When your engine breaks down, you either get a new engine or a new car. You may be shocked and indignant, but your decision is clearly based on weighing the pros and cons. Not so with body parts. These break down as you age?? drooping, falling, plummeting, plunging, sagging, hanging??but you’re stuck with them.

In the August 2011 issue of Vogue three women describe what they did about earlobes, a jawline and eyelids that drooped. For each of these women the sagging body parts were sources of humiliation and shame that ruined their self esteem.

Arts writer Dodie Kazanjian was ashamed of her excessively long earlobes, reasoning that they stigmatized her as aging. She went to a dermatologist, hoping injections would be the answer. Though the dermatologist could plump up earlobes with Juvederm, he could not reduce them. Earlobe reduction would take the skill of an experienced plastic surgeon, costing between $2000 and $2500 an ear and taking about 30 minutes per lobe. Kazanjian is still on the fence, trying to hide her lobes with long hair and big clip earrings.

Style icon Marina Rust was upset about her sagging jawline. Rust saw an aesthetician who drained toxins, water and general sludge that accumulate in that area. She was told that alcohol enlarges the parotid gland, making the face puffy.

Rust consulted with a plastic surgeon who suggested an internal ultrasound probe to tighten the skin and melt excess fat, which would then be removed via liposuction. Rust went for a second consultation with another plastic surgeon who proposed a much different procedure. “As we age the platysma muscle over the lower cheek along the jawbone loses definition and sags.” The solution is jaw rejuvenation surgery, which lifts and redrapes the muscle, carrying a ten-year guarantee of a youthful tight jawline. Rust is still on the fence.

Forty-five year old journalist Jancee Dunn felt sabotaged by her sagging eyelids. When she put on eye shadow, her sagging skin moved along with the brush. She tried Botox under her brows, hoping the lift would include her drooping eyelids, but it didn’t work. She then found a doctor who suggested periorbital resurfacing in which the laser injures the skin, sending the body’s natural healing system into overdrive and encouraging collagen growth.

Dunn underwent this procedure in four stages. By the fourth and final appointment, she was elated. The area above her lids was smooth and toned and she looked fresh, awake, alert and toned.

If your drooping body part needs a repair shop, consult a board-certified plastic surgeon.