Options for People who Don't Like Their Ears

The right amount of self-confidence can give you the energy to apply for jobs you've spent years dreaming about working, finally ask someone out on a date or contact an influential business client for the first time. The tricky part is maintaining self-confidence, as so many different challenges and stimuli can ebb away at your self-confidence.

If you're like many people, your personal appearance is a factor that helps determine how you feel about yourself from the outside in. Eyes that are further apart than normal, a long nose and protruding ears don't have to make you question whether or not you're attractive, but they could.

Should your ears protrude or otherwise be abnormally shaped, you could read self-help books and visit a psychotherapist, finding the root cause of your discomfort. You could also receive an otoplasty. According to Penn Medicine, "Otoplasty is surgery to improve the appearance of a person’s ears. Though the procedure does not affect hearing, it can provide great psychological benefits to people who have been teased about the size or shape of their ears, had a serious ear injury or want to improve the look of their ears."

Specific otoplasty techniques plastic surgeons at New Look New Life and other facilities use include pinning the ears back, diminishing the size of the ears and adding or removing cartilage from ears. Other techniques require a plastic surgeon to rearrange or add skin to one or more of your ears.

These techniques are used if the top tips of your ears fold down or turn inward. If you don't have skin or cartilage on the outer tips of your ears or if you were born without a portion of your ears, otoplasty can reconstruct your ears, giving them a normal look. Another reason why you might decide to get an otoplasty is if your ear lobes have been stretched.

Stretching the ear lobes is a technique that has grown in popularity. It's another sign of how much importance people put on the appearance of their ears. If ear lobe stretching continues to be popular, it might become as common as ear piercing.

As reported in BBC News Magazine, "Statistics are not easy to come by but, as with tattoos, there is extensive anecdotal evidence that ear stretching is on the rise. More people are wearing them, DIY kits are more widely available and there is a much greater choice of jewellery."

Should you get or have already gotten your ears stretched and you change your mind about the cosmetic procedure years from now, you could reach out to a plastic surgeon and ask about getting an otoplasty. Be honest with your plastic surgeon, openly discussing your appearance concerns.

Also, talk about your expectations, what you hope to gain from the plastic surgery. If you do get the surgery, your surgeon will bandage the treated area and advise you to keep your head bandaged, howbeit with a smaller bandage, for at least two weeks. You can generally return to your normal daily activities a week after the surgery.