Five months on and the outer end of my upper lid scar shows as a pale line past the crease when my eyes are open. Does this fade or is it there for good?

I promised myself I would not become one of the people who posts about a millimetre of eyelid, and here I am.

Upper and lower done in March, so five months now. I am genuinely happy with the result, I want to say that first. The crease lines themselves have all but vanished into the fold, exactly like everyone promised. BUT. On both sides, more so on the left, the incision carried on past the crease towards the outer corner, into the laughter line area, and that last centimetre or so does not disappear into a fold when my eyes are open because there is no fold there. It is not red or raised any more, it is a pale, slightly shiny line, thinner than a pencil mark, and in normal light nobody sees it. In sunlight, and in the mirror at the hairdressers under those awful lights, I can see it and I am now fixated on it.

Is this the bit of the scar that just stays? Everyone talks about the crease hiding the line but nobody mentioned the tail. Is five months too early to call it, and if it IS staying, is there anything that is actually done about it or do I just learn to stop looking? Also is it bad that I have been putting concealer on it, I have a horrible feeling I was not supposed to.

The tail was the last part of mine to go quiet too. Nine months now and I have to hunt for it. Five months is not the end of the story.

Mine had a different problem at the same spot, a little cluster of tiny white bumps along the outer end of the line at about month two. Panicked, obviously. Surgeon said milia, tiny cysts the healing skin throws up, and dealt with the two that did not go on their own in about thirty seconds at a follow up. So if yours ever does that, it is a known thing and not a scar going wrong.

On the sunlight point, that was the lighting I noticed mine in as well. Overhead, harsh, unflattering, the sort of light that shows every pore. Hairdresser lighting is not a fair test of anything.

RestedAtLast said:

Everyone talks about the crease hiding the line but nobody mentioned the tail.

You have described the anatomy of it correctly, so let me put the reasoning behind that tail and then what five months means, with the usual caveat that I have not examined your lids and your own surgeon is the person to look at them.

The upper blepharoplasty incision sits in the supratarsal crease, and the crease conceals it because the fold rolls over the line every time the eyes open. The reason surgeons extend the incision a short distance beyond the outer corner is to deal with the hooding that gathers laterally, where most people carry the heaviest skin; if the excision stops at the corner, the excess bunches into a small pucker there, which is worse. So the tail is a design choice rather than a slip, and it is placed in or parallel to an existing laughter line so that expression creasing takes over the job the fold does elsewhere. It is the most exposed part of the scar and it is normal for it to be the last to fade.

On timing: eyelid scars redden and feel slightly firm at first, flatten and pale over the following weeks, and continue to mature for up to around 6 months, sometimes longer in thicker or paler skin. What you are describing at five months, a pale, flat, fine line that is invisible in ordinary light and visible in harsh light, is a scar that has done most of its maturing and is in the stage where it is quietly blending rather than changing shape. It will usually go on softening past six months, but at this point the realistic expectation is subtle further improvement rather than disappearance. A scar is a scar; a good one is one you have to look for, which is what you have.

What is done about a lateral scar that genuinely will not settle is a follow up question and depends on what is actually there. A thickened, raised or red line past the early months is the uncommon case where a surgeon may treat or, once the scar is fully mature, revise it; a flat pale line is not usually revised, because revision produces another scar. Concealer over a healed, closed scar at five months does no harm. What matters more in the first year is sun protection, since a maturing scar darkens more readily than the skin around it, which is covered in the site's aftercare guide. The fuller account of where each incision sits and how it settles is in blepharoplasty scars.

One practical thing: photograph it now, in the same light, and again at nine months. The change between five and nine months is real but slow enough that a mirror will not show it to you, and a photograph will.

The photograph advice is the single most useful thing on this board and I say that as someone who ignored it after my own upper surgery and then wished I had not. You cannot see a slow change with the same eyes that look at it every morning.

For what it is worth, on mine the outer tail went from "pencil line" to "did I imagine it" somewhere between month six and month nine. Not gone. Just no longer something I could find without trying.

Six months and one week, and an update, because the photograph thing worked. Took one on the day I posted, took one this morning in the same window light, and the left tail is visibly fainter in the second one even though I would have sworn nothing had changed. Not gone, but softer, and the right one I genuinely struggled to find.

Mentioned it at my six month follow up and was told the same as above: flat, pale, healing well, nothing to do but leave it alone and keep it out of the sun. I am going to stop looking for it. Mostly.