Severely receded hairline, baldness, damaged hair & nerve damage

Almost 4.5 years post surgery, I just won my Social Security disability hearing. I was assigned to one of the toughest judges in Seattle - to date in 2017 she has only approved 19% of her cases. All of my doctors were in complete agreement in their reports: my physical therapist, family doctor, surgeon and neurologist: chronic debilitating pain from nerve damage from the coronal brow lift. The MRI scans back it all up. Devastating.

The emotional pain from having a severely receded hairline, baldness and significantly damaged/distorted hair is as great as the physical pain from the nerve damage.

I found this quote from a doctor here on RS in response to a question about the impact of the brow lift: "Your surgeons familiarity with the anatomy will also impact which complications can occur. The list of any surgical complication will be included in your pre-operative discussion with your surgeon."

Please be aware that in some countries, pre-operative discussions and disclosures are optional. In my case, I asked twice about the impact it would have on my high hairline and was assured that any change would be insignificant. Wow. And as for the ear to ear cut, he literally called it a "small cut buried in my thick hair." And as for the half an inch of scalp removal? I guess that little detail was so Insignificant (or perhaps too gruesome?) that he needed to leave it out. His coordinator in LA sent 3 of us down from the U.S. and Canada to have our surgeries with him 3 days in a row and we all recovered at the same place. He gave two of us coronal brow lifts and did not disclose the details to either of us...we were both shocked to find ourselves cut ear to ear after surgery. He characterized it very similarly to both of us: "small cut".

There are so many issues with Coronal Brow Lifts that are presented here on realself, and so many doctors warning people that this procedure is outdated and comes with serious issues. Two years ago a woman posted a couple of heartbreaking photos of a large bald band across her head (https://www.realself.com/question/ct-start-worry-hair-growth-large-coronal-brow-lift-scar) and a wise doctor from Spain posted this in response:

"Coronal forehead/brow lift is obselete nowadays and I am afraid you have been a victim of an outdated procedure. The consequences you have are not a result of a bad execution of the techqnique, they are features of the technique itself. The coronal forehead lift without internal anchors is based on the principle of skin resection and pull backwards, being the closure the support element for the uplifted forehead. The downsides are:
-baldness around the incision, sometimes irreversible
-numbess of the scalp, irreversible
-widening of the scar with great visibility"

Direct brow lifts are also called "antiquated" and "outdated" here on real self, and many doctors will not perform them or will not perform them on women because of the scarring. If you are consulting with a surgeon who tells you that these are the only two types of brow lifts offered, take it as a sign to move on. They need to update their procedures. Same with eyelid surgery: old style was to remove lots of fat, which creates hollow eyes. I'm having surgery this summer with a renowned ocular plastic surgeon in LA who specializes in fixing all of the issues from doctors who are not up to date in their training or should not be operating on eyes at all. I have severe hollowness and a pinched canthus that collapsed the eyelid rim and gave me a small, deformed snake eye. I've already spent over $15,000 trying to correct these issues but I'm confident that the surgeon will do a great job and I anticipate posting another great review for him.

I had surgery three weeks ago to remove the permanent sutures that were anchored behind my left ear on the mastoid and around my jaw bone. My surgeon could feel two knots and she could see the running line, and since it was in the area of the greater auricular nerve, felt it best to remove it. She removed 3.5 inches of running suture that ran up in front of my ear and down below the jaw in the neck. My result three weeks out is that I have less of a choking sensation and I can open my jaw without the stinging pain I was experiencing. My neck is still tight and uncomfortable and I still have a lot of nerve pain from the coronal brow lift but any reduction in pain is welcome. My surgeon says to give this 6-12 months for the nerves to heal. She said that the permanent suture that Dr. Lev used ran in a corset pattern (back and forth). I asked her if this was a common placement in her opinion and she said it's called a "plication" suture and that it is a more superficial way to try to hold up tissues that some surgeons do routinely. She said she tightens the tissues at a deeper level and does not do plications or use permanent sutures.
I'm deeply grateful to Dr. Henderson and will be thanking her with a great review here. She was so skilled and showed so much compassion for the suffering that I have endured. I brought her my before and after photos to show her some of the issues and she said that in my after photos at 5 and 7 weeks, I am completely unrecognizable as the same person (in the negative sense of the word). Yes - disfigured.