Doctors are recommending I do something with my drooping top eyelids. My dad had the same issues 20 years ago, and I remember his raccoon eyes afterwards. Also the lack of being to go back to work right away.

My question is, have they improved the procedures over the years, so there is less impact on ones life afterward?

Being self employed, I have to really plan for stuff like this. Thanks for any input to my situation!!

Mother had hers done around October 2017. There was bruising around both eyes. Could have been a battery victim for Halloween.

I’m doing this from memory so please don’t take this as dogma.

very briefly, there a several types/causes for eyelid ptosis and likely your doctor evaluated them by looking, getting a good history and sometimes testing with drops and often with visual field testing.

The general reason to fix eyelid ptosis is to improve the limited field of view(you can’t look up at the rearview mirror for example). You also want to make sure its not confounded by having too much eyelid skin, a positional problem with the globe (eye ball) etc. Forehead eyebrow decent.

If its truly a lid problem, the most common cause is acquired or aponeurotic (old age, weakening on attachment of the muscle that lifts the lid).

Other types are congenital, neurologic (nerve problem) and myogenic (muscle problem), mechanical (too much weight on the lid because of inflammation, a cyst or mass etc).

It’s important to define the cause as they affect type of treatment, success rate, approach etc.

some milder cases can be treated with drops or removing the cyst/mass or extra weight.

some nerve palsy conditions might get better with time or medications

when the attachments attenuate then the surgery is usually to reattach and shorten the stretched out attachment of the muscle to lid. depending upon the severity (how low the lid droops) the type of surgery vary.


Every surgery can have compilications, that’s a fact but in general patients do very well, again depending upon cause. The most common problems in general is not enough correction, too much correction, recurrence. Basically, when you’re dealing with stretched out muscles/tissues and elements that are not functioning well It’s tough to precisely know how durable the repair will be so revisions or staged procedures are not unusual. Any surgery can have infection, scar, asymmetry.

As is always the case, go to someone who does tons of these cases and does them well. They are not rare so finding a good doc shouldn’t be too tough. i hope that helps a bit.

There have been some changes, newer approaches to the surgical techniques over the past several decades but many of the fundamentals remain fairly similar.

It would be best to go through your specific concerns with your physician as they would be privy to your health history, the severity of the problem, they type of procedure he/she feels is best for you and the type of work you do.

Upper blepharoplasty, find you a good plastic surgeon and roll on. I had mine done a few years ago, and it was virtually painless.

Results are very good and I feel and look years younger, if I do say so myself.

Wife has had hers done a couple of times. Looks great as well.

Blepharoplasty is a little different than eyelid ptosis repair.

The former deals predominantly with loose excess skin and often fat (dermatochalasia for example). The latter attends to the eyelid elevators.

Often there may be contributions of both.

These surgeries are usually done by Opthalmoplastics, plastic surgeons and some head and neck specialists.

Is it truly a ptosis, or dermatochalasis or blepharochalasis? The distinction is important because as mentioned in the above post, the procedure(s) is (are) different than for a true ptosis.

I had my upper eyelids trimmed about a year ago because of drooping. The only people who noticed were those who knew I had it done. Get your eye Dr. to give you a referral to a good plastic surgeon and do some research on your own. I couldn't be happier with the way my turned out.