Are you prepared to endure about two to three hours of ear pinning surgery in Salt Lake City? If you can’t take the heat and want to hear no more about how your ears recall elves or Dumbo, then this is the best time to do something about it.
Your prominent ears
Most of the time, cosmetic ear issues arise by the end of five — the time when we acquire the adult size of our external hearing organs. One can’t help it if we are born with prominent ears, and it only starts to be a problem when people point it out, or make a point to tease about ear size or shape. You can still get a new ear shape or reduce the protrusion at this time and stitch tight the lips of people who won’t stop talking about them.
Getting a new ear shape
The sculpting and reshaping of human ears is a safe procedure — tried and true. The outside part — the part that gets teased is the auricle or pinna. It is composed of cartilage. Your genetics determines whether like some people the pinna sticks close to your head or protrudes.
Doctors have found a way to thread parts of the cartilage or remove the upper portion to reshape it and hold the new shape in place. If you are careful not to let anyone pull you by the ears, the stitches should heal properly, and you won’t have to worry about being teased again.
If you want to change the shape of your ears more radically, a doctor would have to remove a good amount of cartilage, and you’d have to take better care that it heals completely so that you can keep your smaller and more beautifully shaped ears for as long as you shall live.
Is otoplasty for you?
Before signing up for ear pinning, you’d better think very carefully if you want the procedure. The doctor won’t say no if there are no medical contraindications.
When consulting for the first time about the cosmetic alteration of your auricles, you’d better explain to the doctor that you think your ears stick out too far from your head and look too big for your face. You should probably say some people tease you about them too.
The doctor is likely to agree to do the procedure if you understand that otoplasty is a surgical procedure to optimize symmetry and aesthetics, but will do nothing to alter your hearing abilities.
A note on having superhearing (or not)
Remember that otoplasty is not going to increase or decrease your ability to hear. While the localization of sound is an important function of the pinna of the ear, any surgical procedure done to the shape of the cartilage will have no significant effect on hearing function.
However, it is possible for you to get an infection from the procedure, and new problems will arise if you let someone pull your ears out while they are still healing from surgery.
