After a successful skin cancer removal on your eyelids or face, you can be left with lasting scarring that affects your appearance. Reconstructive surgery can enhance the appearance of your facial scarring. Dustin Heringer, MD, a skilled cosmetic and plastic surgeon at Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery, provides facial reconstruction in Scottsdale to minimize your scars. To learn more about facial reconstruction for you or your loved one, call or schedule an appointment online today.
What Is Facial Reconstruction?
This refers to a surgery that enhances your appearance by decreasing or eliminating scarring. If you have a mole or cancerous lesion on your ears, lips, nose, or other parts of your face, eliminating it can leave behind a scar that negatively affects your appearance. Your provider assesses your facial scarring and customizes your facial reconstruction surgery accordingly. He discusses your sedation and anesthesia options based on the repair’s extent while also giving you postoperative guidelines to follow after completing the surgery.
What Are the Available Facial Reconstruction Techniques?
There are a variety of techniques for facial reconstruction surgery. These include:
Skin Grafting
This procedure involves removing a small section of healthy skin from another area of your body. The doctor ensures the section matches the shape of the scar and seals it into place.
Flap Techniques
Rather than getting a skin graft, the doctor may consider repairing your scar with a skin flap adjacent to the scar. The technique involves cutting the flap of healthy skin still attached at one side and suturing it in its new place over the scar. The flap technique is more preferable as the flap still receives its original blood supply.
What Is Eyelid Reconstruction?
The eyelids are particularly delicate and susceptible to scarring after a mole or cancerous lesion removal. At Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery, Dr. Heringer often uses Mohs surgery. This minimally invasive technique causes less damage to nearby healthy tissue to eliminate cancerous lesions and moles on delicate areas of your skin, such as your eyelids. Although there is normally minimal scarring after Mohs surgery, you might still consider eyelid reconstruction to repair the scar.
Are You A Right Candidate for Facial Reconstruction?
Before getting a face or eyelid reconstruction surgery, you should schedule a consultation with a facial reconstruction specialist. The doctor will review your medical history and ensure your goals are in line with the surgery’s abilities. For you to be the right candidate for facial reconstruction, you should not have more cancer cells in the region, desire to restore your appearance after skin cancer removal, stop smoking for some time before and after the procedure, and be in perfect general health. If you are not the right candidate for facial reconstruction, the team at Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery will work with you to develop a treatment plan that includes surgery in the future.
To sum up, if you have facial or eyelid scarring after undergoing skin cancer removal, facial reconstruction surgery is the best option for you. For professional facial reconstruction in and around Scottsdale, Arizona, call or book an appointment with Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery today.