Hope and Common Sense...

If you are reading this and you have been harmed by a bad surgery, it can be extremely difficult to navigate a path forward. A path to health and healing. The trauma you have experienced has affected your ability to trust your judgement. You might even think you are going crazy with all the emotional and physical pain, grief, and shame. Not to mention the regret that can paralyze you going forward in finding a reconstruction surgeon that can help (not hurt you further).

Here is what I know to be true. You can't languish in the situation you currently find yourself. You can live in misery or you can choose to try and climb out of the darkness. Covid restrictions and finances can be high obstacles to overcome. Believe me, I know. But, if help is made available to you, please consider yourself lucky.

Here is where I hope my story can be of some help. In July 2019, a plastic surgeon performed an upper blepharoplasty that left me unable to close my eyes. In addition, the aesthetic result looked terrible. This was the first surgery I had ever had in my life. I was told it was simple and common. No sweat. Ten to fourteen days downtime and back to life.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth. As soon as I realized I was in terrible trouble, I found Dr. Steinsapir on Realself. I called Faith and she listened while I wept. She calmly explained how I could begin to move forward. That there is help.

First, you send a photo so Dr. Steinsapir can decide if he can help. This is free of charge and a very important part in the process. These folks have integrity. They will not say they can help if, in fact, they cannot. Some surgeons I looked in to would offer a Skype consult for a fee. This seems backwards to me. To my mind, photos can be just as effective in determining a possible course of action and there really is no substitute for an in-person consult. Especially when that consultation is as extensive as Dr. Steinsapir's.

I mean, if the goal here is to not be harmed further, I wanted to choose a surgeon who was the polar opposite of the confident, arrogant, ignoramus who devastated my body and mind the first time around.

This is what I found in Faith and Dr, Steinsapir. She spent countless hours on the phone with me answering questions if she could and nurturing my broken spirit. And while Dr. Steinsapir makes no promises, he said he could, in fact, help. Dr. Steinsapir has a quiet humility about him. I see this as someone who is so experienced and so skillful that he doesn't need to boast. Quite the opposite of my first surgeon. Dr. Steinsapir under promises and over delivers.

My reconstruction was in July 2020. It was tailor-made to my specific circumstance. I was frightened for sure. Trust issues still lingered within me. I leaned on my husband when making the first decision to move forward with surgery. It can be very helpful to have an advocate without a traumatized brain to help you choose the right path.

My husband and I are over the moon with the results. I was going to wait a full year before writing a final review, but after 7 months of healing, I can report that not only do my eyes look better than before my original surgery, they close when I sleep and my dry eye is approximately 80% improved. All this and I still have more softening of the tissues and muscle strength restoration to come.

I didn't always, but I believe now that I will make a full recovery. In my darkest times when I, like you, were just pouring over reviews trying to decipher which way forward, I could not ever imagine the results I have achieved. This was only made possible with the knowledge and care of Faith, the competence of Dr. Steinsapir, and the unending love and patience of my husband... Well, all of that... and TRUST!

the two things I was desperate for after a disastrous upper blepharoplasty in 2019 which left me with the inability to close my eyes properly and severe dry eye. Complicating matters, this procedure was performed when I was actively being treated for Graves' disease which my original plastic surgeon did not warn me against.
Not doing eye surgery on patients with thyroid eye disease is just one of the tidbits I learned from Dr. Steinsapir and his office manager Faith. I was fortunate to have found them on RealSelf soon after I realized my original surgeon did not know what went wrong and would no longer be of help with my healing going forward.
It's starts with a phone call. I hung up the first time I called, too embarrassed to tell anyone what I had allowed to be done to my eyes, but Faith called back immediately and asked how she could help. I spent the next hour recounting my story the entire time. Faith was calm and kind throughout the call. She has seen and heard it all through the years. These two have decades of experience and it shows. She asked me to send some photos and promptly responded that Dr. Steinsapir would be able to help. To what degree could not be assessed until I set up a consultation. The soonest they could get me in was 3 weeks later. This was the longest 3 weeks of my life. I was terrified that my eyes would never heal, never close, never be the same. Faith was there for me every step of the way. Any questions or concerns I had during this wait were just a phone call or email away. I was in a very dark place and she saved my life, full stop. My consult finally came on Sept. 11, 2019 and my husband and I were blown away with the care and detail taken with my eyes. Dr. Steinsapir and Faith spent three and half hours with us. Dr. Steinsapir explained what was going on with my lids and my thyroid. He did so calmly and in terms a layperson could understand. He also let us know that I would have to wait for revision in order for it to be done correctly. It gave me the impression that he is truly interested in doing what is right for me and not rushing me into surgery before I'm ready. Had I chosen him as my initial surgeon, I'm sure I wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. While awaiting revision, he gave me a plan of action which included suggesting psychiatric care. I think this is important to mention because I feel he is concerned about my entire well being, not just my eyes. I followed his medical advice and sure enough, the healing began. My mental state improved. My eye function improved (not 100% just yet), and I was on the road to recovery. As I live relatively close (1 hour flight), I elected to have another check up in December. Again he spent almost 3 hours with us and re-evaluated my eyes to see how the were healing and tailor-made a plan for function and aesthetics. There seems to be no "cookie cutter" procedures performed by Dr. Steinsapir. Everything is tailored to your needs and nothing is pushed on you. I found him to be very conservative in his approach to fixing my eyes.
The long and short of it is that Dr. Steinsapir and Faith exude knowledge and common sense. That gives me the confidence that I will be in very caring and capable hands when it is time for my revision.
My husband and I cannot thank Dr. Steinsapir and Faith enough for restoring our faith in the medical community and giving us a chance at a normal life again.