Deep indent along the ear lobe - can this be fixed? 5 months post deep plane facelift. (photo)

It is an open secret that general plastic surgery residencies provide poor training in facelifts. Facial plastic surgeons get much more training in fellowship.  Plastic surgeons have to overcome this lack of training in order to deliver a consistent and acceptable facelift.  Some do this by completing an aesthetics fellowship after residency.  Some seek preceptorships and other less formal mechanisms to fill in this gap. Others simply hang out their shingle and either figure it out or have their issues. To avoid a pixie ear deformity, an anchor suture is needed to keep the facial skin from tugging back on the ear.  There are well established techniques for this.  While this can be revised, it may be sometime before it would be realistic to do this.  Part of the problem is how much skin has been removed from the face.  It is unlikely that you have enough skin to permit the ear to relax back to a normal location and then closed the gap that will exist at the edge of the face.  Over time, the skin does stretch out and that will eventually create the opportunity to repair this.  In the mean time do what many women do to hide these poorly constructed facelifts with earrings and a change in hair style.

Thank you for your question.  Sorry you are disappointed with the results of your procedure.  The indent in front of the ear lobe could be easily corrected with a small injection of hyaluronic acid filler.  The smoothing effect of the filler will last for about a year.  A longer lasting option would be to use fat grafting procedure.  This would be just as effective as temporary filler, and would last for many years.

This deformity is common.  You should see if your surgeon can correct it with an in-office procedure.