Eyelid Surgery for Older Workers
Selling Yourself or Selling Out?
Most patients we work with in our Manhattan practice are quite enthusiastic about what plastic surgery can accomplish for them. But occasionally we treat people who feel a bit conflicted about altering the face or physique through a cosmetic procedure—especially when doing so appears to be a bow to societal pressure. A case in point is when a parent considers otoplasty, or ear pinning, for their youngster to help relieve the burden of bullying.
We’re currently seeing our some of our eyelid surgery patients wrestle with this conflict. Nowadays there’s much talk of ageism in the workplace, and of men and women pulling out all the stops to remain competitive in this difficult economy. As reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal online recently, eyelid surgery and facelifts are two very popular procedures with older workers who want to appear younger in hopes of landing or keeping a job.
There’s no doubt that older workers experience bias on the job. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received more than 21,000 official charges of age discrimination in the workplace last year, a jump of more than 25% in a decade. Anecdotally, older people looking for work say they are routinely passed over, with prospective employers feeling they may be set in their ways, not good with technology and so on.
So does all this mean that you should consider eyelid surgery as a competitive edge? Or would you merely be succumbing to society’s latest prescription for what we all should look like?
Of course that decision is up to you. We understand and respect everyone’s choice about what’s right in their case, including prospective patients who decide not to move forward with surgery.
If you are considering eyelid surgery, however, there are a few things we might mention:
- The procedure, known medically as blepharoplasty, offers a big payoff in terms of rejuvenation with a relatively small price tag
- Eyelid surgery involves a fairly easy recovery, with most patients able to go out in public in about a week and showing few traces of surgery in about two weeks
- In the hands of an experienced plastic or oculoplastic surgeon, blepharoplasty poses very little risk
So is it the right time for eyelid surgery for you?
While we can’t answer that question, we can suggest it might be a good time for a consultation with a qualified plastic surgeon. We would encourage you to perform as much research on the Internet as possible, including reading patient stories and viewing before and after eyelid surgery photos. Then, arrange to meet with a board certified plastic surgeon whose body of work includes extensive experience with eyelid surgery. Take a list of questions, a note pad and possibly a friend. Learn all you can during this appointment, then go home and sleep on it for as long as it takes to decide what’s right for you.
