The Office of Dr. U offers split earlobe repair procedures for patients in the Los Angeles area.

Having your ears pierced can give you a way to express your personal style with earring fashions. However, there is also the risk of developing split earlobes. This is actually a very common problem that occurs more often than most people realize.

It can result from different causes such as:

1) wearing large heavy earrings that pull the earlobe downward

2) wearing earring posts that are made of metals that can irritate the skin such as nickel

3) accidents where the earring is pulled and tears the skin, creating a split in the earlobe

Initially the hole can extend downward to resemble a slit. If the earlobes are not addressed by a doctor at this point, the slit can continue to grow until earlobe actually splits at the bottom.

Does A Split Earlobe Procedure Hurt?

Here at Fine Touch Dermatology, we take extra care to maximize your comfort during your procedure.  We apply proper levels of anesthesia in order to mimimize the amount of pain associated with the procedure.

How Is Split Earlobe Repair Performed?

Every patients will receive a slightly different approach to their case. However, split earlobe repair is generally performed as follows:

1) The edges of the slit will be refreshed. This means that a surgical tool is used to cut through the slit, all the way down to the bottom edge.

2) Sutures are used to stitch the edges together and create a normal looking earlobe. There are three levels of tissue that need to be addressed during this process

  • the skin that makes up the front of the earlobe
  • the fatty tssue within the earlobe itself
  • the skin on the back of the earlobe.

Generally, split earlobe procedures will take around one to two hours

What Happens After the Procedure?

After your split earlobe repair procedure, you will need to keep the sutures in place for one week. And a second visit will be necessary to have them removed.

If you want to get your ears re-pierced, you must wait 6-8 weeks before having this done. And we recommend that you only choose earrings with posts made of gold or platinum.  They should either be studs or very short and light in both size and weight. The recurrence rate of split earlobes is very high. Therefore, choosing to wear safer earrings will be important for preventing this issue from happening again.

Also, Dr. U advises patients to choose a different location for their new piercing and to make sure that it’s downward vertical projection does not align with the location of the split.

Here are before and after pictures of   Los Angeles patients who underwent a split earlobe procedure at our office.

Repairing Split Earlobe|Before & After Images of Los Angeles Patient

Patient with torn earlobes was able to have them reconstructed through a procedure performed by Dr. U*

Repair of Damaged Earlobes| Results of Split Earlobe Surgery

Patient with newly repaired earlobes after her procedure by Dr. U.*

Earlobe Repair Results| Dr. Umar's Patient - Los Angeles

Results of a split earlobe repair operation on Los Angeles patient.*

Videos

Here is a video of one of our happy patients who was relieved to have her damaged earlobes repaired and plans to get her piercings done again.

In this video, Dr. Umar discusses solutions for split earlobes as well as other tips and helpful information.