Wearing Earrings After Earlobe Repair

SINY® Dermatology offers the highest quality cosmetic and medical skin care services available from five beautiful locations in New York City. Invested in keeping your skin looking and feeling its best, our top-level specialty team answers questions about earlobe repair and what to expect after this 30-minute, in-office procedure.

What is earlobe repair?

Although it’s not clear what biological function they serve, other than to perhaps help keep your ears warm, your earlobes are highly visible frames for your face.

Unfortunately, these small flaps of skin are also rather fragile. This makes them vulnerable to injury or changes in shape and size that may be related to the natural effects of aging or certain style choices. Even clip-on earrings, for instance, can cause visible tissue damage over time.  

Your SINY specialist may recommend earlobe repair (auricular lobuloplasty) for:

• Lobes that have elongated over time
• Large gauge piercings you wish to close
• Congenital abnormalities
• Trauma
• Piercings that have widened or stretched

Although earlobe repair is a relatively simple procedure, it offers dramatically positive results when performed by a skilled surgeon.

What can I expect during earlobe repair?

At SINY, lobuloplasty is performed in-office for your convenience. It’s rated as a minor surgical procedure that requires local rather than general anesthesia and generally takes about 30 minutes to complete.

Your surgeon discusses the surgery and expected results in detail before scheduling your procedure. Generally, however, after creating a small incision in the earlobe, he removes excess skin as necessary to restore its desired shape and size and sutures the wound closed.

Note that our surgeons create an incision that’s designed to prevent postsurgical creases or indents in the lobe. When both earlobes require reconstruction, they take great care to ensure uniformity in appearance and shape.

How long before I can wear earrings again after earlobe repair?

While everyone heals at a different rate, we generally advise our patients to wait 12 weeks before wearing earrings again or having the ear re-pierced. You can avoid a prolonged healing phase by following your surgeon’s aftercare instructions carefully, which may include topical ointments to help prevent scar formation and speed recovery.

How can I prevent earlobe damage?

Although you can’t completely eliminate the risk of injury to your earlobes, there are a few steps you can take to help prevent undesired stretching or accidental trauma, including:

• Wearing lightweight earrings whenever possible
• Removing clothing carefully when pairing long earrings with material that snags easily
• Wearing heavier earrings for short periods
• Removing your earrings before bed once your piercings have healed
• Avoiding excessively tight clip-ons or attaching backs to post-style earrings too firmly 

Also keep in mind that young children and pets often find it hard to resist tugging on or taking a swipe at dangling earrings, which can result in painful trauma.

For further information about how our surgeons can help, schedule an evaluation at SINY Dermatology today.