Eyes, eyes, baby!

If you ask people what attracted them to their partners, chances are, they will tell you it was their eyes. In fact, two-thirds of adults consider their eyes to be their defining feature.

According to Dr. Victor Baviera Lopez, ophthalmologist, reconstructive and cosmetic eye surgeon with the Belo Medical Group, eyes play a bigger part in a person’s sex appeal than their lips. In the US, blepharoplasty or eyelid surgery has become the most sought-after facial plastic surgery procedure, surpassing rhinoplasty or nose lift.

"If you cover your face except your eyes, you can still convey expression," Dr. Vic Lopez says. "When you look at somebody in the eye, it’s like taking a snapshot of that person, you remember that person even if you’re not introduced. If you don’t want to be recognized, don’t look at anybody in the eye because then it becomes difficult for people – even when they have seen you – to remember you later."

He should know – he has been consulted on and done thousands of eye (and eye bag) surgeries through the years. When he started 25 years ago, Lopez didn’t want to do cosmetic surgery; his practice consisted mostly of reconstructive surgery for patients with eye trauma resulting from, say, vehicular accident or cancer.

"I just wanted to stick with the ‘real’ stuff. Initially, I would just teach Vicki Belo’s doctors, but she said, sayang, ang ganda ng ginagawa mo. So before, I’d do it once or twice a week and provided that my name wouldn’t come out in their ads."

Today, of course, things are different. Dr. Lopez is the most sought-after cosmetic eye surgeon and he admits that doing both reconstructive and cosmetic surgery satisfies the two sides of his being a doctor. "If you operate on a patient with cancer of the eye and you try to remove it as much as you can and succeed, it’s very rewarding. Cosmetic surgery, on the other hand, is pleasing your patients and yourself. It’s like doing art and it’s also changing the outlook of your patients: they look better, they feel better about themselves."

He explains that apart from the skin around the eyes being the thinnest and most sensitive in the face, it also ages the fastest, causing eyelids to become droopy – and in some severe cases, especially in the elderly, impairing vision. Other factors that contribute to changes in the eyelid skin, muscle, and support system are sun damage, smoking, stretching from obesity, loss of elasticity as we reach our late 30s and early 40s, and heredity. What happens is that the muscles weaken and excess fat gathers above and below the eyelids, leading to eyebrow sag, drooping upper lids and bags around the eyes.

Then there are people, particularly Asians, born with minimal upper eyelid fold or crease – or "slit eyes." Dr. Lopez says, "Most people think they don’t have a fold in their eye, but they do. So in most patients, I use their own fold. It’s a God-given fold and it’s better in terms of what suits your face. Most Asians have unequal folds, so at the most papantayin ko."

Only when he shows us before-and-after photos of his patients that we get to fully appreciate the big difference the eyes make in a person’s appearance. Without the baggy or puffy upper eyelids, without the eye bags, a person’s face appears younger, less fatigued, more "open," and the eyes more alert.

Using the latest cutting laser machine – "Vicki is always the first to bring in the latest machines" – Lopez says the majority of his patients are between 30 and 50 years old and 10 to 15 percent of them are male. (Men who have had the procedure look friendlier and more approachable, less scowling, in their "after" photos.)

"I have a patient, a doctor in her 40s, she had her slit eyes done, nagka-asawa siya kaagad. Another 18-year-old who never had a boyfriend, nagkaroon kaagad after the surgery. Then I saw her in the mall with her boyfriend. She didn’t greet me, but after we walked past each other, she turned and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ That’s how I am with my patients when I see them at parties, I wait for them to greet me because some of them are sensitive about having these procedures and don’t want people to know that they know me."

Lopez says that if a patient is planning to have other procedures done on the face, such as a facial lipo or a face lift, these can be done all in one day, but he insists that the blepharoplasty should be done first. "I want to see the eyes first because once they do the other parts, the face will become swollen and I wouldn’t be able to see the details. What we do is that the doctors consult with each other on the patient’s case."

The surgery is around 45 minutes. Sutures are removed from the upper lids after six days and the patient may experience swelling for the next seven to 10 days while others experience moderate discoloration that begins to fade in the same period.

When asked which celebrity’s photo most patients bring with them when they consult him, Lopez says that they usually show him photos of models in magazines. The problem with this, he says, is that they mostly bring photos of Caucasian models in Vogue and then insist that they want deep-set eyes. "There’s a big difference between the races. Caucasians have deeper-set eyes because their bone structure is different. If you’re Asian and you want deep-set eyes, you’ll look funny and unnatural in the end."

Speaking of natural looking, Lopez says that in the past, you always knew it when people had their eyes done – there was a signature look. Today, when a doctor does the surgery really well, people wouldn’t even notice except that you look younger, slightly different – but they won’t be able to pinpoint why.

As for dark circles and bags under the eyes, these contribute to making a person look older and fatigued even though he may be very healthy and has had a good amount of rest.

Lopez suggests to have one’s eye bags removed early because "it prevents the other tissues around it from stretching some more. If you wait, even if you remove the eye bags, you still have to do something about the tissues around it. The procedure is usually 30 minutes."

Before blepharoplasty, the patient is advised to avoid medications containing aspirin or ibuprofen and other blood thinners to avoid increased bleeding. The patient should also avoid exposing his skin to sunlight for a week before surgery and after as too much sun may cause permanent irregular coloration of the skin. Smoking and alcohol should also be avoided.

"Eyelid surgery, if done properly, will last you about five to 10 years, depending on how well you take care of yourself. Eye bag removal, if you’re always puyat, will last shorter," he says. "The eyes move so much more than any other part of the face –we blink, we squint, most of our expressions are around the eyes and the other parts of the body just follow. It’s true what they say: the eyes are the windows to the soul."

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For inquiries, call the Belo Medical Group at 817-7178, 817-9283.