Earlobe Repair

EARLOBE REPAIR OVERVIEW

Earlobes can suffer tears or stretching due to a variety of reasons. Often it is due to prolonged wearing of heavy earrings or wearing stretchers, tunnels or plugs. Tears and splits can occur due to trauma related accidents, such as catching and pulling the earlobe or earring.

THE PROCEDURE
Dr Marzola is able to perform earlobe repair procedures here at Norwood Day Surgery in our fully accredited procedure room. The procedure itself uses only a local anaesthetic and takes about an hour. In cases where the earlobe is torn or split an incision is made along both sides of the tear and the halves are sutured back together. In the case of an excessively stretched lobe due to stretchers or tunnels, it is required that the patient does not wear any ear jewellery for several months to allow the skin to shrink as much as possible. From here, if there are still excessive amounts of skin it is removed and the inside of the hole is cut and sutured. We use non-dissolvable sutures in our earlobe repair and these are removed 10 days post-operatively. Dissolvable sutures are not recommended for this type of procedure as they can greatly increase the severity of scarring.

POST PROCEDURE
It will take approximately three months for the full result of the procedure to be visible and healed. You may after this time have your ears re-pierced for regular earrings but Dr Marzola will need to select the exact precise location given the repair. Dr Marzola is able to reduce the scarring with a small CO2 resurfacing laser treatment to the area at suture removal, one month and three months post operatively. This is entirely optional but highly recommended to minimize scarring. If you find that post procedure you wish to have more fullness and volume in your earlobes, we are able to inject dermal fillers into the area.