Blepharoplasty+Fat Graft = Disaster - Los Angeles, CA

AFTER PHOTO - Dr. Levine's office photo. Fat graft strips create lumps such as the smaller lump on top of the left under-eye fat pouch. Fat graft strips placed unequally resulting in unequal fat lumps above and below both eyes. The addition of fat to upper eyes created folds, puckers, creases and asymmetry.

Dr. Robert E. Levine is a caring doctor who is generous with his time, but my surgery with him taught me that Surgical Judgment and Skill are the most important qualities. Unfortunately, my surgery with him ended in severe disfigurement. The entire purpose of the surgery was to remove lashes that were buried at the end corner of my right eye. Dr. Levine removed them, but failed twice to close my eye, leaving me with recessed red exposed tissue at the end of my eye. We also added surgery to refine my eyes. Without my knowledge or consent, he added and removed fat. This resulted in two eyes not even looking like they belonged to the same person! Everything from the height of each eyebrow, to the size, slant, and shape of each eye differed! My eyelids no longer fully descended and had folds, wrinkles, and puckers. The worst disfigurment was that he added unequal amounts of fat under each eye. I hadn't even had abnormal under-eye hollows, but after his surgery, I had big bulky fat pouches under each eye, the kind you pay an oculoplastic surgeon to remove! One of the fat lumps is 3 times the size of the other and has another lump on top of it. On his own and without any discussion or even listing it as a procedure, Dr. Levine had used fat grafts from my abdomen to all the areas above and below my my eyes, but none of the fat added to one eye, matched the other eye. This using of bulky fat graft strips to my eye areas was all the more egregious because he had recruited a stem cell specialist to add fat at the same surgery. Any areas that needed fat should have been addressed by the plastic surgeon who used autologous stem cell fat. Lumpy fat graft strips are never used for facial contouring or eye refinements. Stem cell fat is used because it results in areas,
such as the under-eyes, to gently meld with the cheeks.

Surgery to remove embedded eyelash strip at end of right lid junction + refinements to eyes, resulted in more problems with eyes & eyelids, e.g. lids that don't descend fully, an enlarged pupil. W/o my consent, added fat graft strips to under-eye areas, resulting in puffy fat asymmetrical fat lumps.