Orthognathic Surgery

Aesthetic Surgery for the Young: jaw alignment and face contouring surgery

It has been proven in studies that a person’s outlook may affect his/her confidence in himself/herself and certainly in the young patient, this may have an impact on development and future advancement in career and social outcome. Clinical science has now enabled the surgeon with orthognathic surgery to help those born with dentofacial deformities to improve their appearance. Orthognathic jaw realignment surgery involves moving either both upper and lower jaws or singularly to improve a patient’s facial appearance and occlusion (bite position of the teeth).

The young patient’s face rarely needs facial skin rejuvenation but alteration of the facial skeleton’s proportions will result in significantly enhanced aesthetics.

Achieving the Ideal Proportions – The “Perfect Face” ?

Most Beautiful Face UK 2012  Florence Colgate

Achieving the correct facial proportions can result in a pleasant and attractive face but there are factors to be considered. Racial features and social norms are important aspects when correcting the facial proportions.

It is important to establish correct facial proportions to enhance one’s looks. Simply by correcting one component eg making the nasal bridge higher with injection of fillers in an Asian nose may not result in an aesthetic appearance as the Asian nose has a broad base and the nose will look too big. An artificially high nasal bridge in an attempt to make one look like the movie stars is unaesthetic as the Asian nose has a broad nasal bridge and nice curve.

Similarly just by injecting fillers on a chin may result in an unaesthetic “witchy” chin. The aesthetic surgeon must be able to integrate artistic traits to clinical science to achieve an optimal outcome. Certainly there are too many “operated” looks out there. We should aim to give patients a natural aesthetic face without looking too artificial but generally a good looking face has certain facial proportions that are recognized to be beautiful.

Orthognathic surgery is not plastic surgery

Most jaw surgeries are performed by Oral & Maxillofacial surgeons worldwide. Orthognathic surgery aims to achieve the ideal facial proportions together with dental occlusion in harmony and not all patients will look alike after surgery. The aim is to alter the proportions for each individual to achieve an aesthetic outcome without changing the face too much. Orthognathic surgery can be claimed under medisave and insurance cover as it is not cosmetic surgery.

Types of Jaw Surgery

Jaw surgery can be both an art and science and the surgeon must be able to decide on the procedure that would achieve the best aesthetic outcome for the patient eg a tall person should not have a short face. The skills of the surgeon is just as important as the assessment of the patient’s condition.

There are many Korean centres doing such surgeries but one has to be careful of postoperative complications which have to be properly managed. The face, as part of the human body, cannot be treated like a machine and postoperative care is important for healing and achieving a good result. Simply going for surgery and coming home afterwards without good postoperative care (sometimes up to a month) is not advised for patients. Dr Fan has treated many patients who unfortunately suffered from postoperative complications done by ”quick fix” surgeons.

Patients can call our clinic for an assessment, especially for those young adults with an over or underbite.