permanent sutures left in ears after otoplasty?

I had otoplasty done a year ago (August 2007) and I have permanent sutures left in ears. They really hurt when I sleep on my ears at night, I feel it poking me. The sutures are under the skin, only some have poked through. The doctor has removed in 3 different accasion (in the past 3 months) sutures that have been bothering me. Again, it feels like they continue to move outward trying to poke through the skin. I expressed this to my Doctor that I am having a hard time at night sleeping because I can not press on my ears and also sometimes the way my hair rubs on the back of the ears its hurts too. The Doctor said he could not remove them because they were under the skin and the only way to remove them would be with surgery that would cause my ears to pretrude again (reverse the surgery). Is this true that after a year if he removes the permanent sutures my ears will pretrude again? Please help what can I do? I want the beauty and the confidence that my ears are not like DUMBO, but is the price pain for the rest of my life?

[Howard Rosenberg, MD]

There may be a small risk that the amount of scar tissue that has developed after your otoplasty would not be sufficient to prevent recurrence of prominent ears if the sutures are removed.  This is a risk you would take if the posterior sutures were removed, but a risk that is worth taking based on your symptoms.  If there is a recurrence of prominence of the your ears, then other techniques are available to correct the problem.