my wife started talking to me about getting double eyelid surgery. she wants her eyes to look more like our kids. there are other reasons, but that is the only one I feel like mentioning.
I know what the surgery is, but almost nothing else. google keeps giving me ads for clinics.
I’ve seen advertisements for different methods, but cant find information on the pros or cons for them.
I’ve seen people suggest going to Korea.
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Does anyone have any experience with this, either in their family or a friend?
Any short or long term side effects that we need to consider?
What are the pros and cons for different methods?
About how much should the surgery cost?
any clinic recommendations, or ones to avoid?
which country has the best quality, US, Japan or Korea?
links to any information is welcome, either in English or Japanese.
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Edit:
We haven’t made any decision yet. trying to learn more about it so we can make an informed decision.
13 comments
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Would you be comfortable with your wife potentially looking like a stranger? It definitely has a significant impact on appearance. The face you’ve looked at 1000s of times will change overnight.
Sounds awful to me, but it’s very popular in Japan. Had a few exes who used to use those weird glue strips to achieve the same effect. I’d stick with the glue strips before having someone slice my eyelids, but to each their own.
Super common, and a very easy surgery. No idea why some Americans/Europeans make such a big deal out of it. It can also help with 眼瞼下垂 which is such a common problem in Japan that it’s covered by medical insurance.
Korea is probably better quality and definitely cheaper, but I’ve heard covid was causing logistical issues for this. If you use a Japanese clinic avoid Shonan Beauty Clinic, they’re like the fast food chain of cosmetic surgery.
These are my personal experiences with those around me getting the surgery, this information might be several years outdated though.
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>Does anyone have any experience with this, either in their family or a friend?
I’ve had many Korean friends do this. It’s been rather common for probably 20-30 years now.
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>Any short or long term side effects that we need to consider?
Not really, there is some danger of damage to the eye muscles but most people I know haven’t mentioned anything about it.
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>What are the pros and cons for different methods?
Pros: You get what you want, just like any elective cosmetic surgery.
Cons: Don’t expect your world to change around you drastically because of the surgery. In fact, I’d be leery on if she thinks it’ll change anything drastically because it may not.
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>About how much should the surgery cost?
If you’re going to do it in South Korea, which I believe is the cheapest, it’s anywhere between $1000-$3000 USD last I checked. I think it’s way more in Japan.
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>which country has the best quality, US, Japan or Korea?
It’s a routine cosmetic surgery in Korea, so that’ll be your best bet as it’s done commonly, especially if your wife is Asian. I’ve known people fly from the US to Korea specifically for the surgery.
But honestly, she should keep her expectations in check if that’s among the chief reasons she wants it. It’s still a big decision even as an adult, and as I mentioned, it may not produce the results she thinks she’ll get. But if she really wants it and you have the disposable income, then that’s her choice.
Best of luck!
Pretty minor surgery. Family friend had it done in Korea. All they do is remove some skin and suture it up. If you end up going for it, do it in Korea for sure.
I put minor cosmetic surgery like this stuff in the same category as braces for cosmetic purposes (i.e., the majority of braces). If it makes you happy, gives you confidence, and is not dangerous, go for it.
My SO’s best friend had it done at a “clinic” in the PRC (where they are from, and where the prices are ludicrously low).
This so-called clinic was a house in a residential area, operated by a mother and daughter.
One of them served my girlfriend and I tea in the living room while the other took her friend to the back to get cut up.
The whole time the tea lady was hammering my girlfriend with recommendations for cosmetic surgeries she could do for her.
About a half hour later, her friend re-emerges with the worst stitching job I have ever seen, her eyelids already swollen shut and very red.
Since she was blind, we took her back to my girlfriend’s mother’s place where we were staying.
There ensued a battle between my Boy Scout first aid training and Chinese Traditional Medicine.
Her eyelids were obviously going to be infected, if they weren’t already, and the swelling was about to rip the stitches out.
I suggested she put ice on the wound to reduce the swelling, gently of course since it’s only a millimeter or two from her eyeballs.
Thirty minute lecture about the danger of coldness from two people who have never performed a medical procedure more complex than applying a Band-Aid.
I persisted. There is no ice in the fridge, ice is evil, no one would ever have ice.
I persisted. I managed to scrape some condensation out of the freezer, just enough to save two eyelids from exploding in front of me, wrapped each piece in a tissue, and handed them to the girl with the bleeding eyes.
She managed to use the ice for about two minutes before she defaulted back to thinking it was evil.
I’ve seen pictures of her since; it’s hard to tell a difference. How often do you count the number of folds in someone’s eyelid? Furthermore, losing 20kgs would have done much more for her looks and she opted out of that.
If your wife is wanting surgery to change her body for cosmetic purposes then perhaps she should consult a psychologist instead.
The method used will depend on her needs and the state of her eye area (amount of skin sagging/fat), which needs to be discussed in depth with the surgeon.
There are a lot of things to consider when thinking about going under the knife.
1. Will surgery solve her problems or are there other underlying issues that need to be dealt with first?
2. Upkeep. These procedures are “permanent” in the sense that it alters your body forever, but not permanent in terms of results, because aging, lifestyle choices/habits etc. will all affect the outcome over time. Revisions might be necessary several years later.
3. There is always the chance that something could go wrong. Is she prepared to deal with consequences, both mentally and monetarily? What will happen if she’s not happy with the results?
This link gives a really clear explanation of what happens, or should happen.
[https://med.stanford.edu/cosmeticsurgery/aestheticservices/face/asian-double-eyelid.html](https://med.stanford.edu/cosmeticsurgery/aestheticservices/face/asian-double-eyelid.html)
This is the most common type of cosmetic surgery in Japan as far as I know, but still has inherent risks as with any surgery.
I did non-incision suture method double eyelid at Otsuka clinic 3 years ago – [https://www.otsuka-biyo.co.jp/](https://www.otsuka-biyo.co.jp/stuff/doctor-stuff/) . I chose Otsuka because i don’t hear good reviews about the huge chain places like sbc, but still wanted one that was well reviewed. All prices are on their website.
non incision is pretty safe because they’re sewing a surgical string into your eyelid, but not as permanent as the knife method. you can choose the number of stitches (more = more expensive) , mine is said to last 10 years and if it goes away before 10 they will redo it for free. It’s been 3 years and the double eyelid is still perfectly there.
During the surgery they can also redo the stitching if it’s uneven or if you’re not happy with it, that’s not possible for knife method
I didn’t look much into the knife method because it seems to give much harsher looking results that look obvious you had surgery and seems less safe, more downtime – I’m really happy with mine because it looks natural. I was really only unable to go out for one full day after the surgery, and even put on makeup and contacts 3 days later.
>which country has the best quality, US, Japan or Korea?
I highly highly recommend Japan.
US doesn’t have much experience in double eyelid surgeries
Korea’s plastic surgery scene is indeed very popular but not well regulated imo (you can google a lot of instances of this). They are also very secretive about prices and will purposely charge foreigners higher prices knowing they don’t know better (and what can you do as a tourist who can’t speak korean?). You also hear about instances of doing counseling with an experienced doctor, then switching the doctor out for an inexperienced one on surgery day and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I also feel that korean surgeons like to give everyone one face type, and will give everyone the same type of face regardless if it suits you or not. you can observe this with many botched surgeries on kpop idols and how everyone gets the same pointy nose/chin/eyes -as an example look at idol Miyawaki Sakura, I suspect that her first surgery was in Japan while she was in HKT48, and you can barely tell she got anything done on her nose and eyes, looks extremely natural. After becoming a kpop idol, she now has a really large and pointy nose that does not suit her soft facial features at all I suspect this was done in Korea (people talk about the hybe nose – every idol under hybe seems to get the exact same type of nose)
imo, Japan’s plastic surgery scene is much better regulated, and they emphasize natural over doll like “one standard” beauty that Korea likes. Also, just having all the prices listed out on the websites gives me a much better feeling compared to Korean clinics that aren’t clear about prices at all.
The day of the surgery:
The doctor was pretty cold and dry but at least he was really experienced and the nurse beside me was there asking me if i’m ok and stuff LOL telling me what they’re doing like “one more stitch”, “we’re doing the next eye now”. I’m someone with a normal pain tolerance and not very brave (can’t go on drop towers and stuff lol) but somehow had the guts to go do the surgery alone, and i’d say it hurt like a 7/10 but it didn’t take very long (like 20 mins tops?) He pretty much lifts up your eyelid and sews a backstitch from the front of your eyelid to the back of your eyelid with a thin needle, which sounds extremely scary but he was so chill about the whole thing that it was reassuring lol. You could pay extra for a thinner needle so it hurts less but I didn’t. They give you some pills and eyedrops to use for the next week or so. After the surgery my eyes looked pretty bad (swollen with blood, looked like a druggie, couldn’t open my eyes fully). For the next 2-3 days my eyes constantly felt like there was string in the back of them (which there was!) and I couldn’t go out, eventually it diminished and I went to Korea for 4 days like a week later and was perfectly fine lmao.
So common that my friends talk about it like they’re going for a bikini wax. Recently I see the ads on TV for ¥4800 at TCB clinic. It’s not going to change the way she looks drastically (like someone commented) but it’ll surely change the way she feels. Don’t need to go all the way to Korea to do it. A little research and you’ll find great places. TCB, Shonan-Biyo, Shinagawa skin, Shiromoto. They even have ones were you can reverse it if you don’t like how it looks.
I had a Vietnamese-American friend back when I lived in the US who did that and he ended up regretting it later after he got back in touch with his ethnic identity.