A conchal setback is when the Concha is sewn back to the tissues behind the ear to make the ear more pinned back during an otoplasty or cosmetic ear reshaping procedure (Dr Young is a Facial Plastic Surgeon in Bellevue Washington). Many times a prominent ear is due to the conchal bowl being to developed and strong.  The tissues behind the ear are reduced and then the ear is sewn backward to make the ear appear smaller.  Take a look at the picture below to see what I mean by the concha.  I have found over the years watching many famous surgeons who do ear reconstruction, otoplasty like Dr Reinish and Dennis Crockett in Los Angeles when I was training in LA and Dr Burt Brent in Woodside California that there are a lot of different techniques out there.  I have found that just removing the tissue behind the ear is not sufficient a lot of times to make the ears more pinned back.  I have found that shaving the concha cartilage down incrementally is essential to allowing the ear to more easily and more permanently be pinned back towards the head.    What I learned is that you need to be very incremental in how much you shave.  There should be a little tension in the cartilage when you pin in back otherwise the results can be less predictable.   As show in the picture below, I use a scalpel to take down the cartilage a little at a time and I usually reassess after every short session of debulking the conchal cartilage.  The scalpel is shown pointing to the areas where I have taken down the cartilage.  The first picture is the general anatomy of the ear. The second picture shows the back of the ear displaying mostly the concha cartilage.  The third picture shows the concha after it has been shaved down.  The fourth picture illustrates the cauda helicis or the tail of the helix cartilage that is responsible for protruding the ear lobe.  The forceps or pincer instrument is grabbing the cauda helicis that is reponsible for earlobe protruding.  This cartilage can be excised or taken away or it can be sutured to the concha more to cause the earlobe to be more pinned back as well.  These pictures also illustrate that most otoplasty techiniques are carried out from an incision that is from the back of the ear. This keeps the incision well hidden so that evidence of surgery is hidden and you can avoid looking like you had something done. The last two pictures are some before and afters for you to see what the results are after you get an otoplasty / ear cosmetic shaping procedure.

I hope that was interesting for you!

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

Cauliflower ear can be reconstructed through techniques done with an otoplasty (Dr Young specializes in Facial Plastic Surgery and Otoplasty Procedures) procedure.  This is a difficult procedure to do.  It will take sculpting with different instruments using a number of techniques that are often used in otoplasty. The results are usually more on the conservative side.  In my experience, the ear can be made to look a lot better, but getting the ear to look totally like it was before is very hard.

I hope that was interesting for you!

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

There are  a few ways to repair a torn earlobe (Dr Young is near Seattle, Washington).  A more complicated approach is to used intricate flaps to repair the tear and reconstruct a new ear ring hole.  But this reconstruction is tedious and has a tendency to for more scars and to leave a larger hole that you would like. My preference is to take out the tear and close the earlobe completely followed by a piercing done 2-6 months later when it is all healed.  The only drawback with earlobe repairs are the incision and the scar that it creates. What I do for the incision scar is to carry out a resurfacing during the time of the reconstruction so that when it heals the incision is harder to see.  What I do is after I excise the tear, I carry out some dermasanding to take the top layers of the skin around the incision.  I then close the incision.  In a few weeks to a month the incision is healed over and much harder to see.  The concurrent skin treatment allows the person to have it fixed plus an added scar revision in one sitting.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

The price of 400 for ear lobe repair (otoplasty, ear reshaping, ear shaping, ear plastic surgery, ear cosmetic surgery) that you mentioned could be for one ear.  Also before knowing that is the price, when you actually go to the particular office they may mention that you need to pay a facility fee and anesthesia fee that could make that much more.  Be sure to ask about all the fees.  If it is true that the price they gave you is $400 for both ears and no other costs, I would check to see how well they do the procedure.  Sometimes, you get what you pay for.  Take a look at their results.  When you are talking about gauges, this could mean a significantly complicated repair that could require time.  For that price, if they take shortcuts, which often people do when they price things aggressively like that, you might not get what you wanted completely.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

This is a question that I answered for someone:

It really depends on what is causing your ears to look long. If it is your earlobe, your earlobe can be made smaller through different techniques associated with otoplasty (ear shaping / ear pinnning / ear plastic surgery / ear cosmetic surgery / large ear surgery)..  This is the most common cause for long ears.  Sometimes losing the volume in your ear lobes can cause the skin to hang down.  Adding tissue back can improve this appearance.  There are also ways to take some of the extra skin away so that the earlobe can look shorter.  If the ear is longer above where it curls. There are ways to take away cartilage so the it reduces the length of the ears.  A great way to know would be to see some pictures.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington

This is a patient of mine who felt subconscious of her ears and never wanted to wear her hair up because she felt that her ears stuck out too much (or prominent ears / large ears).  We were able to reshape her ears to make them look a lot less prominent through small unnoticeable incisions behind her ear through a procedure called otoplasty, (or ear reshaping / ear shaping / ear plastic surgery / ear pinning / ear cosmetic surgery)  The ear essentially is pinned back with permanent sutures that creates specific curls in the ear and also sutures are used to pin the base of the ear back as well.  This patient wanted to be able to wear her hair up at a wedding and we were able to get a super result to allow her to do that.  She was ready to do normal things in less than a week.

Thanks for reading, Dr Young

Dr Young specializes in Facial Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery and is located in Bellevue near Seattle, Washington