27 Years Old with Protruding Ears. Greenwich, CT

So I've finally decided to get this done after years of deliberation. I feel great about it so far, will update as the process continues, as of now I am set for surgery on the 18th of November with a pre-op sit down with the doc this coming Monday, the 26th of Oct.

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So I've met with Dr. Baroody for the 2nd time, once again, he was helpful and awesome to talk to.

Essentially, I have an enlarged Concha bowl, one side is even a little more enlarged then the other. Dr. Baroody says he will make 3 incisions, a tiny on on the front side of the helix, which if I recall correctly is to reset the ear memory that way it doesn't come back into the "natural" position it has gotten use to in the last 27 years.

A second incision is made in the back of the ear behind the Concha bowl and he will remove a small crescent moon shaped piece of cartilage from each ear, which will reduce the size of my overall ears and give way for the 3rd incision which is needed to place the permanent sutures behind the top of my ears, from there he adjust to sutures to my desire and this suture will hold the ear in its new "natural" position.

I'm extremely excited to be finally going through with this, and very happy with who I chose to preform the surgery. Unfortunately surgery is 3 weeks away, so there will be no more updates until then, but as soon as I am done and not in too much pain I will update accordingly.

So, I'm two days removed from surgery, and for starters let me say this, the procedure is 100% pain free, minus a few pricks of the needle to administer the anesthesia. It goes by relatively quick, especially if you can chat it up with doc, which I did. I will also suggest the local anesthesia route for anyone interested in this procedure, due to the fact that you can decide how far back you want your ears, for instance, Dr. Baroody's initial positioning of my ear made a weird C shape, that I wasn't particularly fond of, so I was able to have them pushed back a little more at the top.
Operation was relatively quick, I was in at 1:15pm and out at 2:55, I got to see the finished product before my entire head was wrapped and I can say that I am pretty optimistic for how they turn out over the next week or so. I then had my friend drive me home, which I come to find out wasn't really necessary, as i felt just fine to drive, but no harm no foul.

The first day is by far the worst!!! This is not an over exaggeration, I've broken bones and teeth that have been less painful, I was prescribed Hydromorphone, and I took 2 every 4hrs round the clock, I'm not sure if they worked, because it still hurt like hell, but if they did, I cant imagine what the pain would have been without em. I couldn't sleep, or eat much due the jaw movement causing pain in the ears, the meds made me very nauseous, and caused a weird high, that made me loopy but not tired enough to fall asleep. I've also NEVER been a back sleeper, exclusively on my sides, so that was another issue, in the end, I dealt with the pain, watched TV for hours upon hours, ate soft foods like yogurt and soup, and finally fell asleep.

Next day the pain had subsided by about 80%, I had a 10am to remove the wraps, this was relatively quick appointment, walk in, cut off wraps, clean up the blood, put ointment, then a velcro strapped headband, and I was out the door and back home. I spent the entire day on the couch again, sleeping on and off.

Today, I feel much better, I woke up early as usual, I went out and did grocery shopping, with a generic black headband on, pain is almost non existent. That's really all I can really say about my experience with the procedure as of now.

I know more people are interested about how the procedure turned out, but I don't want to lie to anyone and say that it did or did not work. My ears are still extremely swollen and bruised, they look horrifying, the positioning looks good, but they're larger then they were before because they are still healing. Dr. Baroody says by Sunday, I should see a significant difference and they should look close to normal. I can kind of envision that if and when they become the same size (in terms of thickness) and color as my ears used to be, they will look really good, and then I can for certain say weather or not this operation was a success, for now though, I'm left in dark just as you all are.