What a Safe Eyelid Operation Should Actually Involve

The BBC has published an investigation into blepharoplasty — eyelid surgery, widely known as a “bleph” — after interviewing women left with open wounds, severe infections, and in some cases so much skin removed that they cannot fully close their eyes. One described taping her eyelids shut in order to sleep.

We are not going to use those women’s experiences to sell anything. But the article raises a question worth answering properly, and it applies whoever you are considering and wherever they are: what should this operation actually involve?

A bleph is surgery. It is not a tweakment.

The most useful sentence in the BBC’s reporting comes from a woman who went abroad for the operation and said she had not realised how invasive it would be — she had expected something closer to having her lips done. She was given local anaesthetic, then felt the cutting, and felt the needle as she was stitched.

That gap between expectation and reality is the heart of this. Blepharoplasty involves cutting the eyelid, removing tissue and closing the wound with sutures. It is done under local anaesthetic, which means you are awake, and you should be told in plain terms beforehand what you will feel and what you will look like for the fortnight afterwards. If a clinic is selling it in the same register as a lunchtime treatment, that is information about the clinic.

The BBC also found that videos about blephs posted by UK social media accounts were viewed close to 150 million times over three years, five times the figure for the three years before. Demand is being driven by an aesthetic trend, and the procedure has travelled along with it into settings that do not always match what it actually is.

One detail worth repeating on its own: the woman above flew home within hours of her surgery, having seen other people doing it online. Flying the same day is not advised — by medical experts, or indeed by the clinic that treated her. She regrets it and says so.

What the surgeons actually reported

The BBC surveyed members of the British Oculoplastic Surgery Society, and 63 surgeons across the UK and Ireland responded. Where they had seen blepharoplasty complications over the past twelve months, those patients had in most cases been treated abroad. The single most common problem reported was people unable to close their eyes properly. Scarring, uneven eyes and wounds opening up also featured.

Colin Vize, a consultant oculoplastic surgeon on the society’s executive committee, explains why that particular complication matters: removing too much skin from the eyelid leaves the eye exposed, and correction is difficult and expensive. He likens eyelids to a pair of curtains — opened, there has to be enough of a pleat left that they still close over the eyeball.

One finding deserves more attention than it will probably get. Those same surgeons also reported complications in patients treated by unregistered practitioners here in the UK, including blepharoplasties carried out in living rooms. This is not only a story about going abroad.

The part that goes wrong is usually afterwards

The clearest theme in the BBC’s reporting is not the surgery itself. It is what happens afterwards. Patients who had cheap eyelid surgery abroad told the BBC that limited aftercare was their biggest complaint: one removed her own stitches a week later, having worked out how from TikTok videos; another went to A&E with a badly infected face rather than call a clinic hundreds of miles away.

Vize puts the aftercare point plainly — it “should be available to a patient 24/7”, and where the surgeon is hundreds of miles away, care with any immediacy is impossible. Patients taking out their own stitches he describes as a recipe for disaster; they should come out under a surgeon or nurse, to reduce infection risk and the chance of wounds splitting open.

Why it takes as long as it does

UK surgeons told the BBC that upper eyelid surgery typically takes about three hours, including preparation, the operation itself and post-operative care. Patients of the clinic at the centre of the investigation said they spent less than an hour there. That company’s own explanation is that letting practitioners carry out a higher volume of treatments is what brings the cost down.

Our own listed time for eyelid surgery is three hours or more. That is not thoroughness for its own sake. The operation is done under local anaesthetic with you awake, and the time goes on things that cannot be rushed: marking the eyelid while you are sitting upright, because skin behaves differently lying down; asking you to open and close your eyes during the procedure to judge how much skin can safely come away; achieving haemostasis properly, because the eyelid is vascular and a bleed behind the eye is the complication everyone is working to avoid; and going through aftercare with you afterwards rather than handing you a leaflet.

Remove too much skin and the eyelid will not close. That is the complication described in the BBC piece. It is difficult to correct, sometimes requiring a skin graft, and it is largely a function of how carefully the marking and the checks during surgery were done.

How to check anyone, anywhere

These apply equally to us. We would rather you asked.

• Who is operating, and what are they registered as? Ask for a name and look them up on the GMC register, which is public and free. “Cosmetic surgeon”, “aesthetic doctor” and “oculoplastic surgeon” are not the same thing, and the last of those is an eye-specialist subspecialty.
• Where did they train to do this operation, and with whom? Worth asking directly. The clinic in the BBC report says its doctors are accredited and receive internal training from the company in surgical procedures. That is a different thing from a recognised surgical training pathway, and the distinction is easy to miss in a brochure.
• Will you meet that person before the day? A consultation with someone who will not be holding the instruments tells you very little.
• How long is the appointment? If the answer is under an hour door to door for an upper blepharoplasty, ask what has been left out.
• What happens if something goes wrong at two in the morning, three days later? This is the question that matters most if you are flying home afterwards, and it is the one budget packages answer worst.
• Is the place regulated, and by whom? In England, surgical procedures of this kind fall under Care Quality Commission registration. Ask to see it. A blepharoplasty is an operation, and it belongs in a clinical environment — the BBC’s surgeons reported seeing patients who had been operated on in living rooms by unregistered practitioners in this country.
• What does the aftercare schedule look like, in writing?
• When can you fly? Not the same day. Several patients in the BBC report travelled home within hours because they had seen it done online. It is not advised by anyone, including the clinics themselves, and it is the decision people said they most regretted.

What we do

Eyelid surgery at Bodyvie is carried out by Dr Vadim Corjos (GMC 7822977), a cosmetic surgeon with fifteen years of surgical practice across general, trauma and reconstructive surgery. He consults, he operates, and he reviews you afterwards. It is the same person each time, and you meet him before you commit to anything.

Since we have asked you to put the training question to anyone you are considering, here is our answer to it. Dr Corjos trained through recognised surgical pathways and has undertaken advanced aesthetic surgical training with internationally recognised plastic surgeons through specialist programmes including ECAMS, the European College of Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery. In November 2025 he successfully completed their CME-accredited master course in Blepharoplasty and Brow Lift — sixteen hours of intensive hands-on cadaveric surgical training in Italy — and is entered on the ECAMS register as a certified doctor of the college. That is external, independent training from an established academy — not an in-house course run by the clinic that then sells the operation.

Both our clinics are registered with the Care Quality Commission and were inspected in April 2026, rated Good across all five domains. Our aftercare schedule is published on the treatment pages for upper blepharoplasty and lower blepharoplasty, and sets out when you are seen and by whom.

We are not the cheapest option and we are not trying to be. What the difference buys is mostly time, and the willingness to say no. We decline eyelid surgery where we do not believe the result would be one we would want our name on, and that conversation happens at consultation rather than after a deposit.

What our aftercare actually is

Because the BBC piece turns on aftercare, it is worth being specific rather than reassuring.

• Your stitches are removed here, by the surgeon or a nurse. You are never asked to do it yourself, and you will not need a video to work out how.
• Your review appointments are with Dr Corjos, the same surgeon who operated, and the schedule is set out in writing before you go ahead.
• Both clinics are in London. If something changes at the weekend you are a short journey away, not a flight.
• You are given a number to ring, and something going wrong out of hours is exactly what it is for.

If you have already had surgery elsewhere

If you are recovering from eyelid surgery abroad and something does not seem right — particularly if you cannot fully close your eye, or there is spreading redness, discharge or worsening pain — do not wait for it to settle. Contact the operating clinic if you can, and seek medical attention here. Your GP, an NHS eye casualty department, or an oculoplastic surgeon are the right places to go.

That advice stands whether or not you were ever our patient, and there is nothing to pay for asking us where to turn.

One last thing, in fairness. The BBC also spoke to a woman whose droopy eyelids were restricting her vision, who was not eligible for NHS treatment and could not afford to go private here, and who says her problem was resolved. Not everyone who travels has a bad outcome, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise. The point is not where the clinic is. It is who is holding the instruments, how long they are prepared to spend, and who picks up the phone at midnight.