V-Line At Regen is Not Worth It

It’s been a few years since my surgery.

If anybody is curious, I had to ultimately remove the titanium implants my other doctor put in to fix my mandible. They weren’t places in properly. (As a refresher, Dr.Oh cut my mandible so much that my nerves protruded/were cut from the bone. A huge no-no in the plastic surgery world.)

He was actually bold enough to request photos of the nerve damage. I posted the 3D DICOM model of the nerves hanging from the bone on another forum. For some reason I can’t enlarge it, but when I find it on my computer, I’ll post a larger version.

I big finger to that guy. He’s running on a suspended license and has already botched several other patients I’ve been in contact with.

I've spent the past few weeks contacting various doctors about implants and revision genioplasty.

Several doctors have been very helpful in this situation. I can't name them yet (just to be on the safe side) but I'll include them in the remainder of this review once I go under the knife to rectify this.

At this point, the professionals I've spoken have pointed out something I was not made aware of post-operation by Regen's staff (but deeply suspected looking at my scans):

Doctor Oh (or whoever the hell performed my surgery) cut ABOVE my nerve-line.

If you're familiar with jaw surgery, it's common knowledge that cutting that far is UNACCEPTABLE. The goal is to cut as little as possible to achieve the slim jaw effect (or none at all if possible). Nerve damage can cause paralysis. But low and behold... the maxillofacial surgeon I've been in close contact with pointed this out to me on a 3D imaging scan of the DICOM files from my surgery.

I'm lucky I can still move my lips, but it would explain why a portion of my chin is still numb. It would also explain the exposed salivary glands and overall poor quality of the job.

I'm furious. After I've had my revision surgery, I'll upload pictures of the 3D images that show what exactly happened to me.

So some time has passed since my surgery.

I don't think I have anymore swelling - At least that's what other doctors are telling me.

Chin is still about the same shape and width. But that's not the only issue I'm having now. As the swelling disappeared, I began to see just how much of my jawline was removed.

Now the jawline looks immensely unnatural. My salivary glands are not swollen like I initially believed - they've simply been exposed by over-resection of the mandible. A few other doctors have taken a look and agreed - the jawline shave was unnecessary. My pre-op jaw was already slim.

Like I mentioned in my first post, I wouldn't have done the mandible reduction if I knew the doctor was going to remove all of my bone UP TO MY TEETH. And I especially wouldn't have done it if I knew it wasn't going to help contour my chin (as I was lead to believe.)

The reduction has also given me a short lower face (my chin height is the same as my top lip...not good) and the close-cut to my nerve line is going to make it difficult to revise this job safely.

Regen is telling me to use injections to shrink the chin muscle still (???) but I'm positive that won't solve anything. When I pinch the skin down around my chin, the bone still remains the same - proportionally large compared to the rest of my jaw.

When I questioned whether or not Regen had implants available to correct over-resection, nobody really wants to help guide me toward that direction. (I don't expect much anyway, none of these doctors are skilled in custom mandible angle implants.) Instead - I'm told to simply shrink the salivary glands. I'm not being offered any solutions to the actual issues I'm having.

I'm still completely numb on the left side of my chin. No big improvements yet.

As for sagging, I can't answer whether or not I'll experience that as it's only been a few months. Time will tell.

As of now, I'm searching for a Maxillofacial doctor that specializes in custom implants for my jaw-line. I also have to figure out if said doctor is also skilled enough in genioplasty to reverse the 4mm projection Regen gave me and contour the chin the way I originally desired (a round shape rather than square).

Lesson learned - don't accept a doctor that gives 5-10 minute consultations and don't go to Korea for facial surgery. The Before and Afters don't depict the doctors real+ work - and they will not custom tailor v-line procedures for your face (especially if you don't have typically Asian features)