Boston Mayor Undergoing Droopy Eyelid Surgery
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Paul Marotta/Getty Images(BOSTON) — Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is undergoing surgery today to lift his droopy eyelids, his office said.
Menino, 69, was diagnosed with dehiscence ptosis, a condition caused by the slow stretching of tiny tendons that hold up the upper eyelids.
“His ptosis occurred over a long period of time,” Dr. Mami Iwamoto, the Boston-based ophthalmologist who will perform the procedure, told the Boston Globe. “It can creep up on people.”
The upper eyelids usually hang two millimeters above the pupil, the tiny window through which light enters the eye. But in Menino’s case, the window was partially blocked.
“It’s like looking out a porthole with a shade down,” Iwamoto said, describing how low-hanging can obscure vision. “The shade interferes with the view out the porthole.”
Menino will be awake but sedated for the hour-long surgery to shorten the stretched-out tendons through tiny incisions in his eyelids. Swelling and bruising is expected to keep him out of the public eye for a week or so, the Globe reported.
Menino is no stranger to surgery. Since he was elected in 1993, the Mayor has gone under the knife at for a cataract, a torn tendon and two tumors, his office confirmed.
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