Upper Eye Surgery (With Weekend Laser Assisted Neck Lift - Separate Review!)

Sorry I haven't been back to update but life has been hectic and I decided to bite the bullet and fix my situation.
After seeing a head and neck specialist and talking to my longtime surgeon back in Canada who is also a head and neck specialist, I decided to do the full necklift plus mid facelift. I'm going to sort out all these reviews and link to my new journey, a little fork in the road. Hoping for the best!

Part 2: Neck....
Still depressed a bit and worried it won't work. BUT....BUT....there may be some improvement. It's hard to tell because it's so slow and it changes so much throughout the day. In the morning I'm generally gross looking because of the swelling. Even my eyes are swollen. But as the day goes on things calm down, so....I'm trying to not look at things closely until then.

The right side of my neck was the lumpier side and now it's calmed down. The left side has taken over as the lumpy side, and now I have pretty massive lumps in places. Under the chin there is a mass, and then the area between my two horizontal lines. That is the area that is giving my side angle more of a sloap look. When I hold that area back in the mirror it takes a whole new shape, even with the swelling you can tell I'd be closer to the look I wanted from this surgery. Hopeful, yes, however this lump and swelling area is directly where my platysma muscles show, so....that is also still concerning. The excessive jawling is also very concerning. It just makes me think I'm going to have to get more done to my face as soon as possible before being healed for August. I've been looking more into the suture suspension and they do it for mid face. It's not a long lasting thing, and of course more can go wrong, but....seems like it's my only choice for a time restraint, and if done right, could yield nice results. Even when the sutures are gone, they build up the collagen in the area. More research must be done. The neck suture one is more permanent it seems, and lasts many years. Hmmmm!

Onto the photos. You will see, depending on lighting and angle, time of day, and whether or not I wore compression right before (I'll talk about it in the pictures description) you can see changes in appearance. That's why photos are tricky. They can be taken in a way to manipulate people into seeing bigger results than there is. That's why I never trust photos taken just showing one before and one after. Sooooo many factors play into a photo, and very subtle changes can change the look drastically. Feel free to download two photos, say, from Day 7. You can compare an earlier photo in bad lighting to a photo two hours later in daylight, at a different angle, a slight lift of the chin or the head put forward. Very tricky stuff. That's why I include all angles, all lighting. It's more true to life and shows you the bad side of it!

Well it's been fun lol! One day I'll feel more positive about my neck and worry about my eyes, and the next day or hour even it will be reversed. I guess there is still so much going on!

Part 1: EYES....
The glue was fully off my eye on Sunday (Day 10). I actually woke up Sunday morning scratching my sutures in my sleep! Off came the knots, well done. Ugh. But they seemed ready to be out, especially on the right side. So no harm. I checked with a bit of hydrogen peroxide and there was no bubbling, so everything was closed up. Also, before the glue came off, I found the corner of one itching and pulling, turns out my longer eyelashes were glued a bit to the skin above. I managed to free them carefully with pointy tweezers and then everything was better. Not sure if I wrote that last update, but I went around the whole area freeing up the eyelashes. Big difference.

I realized pretty early on why they say hydrogen peroxide after the sutures are closed....it bleaches out and fades the scars quicker. I know this works because years ago I was spraying it on an ear piercing every day and ended up with a very bleach blond streak of hair in the area! LOL! So now I've been religiously putting Hydrogen peroxide on the scars, and then some neosporin at night to keep the area hydrated. I'll be switching to vaseline or something similar soon.

As for the eyes themselves, there is still a difference in shape. Especially when I wake up swollen, so hopefully that settles down a bit. Maybe my eyes are a different shape, I don't know. But there is a whole lot of heeling left to do. My first concern is where the creases are forming....well under the suture line! I read a lot of peoples concerns on realself and this was a main one. Many say the sutures go into the crease when things calm down, some it doesn't happen to because too much skin was cut off. I think 8-10mm is standard from lash to suture. Mine was more 12 to 14 which is considered too much by many people to be cut, but that's what I measured roughly. I'll do a better measurement later. 12 on the right eye (my original smaller eye) and 14 on the left eye (the bigger one with the more raised eyebrow). Not sure why it wasn't done the opposite way, but who knows maybe there was a reason. Some say a right handed surgeon will end up cutting off more on the less dominant side. But maybe it was intentional for a reason I do not know yet. The scar on the left more cut side also extends more past the eye than the other side. I think people who get the extended cuts tend to have more hooding and skin to remove, and this is a neccessity. So there we go.

So the right eyes glue came off first. I was so concerned about the crease being lower than the scar, that I ended up using my old eye tapes for one or two of the days. I placed it under the scar so the crease was unable to fold and more or less forced it to fold at the scar line. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea so I didn't do it for long. It does look improved as of today (I write this on Tuesday, day 12).

As for the left one, the scar seems to be 2mm higher than the other, and it does show. It is well above the crease and is visible with my eye open. However this side seems to be the most swollen under the brow so I'll remain somewhat calm about it. The scars in the eyelid are quite forgiving apparently so I can always work with co2 lasers or whatever later on should it be a problem. But it should fade. If this was all done intentionally so that I could have larger eyelids as I wanted them, then so be it. I'm glad. To me it is a trade off, and a bit of discolored scar in the future does not bother me. I wanted big, so if Dr. C was not being conservative, then I'm thankful for that LOL! As long as I don't look ridiculous, it's fine:D
HAHA!

I also have a feeling my left brow is still overely raised by the botox, so if that goes down, it will solve a lot of this problem anyway.

All in all, once the glue came off, things started settling in a way I am not a fan of. But there is a long way to go. Not a good start after the glue though....maybe it's best not to be hopeful either!