The headband is not optional and it is not decoration. It is the only thing holding reshaped cartilage against six weeks of memory trying to spring back.
A bulky dressing for three days, then a soft elastic band day and night for two weeks, then nights only for a further four. That is the standard schedule and we do not shorten it. Sleep on your back with two pillows for the first fortnight; the pressure of a side-lying head on a freshly sutured ear is exactly the force that loosens a stitch. Patients who abandon the band early are the ones who need a revision.
Cartilage has elastic memory. The antihelical fold we create is held by permanent sutures through the cartilage, but for the first six weeks those sutures are working against tissue that wants to return to its original shape. Scar tissue forming around the new fold is what eventually makes the correction permanent, and that takes about six weeks to become mechanically meaningful. The band is not treating the skin; it is buying time for that scar to form.
Snug, not compressive. The band should hold the ears flat against the head without leaving a deep groove in your forehead or making the ear rim white. Too tight causes pressure sores on the upper ear where skin sits directly on cartilage, and that complication is far harder to fix than a slightly loose result. If you wake with numbness, throbbing or a dent in the skin, loosen it and contact us. Two bands are supplied so one can be washed.
You can wash your hair from day four, gently, with the band off and back on immediately afterwards. Glasses can rest on the ear from about week two if the frame is light; heavy frames wait until week four. No swimming for three weeks, no headphones that clamp over the ear for six, and no contact sport for six weeks minimum. Children go back to school after a week but sit out PE until the surgeon clears them.
The cartilage is still elastic at that point and the correction can partially relapse, most often at the upper third of the ear. Night-only wear for four more weeks costs nothing and protects the result.
Not for the first two weeks. After that, side sleeping with the headband on is generally fine, and most patients return to their normal position around week four.