My double eyelid surgery experience

I know this post needs to be up asap because the amount of emails and comments/questions I get regarding my recent surgery is TOO DAMN HIGH!

DISCLAIMER!!!

I am not encouraging anyone to go for the procedure that I did. I thought long and hard before I decided to share this. Not because I'm selfish and I don't want others to have chio eyes. But because I don't want to be responsible if anything goes wrong. Remember that all surgeries have RISKS. What the doctor do for my eyes and how it turns out MAY NOT be the same for yours. I do not want to be blamed or questioned when your results differs from mine. I am NOT SPONSORED or PAID by them. I did my own research so I think whoever out there is interested, please do your own research before just settling for my doctor. 

So all these aside, after this post, I will not be replying anymore emails/questions on my askfm regarding my double eyelid surgery as it has all been mentioned here. Unless it is something that I've not covered, then maybe I would reply you.

* WHY I WANTED TO GO FOR THIS SURGERY *

I've been single eyelid my entire life and when I was 18-19 I discovered fake lashes and surprisingly, when I stick them on and open my eyes, a line would form on my eyelids giving me a very chio parallel double eyelid.

That was like one of the best things I discovered for myself.

Because by just pasting fake lashes, I could transform from a sleepy single eyelid look to a bright eye chiobu. HAHA. Okay but I really think that I look way better having double eyelids lah. Some people feel that I look fine with single eyelid, they say its the asian beauty look. But really, no okay? Just no. I don't like it and I don't think I can pull off the single eyelid asian beauty look. The ones that can look good with single eyelid are usually top models and they are usually damn skinny and have alot of style/edge which I don't.

Then years past and I was still relying on sticking fake lashes daily to achieve bigger and chioer eyes. I became a pro at sticking fake lashes and I can do it within 1 min flat. But I've been telling all the people around me that I want to go for double eyelid surgery. Even though I can get chio eyes just by pasting fake lashes, sometimes I get lazy to do so and imagine when I'm pregnant or when I have 2 kids running around, everyday I must still go and paste fake lashes, DAMN TIRING MAN.

* HOW I DECIDED ON MY DOCTOR *

The reason why it took me yearssssssss to finally do it is because, I don't know which surgeon is good. Like everyone knows KOREA is the best for plastic surgery but... I've seen people who have gone there for double eyelid surgery and I didn't really like their results. So I think it all comes down to finding the right surgeon. And I didn't wanna do in SINGAPORE because it is sooooooooo expensive and again, I feel the doctors here aren't that good? Haha, stereotype. I only know 1 doctor in Singapore that can give me the double eyelid I want (a friend of mine did it with that doctor) but it cost liks $5k!!! SO EXPENSIVE LAH!

So why TAIWAN? Simple, because 2 of my friends did it there last year. One of them went and got it done and the 2nd friend saw her results and immediately booked an appointment and flew there do get hers done too. And it has been a year and their eyes still looks good so I decided that this surgeon is pretty good at performing double eyelid surgery.

So I decided to do it in at STAR CLINIC (http://www.starclinic.com.tw/)

My clinic is the branch at - 大安.

I don't know my doctor's name but this is his face and I think where he went to learn his skills and what kinda surgery he does. 

I can't read/write chinese for nuts so I don't know what they are saying above.

* WHAT METHOD OF SURGERY *

But the only downside was....... my doctor only performs the double eyelid surgery via the SEWING/SUTURE method. Which is known to not be as permanent as the CUTTING/INCISION method. Like if I wear contact lens daily, I will be stretching my eyelids and that may loosen the thread (but heng I don't lah, perfect eyesight HAHA). Or if I itchy fingers keep rubbing my eyes, that will also cause it to be loosen and maybe go back to being single eyelid.So I was thinking, I don't want to go through another surgery again in years to come!

I googled this image above. (Sewing method)

I'm not sure if it is really how my doctor did my eyelids but yah...

The reason why my doctor advised me to go for the sewing method is because he said that I am young, my eyelid is perfect for this method (not too thick), and the surgery can be reversible if I don't like it. Plus, there won't be much scarring as compared to the cutting method. And when I age in years to come, our eyelids will sag and the double eyelid won't be as visible and high anymore, I can still opt to go for another surgery. But if I were to do it via the cutting method, and if I were to re-cut my eyes when I'm like 40 years old, I will have 2-3 lines on my eyelid. Another pro of doing sewing is if in case the doctor fucks up your eye, you can still get it back to the original state. Imagine if it is the cutting method, cui means cui forever and ever.

So, after weighing the pros and cons, I decided to just go for the sewing method since I know the doctor's skills for eyelid surgery is good!

* HOW MUCH IT COST*

Many of you have also asked about the price of the surgery.. I paid about S$1050+. Lesser than S$1100 confirm. It can be cheaper, like maybe S$850-900+ if you choose to go for local anesthesia. But to me, being awake when someone is sewing my eyelids seems quite scary so I decided to go for GENERAL ANESTHESIA, but I had to pay about $200+ more which I think is worth it.

* HOW THE SURGERY WENT *

So the day arrived, 11th April 2014. My surgery was scheduled at 9.30am and my flight to Taiwan landed at about 6am? My friend and I took a cab to our hotel to put our luggage there before we headed to the clinic. We were the 1st patients at the clinic, so only the nurses were there and doctor was not in yet. So the nurse came over to let us fill up some forms and check if we have completed the medication that she sent to us to take 3 days before the surgery. The medication was to slow down loss of blood and prevent swelling after the surgery. 

We were then asked to change into surgical robes? and get our pictures taken. Those frontal, left and right sibei ugly shots. HAHA, but they will not be releasing the pictures anywhere unless you allow them to. 

Single eyelid me. ZERO makeup.

Okay, around 10am, doctor arrived and we went in to see him. He used this toothpick lookalike thing to show me different heights of eyelid that I can achieve. I told him I didn't want too natural kind, not those that is very thin but I didn't want super dramatic high eyelids also lah. So he said okay and he knew what I wanted. Then I just said ok good and that was it. HAHA, I really just let him decide and didn't spend more than 3 minutes with the doctor before I was told to go lie in the operating theatre.

So after lying there I start to feel abit nervous lah, because it was my first time lying on an operating table. I've not cut myself open before or gone for any other procedure. I've removed 8 teeth before, 4 normal teeth at a go and another 4 wisdom tooth at a go. To me, that is the most traumatizing experience ever, because one of my wisdom tooth was near a nerve and it hurts so bad. I've tattooed my ribcage before, which people say is one of the most painful place to get inked but I feel that it is nothing to shout about. Very bearable in my opinion. I've also done nose fillers and botox for my jaw which I also feel is bearable and pain level is minimal. 

The only painful part of the double eyelid surgery was the annoying feeling of the needle in my hand for the drip. After the nurse added the anesthesia into the drip and told me that I will be falling asleep, I just went BAM! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

This was where the drip was. Bruised for a few days.

& the next moment I felt someone tapping my shoulders and calling my name "美婷, 起来了"(Meiting, wake up already). Then I opened my eyes and felt really sleepy but with the help of the nurse, I got up into a seated position and she said I can go change out of robe and into my normal clothes. I was like "oh, 好了啊" (Oh, ok already ah). Then she steadied me off the bed and into the changing room. When I was changing, I still felt super drowsy and high, kinda like the feeling when I am drunk. Haha. So I changed carefully, avoid touching my eyes with my clothes (thank god for sensible clothing choice) and went to sit at the sofa area and wait for my friend who was still asleep in the operating room.

I was super excited so I turn on my iPhone front camera to check my eyes out.. and I saw this:

HAHAHHA, damn seh face and my eyelids were so swollen!

But it wasn't painful at all, maybe because I was still having the anesthesia effect in my body. I felt more pain on my wrist where they inserted the needle than my eyelids.

* HOW WAS THE RECOVERY PROCESS *

The nurse then went down the building with us and called a cab to bring us back to our hotel. In the cab, my friend and I was talking about how fast everything went and we totally can't wait to see the results!! When we got to the hotel, it was still not our check in time yet, which was 3pm, so we went to have lunch because we were starving!!! Had to starve for at least 8 hours before the surgery so imagine how hungry we were, no food since 12 midnight the day before. 

After our lunch, we checked in to the hotel and took a short nap. I can't remember how long.. less than 3 hours? Then we woke up for DINNER! Yes, all I did in Taipei was eat and sleep and shop.

We were told by the nurse to apply ICE PACK over my eyes as often as we can to bring the swelling down. But I think we did it most 4x a day? Because most of the time we were out shopping/sightseeing. HAHA, there were even days where we only ice-d our eyes 1 time. And on the 5th day onwards, we were told to use WARM PACK to improve blood circulation to reduce bruising around our eyes. Which I only did for less than 5x. *bad ass*

I took pictures of my eyes every night before going to bed and did a compilation to see how the recovery went...

Us heading out the 1st night after waking up from our sleep.

Felt totally normal except for abit of soreness on the eyelids. 

Day 2 at Shilin night market.

Day 5 at Jiu Fen.

Day 6 before going to bed..

Day 2 picture, close up.

Day 5 picture, closed eyes.

So after the 5th day, I felt that there wasn't much difference after each night so I stopped taking pictures. I'll probably just take a weekly picture to compare instead, so that there can at least be a difference.

And I also have emails and readers asking me how I wash my face because we were told to not get in contact with water. So what we did was use Bioderma cleansing water + cotton pad and clean our faces. We also avoided washing our hair on our own. So hello SALON HAIR WASHES!! Haha, each hair wash we had was about $8 sgd? So still okay lah. On the 5th day onwards I cannot take it already, even though I clean my face with Bioderma water, I still feel "dirty" leh. So I decided to wash my face using cleansing foam but still avoid the eye area lah.

So on the 7th day, I flew back to Singapore. I didn't even had to go back to the clinic for review with the doctor. But I went because my friend was there to remove her stitches (she had to suck fats out of eyelid so there were stitches needed to be removed) so at the same time just let the doctor see my progress. He said it was still swollen but other than that everything looks good.

* WHAT I FEEL AFTER EVERYTHING *

Day 8, can put make up liao!! 

YAY!! I only drew eyeliner lah, no eyeshadow or whatever on my eyelids.

It has been...erm, 2 weeks since I did the double eyelid surgery.. and I must say I am angry at myself for procrastinating for so long before I finally did it. I should have done it earlier man! Haha, now I don't even need any makeup to look good. HAHAH, okay lah, I still need concealer because my dark circles is getting very bad and maybe some blusher. But what I mean is, even when I'm naked face, I still look awake and decent. Previously I really dislike the way I look when I didn't have any eye makeup on.

Now, this is my go to work look which I complete in 5 mins.

Makeup I use:

- concealer

- pressed powder

- eyeliner

- eyebrow powder

- blusher

Post eyelid surgery day #12.

Picture taken yesterday, post surgery day #13.

OKAY,
THAT'S ALL.

So I hope no more questions for me ah.

As for how I arrange to go there and how I book appointment, my friend contacted the nurse for me and scheduled my date and time. She also helped send my picture over for the doctor to see my eyes and advise if I'm suitable for the surgery or not. 

And on the day I arrive at the clinic, we just discuss a bit and I went for surgery already.

So if you are the kind that have a lot questions to ask the nurse, I think you email or call their hotline, I'm not sure cause I didn't do any arrangement. And the website is in Chinese which I have trouble reading, so I just followed the instructions given by my friend.

OK, GOOD LUCK.

:)