[emma48]

#1058850

Hi guys!
I’m new here.
I got Graves in 2005. One morning I woke up and found out that my upper eyelids are very swollen. No one doctor could determine the reason and could diagnose me correctly. One of the physicians told me that now with swollen eyelids I look even prettier and do not have to worry about it.. what a nice therapeutic answer. Anyway, 6 month later they found the real reason but i guess it was to late for my eyes. Eyes were very protruded, upper eyelids very swollen, eyes were dry and itchy. Medications (PTU first then methimazole) didn’t work for a few years, thyroid hormones were fluctuating from month to month.

Now, my thyroid is under control for a 3 years but eyes did not go back to it previous look. The protrusion is much less, but my left eye is obviously bigger than the right one and left upper eyelid is more swollen than the right eyelid. and yes, people make comments about it.. haha.. They probably think I protrude one eye more on purpose I’m fine with that.

I saw many eye doctors, plastic surgeons.. but no one can give me a knowledgeable advise.. So, here are my questions: will blepharoplasty improve the cosmetic side of my eyes? If fatty pads will be removed from eyelids will eyes look less swollen and maybe I won’t have very tired look I have now??
Is it a really fatty pads that cause swollen? is it possible that eyelids will be swollen even after removal of fatty tissues?? When I asked those questions one of the oculoplastic surgeons he replied that he would rather do decompression surgery on me because my insurance will pay for it and won’t pay for blepharoplasty. No wonder why I left his office immediately and never came back..

Guys, maybe some of you experience similar problems.. Maybe someone went for blepharoplasty and saw real improvement after.. Please, share your experiences and thoughts with me!!!!! I do not want to look different I just want to look as I was before I got this disease.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.

[Kimberly]

#1170391

Hello – Hopefully, you will get some responses here from others who have had this surgery, but you can also use the “Search Posts” feature for “blepharoplasty” to pull up older posts.

I have seen some fabulous “before” and “after” pictures of patients who have been through blepharoplasty, but certainly no one can *guarantee* you great results.

It sounds like you didn’t have a good experience with your last consult, so you might seek out yet another opinion. One comment is that if you do have some bulging going on, the preference is to do the orbital decompression first, then strabismus surgery (if needed) and then finally the blepharoplasty. Also, if you can show that your eyelids are unable to close, the final surgery should not be considered cosmetic — it’s a medical necessity.

[snelsen]

#1170392

Hi, my thought is to encourage you to consider an orbital decompression, and that would involve going to an oculofacial surgeon to discuss the amount of protrusion of your eye.If you have a protruding eye, I am wondering if the blepharoplasty would achieve the result you want? I’m thinking that the surgeon you saw may have been thinking this, but certainly did not present it well to you at all. Insurances vary, but generally TED patients who have insurance, have their procedures covered. You DO need a diagnosis of thyroid eye disease, that is for sure. But from then on, these procedures need to be coded as medical, not cosmetic. I have not had any trouble with that at all, and you will see at the end of my post that I have had a ton of surgeries on my eyes.
So, as Kimberly said, maybe your first step is to find another surgeon, and get a good evaluation for your bulging eye. I can see where the eyelid surgery might not be successful for you, depending on the amount of protrusion of your eye itself. If someone would order an orbital CT, you would know how much orbital fat was in there pushing your eye out. And I think it would give you the same information about your eyelids, but not sure about that.

Just a note. Graves’ and TED are two different autoimmune disease, with antibodies attacking thyroid gland with the first, and different antibodies wrecking havoc with the eyes for TED.
*Do you have any double vision? Guess not, since you did not mention it.
Hope you can find some posts from people who did have the eyelid blepharoplasties.
Shirley

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