Genioplasty: Walk With Your Chin Up And Head Held High
Importance of the chin
The secret to facial beauty is the balanced proportion of all facial features. The appearance of any face is a composite of all of the anatomic elements—teeth, bone, and soft tissues—and their relationship to one another. The chin is a prominent facial feature which plays an important role in overall facial appearance. If the chin type is disproportionate, one would like to correct it. That is possible through genioplasty procedure.
One doesn’t have to be a scientist to figure out if anything is wrong with the chin. Which makes deformities of the chin very apparent even to the untrained eye. People often associate chins with personality; categorizing people as ‘weak chinned’ and strong chinned.’ The golden era saw men having a strong broad jaw as preferred masculinity. Societal norms hold the same for women too, with people considering a narrow jawline to be more favorable.
What can genioplasty do
Not all of us are born with the perfect jawline. Genioplasty helps correct chin deformities. The process involves cutting ones chin bone to reposition it in a manner that enhances its functional and aesthetic appeal. Depending on the type of chin deformity, the surgeon may suggest reduction, augmentation, rotation, or bone shaving. Physicians fix the re-positioned bone using titanium plates and bio-compatible screws.
Genioplasty can correct asymmetries, broad chin, narrow chin, deficit chin, small chin, forwardly placed chin, backwardly placed chin, etc. It can also be a part of a major orthognathic surgery, correcting problems in the upper and lower jaws, or any other facial deformities.
This is an intra-oral surgery that takes a maximum of an hour and is safe and scare-free when done by trained hands!
Advancement genioplasty procedure at the Richardson’s
A young patient came to the Richardson Dental and Craniofacial Hospital with a complaint of a weak chin, wanted to improve her profile. She could not close her lower lip because her lower jaw was positioned posteriorly.
We took a standard cone beam computed tomography to evaluate the deficit and decide on the procedure required, keeping in mind the facial proportions. Our physicians explained that we would be getting her chin forward to improve its functional use and aesthetic appeal.
We performed genioplasty intra-orally and under general anesthesia.; wherein we made cuts on the bone cuts, thereby bringing the chin forward. The fixation was done using titanium plates and screws as they are bio-compatible. We placed resorbable sutures. The whole procedure took 45 minutes.
Patient’s hospital stay was for two days post-surgery for the administration of IV medications. She was happy and excited to start a life with her chin up and head held high. Hundreds of chin correction surgeries have been done under the expertise of Dr. Sunil Richardson over time with excellent patient satisfaction. We have performed revision genioplasty surgeries to help patients who weren’t satisfied with their previously corrected chin.
