as how aggressively you want to deal with the functional aspect. In ophthalmology, having eyelids that function well is critical for eye health. So it’s surprising to me that you are not concerned about symptoms related to tearing or dry eye.

Your concern about the mark is of course important but I think in the big picture, the position of your eyelid in relation to the health of your eye is a more significant and needs to be addressed. My suggestion is to consider a strategy to help address the eyelid retraction and ectropion. I would recommend visiting an oculofacial plastic surgeon with a lot of experience in this area particularly in the cosmetic area. I hope that was helpful, and thank you for your question.

Thank you for your question and photo. Unfortunately you have significant scarring on the skin surface and within the eyelid tissues. This is causing lid retraction and ectropion.  Lasers and chemical peels will not help and may be harmful.  I would recommend consultaiton with a Plastic Surgeon experienced in lower eyelid reconstructive procedures. You will need a canthoplasty with or wihtout a  cheek lift and lid spacer graft.  You may also benefit from skin grafting or flaps to improve the appearance of the skin. Best wishes on your recovery.