Lidlift Kenneth D. Steinsapir, M.D.
Cosmetic, Facial & Eye Plastic Surgery

Herring’s Law

The scientific observation that certain movements about the eyes are paired (i.e. look left and both eyes look left, look up and both eyes look up). These paired muscle muscle movements occur because of the nerve signals from the brain stem to the muscles are the same. Herring’s law dictates that a heavy eyelid on one side will stimulate an over correction on the opposite eyelid. Commonly, patients will present with one ptotic or heavy eyelid and the other side will be in a normal position. Herring’s law means that both sides are getting the same amount of innervation. This means that if surgery is only performed on the side with obvious heaviness, after surgery, the otherside that did not get a surgical correction will end up being too low. An experienced eyelid surgeon will be on the look out for this well described phenomena and generally recommend that both eyelids have surgery to prevent this issue.