Medical Questions » Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery Questions » Question No. 237
| Question: | I am 16 years old and very embarrassed because my ears stick straight out and when I look in the mirror, they even show through my long hair that I have grown to hide them. Boys tease me about them, and call me ' Elephant' because they say I look like Dumbo. Can these be fixed? |
| Answer: | Dumbo, the flying elephant, was a very gentle and kind elephant (as I recall from my childhood comics), and so you can take the jibes and jests as an indirect compliment. If you have the right attitude, a lot of the teasing will stop.
Prominent ears can cause children, teenagers and adults to be teased endlessly. If you really feel that the ears are causing you too much distress, then an operation to help pin back the bat ears can be done. Most children do not want to proceed until they are in their teen yeats, but then, the operation can give them new confidence that everyone is not going to stare at them and call them names.
In this procedure, a wedge of skin and tissue is excised from behind the ear, and the tissue is then sewn down again. It is a relatively simple and quick procedure for a plastic surgeon, and as recovery takes only a couple of weeks, can easily be fitted into a school holiday. The complications of these operations are uncommon, and usually involve either bruising or infection, which can be corrected by further treatment.
Anyone concerned about plastic surgery should not hesitate to discuss the matter further with a sympathetic general practitioner.
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