Surgery to Get Wider Eyes? (photo)

The only surgery that could benefit you is a conservative upper lid blepharoplasty for oriental eyes. Your eyes will look more open because the excess skin of the upper lid is removed this excess skin by some optic illusion makes the eyes look smaller than they are. It is not possible to widen the eyes and you do not need ptosis surgery.

If by "widening" your eyes you mean to have them be a bit more open vertically, then subtle ptosis surgery might be an option for you. However if you mean you want to horizontally widen them, then this is not a great idea. As mentioned previously, the scars cannot be hidden well, and the chance of an unsightly scar is not worth the possible benefit, in my opinion.

These are procedures that are getting thrown at Asian patients but the results are not good unless you have an unusually loose lower eyelid or disinserted lateral canthal angle.  It is possible that medial epicanthoplasty would be helpful but it is high risk.  By that I means that it places a scar in a very visible place on your face.  Some of these surgeries are brilliant.  Others are disasters.  I do not believe that surgeons have complete control over the healing process that determines which way the surgery goes so it is hard to be enthusiastic about the procedure.   Ptosis surgery might be beneficial for you but the only way to assess that is through an in person consultation.  Please be careful out there. 

I totally agree with Dr. Steinsapir that these procedures are only indicated in patients that have functional issues.   Widening the eyes is not possible.  We are born with our own eyelid  horizontal measurements and a canthoplasty will shorten not lengthen and eyelid as well and in some cases denervate the nerve over time.   There are small procedures you can do to create optical illusions, like opening up the brows with Bo-tox.  Surgery on upper eyelids etc......Hope this helps...Dr. Boxrud  

thank you for the questioned van fan

in general what you're interested in doing is accomplished through either a canthoplasty or canthopexy. In either case and younger people this is usually not that effective. The changes that you see from it may last a few weeks or even several months but eventually goes away. The other issue is that there are lots of surgeons out there who described their experience in Asian eyelid surgery and tell you they can perform one of these two procedures quite easily sometimes with significantly negative results. Just ensure that you visit a surgeon who operates on the Asian eyelid day in and day out before proceeding and make sure you get several consultations with facial plastic surgeons or oculoplastic surgeons.

Chase Lay, MD

double board-certified Asian facial plastic specialist