In this video, Dr. Aliza Epstein, an oculofacial plastic surgeon at Fort Lauderdale Eye Institute, explains why managing dry eye is an important step before blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery). Procedures such as eyelid lifts and ptosis repair can worsen existing dry eye, particularly when symptoms are severe. Dr. Epstein discusses why some patients may need to postpone surgery until their dry eye is better controlled and their eyes feel more comfortable, helping patients understand how dry eye can affect their readiness for eyelid surgery.
Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Aliza Epstein and I’m an Oculofacial Plastic Surgeon at the Fort Lauderdale Eye Institute.
In this video, I’m going to talk about eyelid surgery and dry eye. It’s incredibly important that a patient’s dry eye surface is optimized prior to eyelid surgery.
Because in eyelid surgery, we are affecting the skin, the muscle that closes the eye, the orbicularis muscle, and sometimes also lifting the eyelid in a ptosis repair to make the eyes more open.
And so if a patient has underlying dry eye and that is especially severe, then eyelid surgery can certainly worsen the dry eye. Therefore, some patients are not great candidates for eyelid surgery if they have really bad dry eye.
In those situations, I will not perform any eyelid surgery until the patient’s dry eye is under better control and that the patient has their eyes feeling more comfortable in preparation for eyelid surgery.
