Less-than-ideal cosmetic results and complications for life (dry eyes and lagophthalmos)

I am 37, and I had upper and lower (transcutaneous) blepharoplasty about 7 weeks ago. Below is a summary of the complications I have encountered. I'm putting this out there because I'd love to "compare notes" in comments with other folks who have had similar experiences.

Painful Stitch -- Immediately post-op (before even leaving the surgery center), I had an intense feeling of something poking/scratching in the outer corner of one of my eyes. It felt like a stitch or perhaps a snipped eyelash might have been scratching either the surface of my eye or the inner surface of my eyelid. I mentioned this right away to the nurse, but I was told it was probably just dryness and to use eye drops. This intense pain lasted for the first few days, and then it would come and go. I had my stiches removed a week after my surgery, but still experienced the pain, periodically. In my Week 3 follow-up appointment, the doctor found and removed a stitch with a knot out of that same corner of my eye, and I’m pretty sure that was what was causing the pain because it never returned after that.

Lagophthalmos – During the entire first week after my surgery (and even well into the second week), I could not close either of my eyes without really clenching hard to force them shut. This was extremely scary. My right eye was much worse than my left. This meant that I could not close my eyes when sleeping or blinking, and it caused EXTREME dryness and pain for me in my first week. This, combined from the pain from the “rogue” stitch was almost unbearable during the first few days.
I was told to put ointment (e.g. Refresh PM) in my eyes to protect them at night and use preservative-free artificial tears (the kind that come in individual vials) during the day. The preservative-free artificial tears did seem to be a little better than the ones I had been using, but did not provide complete relief. Also, the ointment at night did not help me at all, and even made matters worse. The sensation was as if the ointment itself would dry out and start leeching the already-scarce moisture from my eyes. Eventually, I found a solution on my own. I began using artificial tears before going to bed, put plastic wrap over my eyes, and then used a fabric sleep mask over the plastic wrap to help hold it in place. The plastic wrap created a moisture chamber so that my eyes wouldn’t dry out at night.
I am 7 weeks post-op, and although I can finally close my eyes with relative ease, they still only partially blink (unless I consciously blink all the way), and they don’t stay closed when I sleep. So I still have to use my plastic wrap solution every single night. It sort of makes me feel like a freak.

Dry Eyes – From Day 1 all the way until now (Week 7), I have been having problems with dry eyes. I’m not sure whether this is solely due to the lagophthalmos, or if there is some other factor (e.g., tear production?) involved. I doubt it is due to swelling because most of that has subsided. Anyhow, today, at Week 7, I am still using artificial tears almost every hour, have trouble with my contact lenses, and my eyes are constantly uncomfortable and red. This is really pretty terrible, and I’m worried that I will have to deal with dry eyes for the rest of my life. Although I like my cosmetic results, I am teetering on regretting having this procedure done because of this.

Chemosis – The clear conjunctiva which covers the sclera (the white of my eye) became swollen in both eyes immediately following surgery. When I would look inwards towards my nose, the conjunctiva would “bunch up” between my iris (the blue-colored part of my eye) and the lacrimal caruncle (the little pink triangle in the inner corner of the eye). I’ve been given a steroid/antibiotic drop to address this. The drops have helped, but as of Week 7, it still hasn’t completely resolved.

Random stitches – I had my stitches removed a week after my surgery, but every now and then, a piece of leftover stitch would poke through my skin. Most of these stitches have been the “dissolvable” kind. Even now in the 7th week, I just found another rogue stitch almost 1/4” long poking through at the outside corner. It was easy to just pull out myself with tweezers. It too was the “dissolvable” kind.

Loss of sensation – This is something I was never very worried about, but in the first few weeks after my surgery, I had a loss of sensation below my right eye. If I touched the area about one inch below my eye, it would feel like I was running my finger along the bottom of my eyeball. It was not scary or painful – just weird. At Week 7, most of this has resolved, but it still feels a little weird if I try to put on eyeliner.

Here are two more things I forgot to mention in my original post:

Mild lower lid retraction -- I started to see slight lower lid retraction in both eyes. I've been instructed to use massage to help with the tightness/retraction. Although I've been slightly more aggressive with it than instructed, I'm still not sure whether it's helping. Time will tell, I guess.

Bruised upper eyelid -- After all my bruises from surgery had completely healed (3 weeks post-op), I ended up bruising my upper eyelid pretty bad when attempting to remove some makeup. I was using one of those Simple Facial Cleansing wipes, and I must have scrubbed too hard and broken a fragile blood vessel. Blood pooled under the skin for the first couple days and gradually spread into a bruise that covered my entire upper eyelid. It took about 3 weeks for it to completely go away.

Here are a few before and after pictures. You can also see other pictures I've taken of some of my complications if you select my name to see my other posts.