Utah’s Top Facial Plastic Surgeon Discusses The Benefits of Otoplasty Surgery on Good Things Utah with Nicea DeGering.
“Dr. Scott Thompson joining us now from Utah Facial Plastics. This is my favorite plastic surgeon. I only trust my face to Dr. Thompson. And a lot of people trusting, including kids, their ears to you. There’s something called Otoplasty…what is that?”
“Otoplasty is just simply moving the ear back and it’s a fairly common problem that people have where their missing this fold right here in the ear. If you don’t have this fold right here than the ear will kind of cup forward. There’s a very simple procedure we can do to just move the ear back and you can see in that picture there that there’s no fold and then there’s fold in the one on the right.”
“And that’s genetic?”
“It’s genetic. It’s just the way you are born and a lot of times people tell me their kids are born that way and they think they’re going to grow out of it. The head does grow but the ear usually doesn’t fix itself. It’s something that has to be corrected if they choose.”
“So what is the procedure like, what do you do in that case?”
“We simply make an incision on the back of the ear. Then we go in and place some permanent stitches to create that fold and kind of fold the ear back. And then usually we’ll pull the whole ear back. It’s a relatively simply procedure and works every time. It’s one of those things that just has a really high satisfaction rate and very low complication rate. It’s something I love to do.”
“It’s called pinning, right?”
“Some people know it as ear pinning as well.”
“Are you under anesthesia for this?”
“As long as you’re over about age 10, it doesn’t require full anesthesia and I can usually place a few injections behind the ear, numb the whole ear up. And then we can do it under local anesthetic. That’s always easier than going to the hospital for anesthesia and saves a lot of money too. We can still do it that way too but if it’s someone that is scared of needles or doesn’t want to be awake, we can certainly go to the hospital. It’s one of the benefits of otoplasty surgery.”
“You just said to me this is one of your favorite procedures to do…why?”
“It’s one of my favorites because it just makes such an immediate big difference. There’ usually no bruising, little downtime, little pain, very safe, very low complication rate. Those are more of the benefits of otoplasty surgery. I’ve done this on kids as little as six all the way up into the seventies at times.”
“We’re looking at a before and after here and we can tell she’s now pulled her hair back.”
“Yeah, for women they never want to pull their hair back. I do a lot of dancers and they never want to pull their hair back. Many guys will grow their hair long to cover their ears. This procedure just takes that out of the equation.”
“Imagine what this does, this little procedure for self confidence. What are you noticing after?”
“I think it’s huge. I just saw a kid the other day who said he absolutely loves it and doesn’t even think about his ears anymore. Before it was a constant thought when he looked in the mirror or took a picture and now he just doesn’t think about it. So I think that’s what it does for people.”
“So you said kids and we also saw those photos of adults. Are you doing one more than the other?”
“Probably more often kids. Usually the ten to fifteen age category but I’ve done several on older patients. A few months ago I had a patient in his seventies and he was feeling guilty that he shouldn’t be doing it but he had a huge smile on his face afterward. He said he did this for himself after being teased his whole life.”
“If you’re a parent out there saying,’Alright, my child is 3 or 5 or 7′ how do you know what the right age is?”
“Typically we recommend it be done around age 6 or 7. That’s for a couple of reason. Usually the ears are done growing by about that time and then we like to do surgery on someone that wants to have it done. So if it’s a four year-old, their probably not thinking about their ears but by the time they are 6 or 7, they might be asking their parents about it.”
“If people have a question, again it’s called otoplasty so call the office or visit the website at UtahFacialPlastics.com to learn more about the benefits of otoplasty surgery.”
“Scott Thompson has several different locations and he’s just such a nice guy. It’s good to have you Dr. Thompson.”