Facelift

A facelift procedure rejuvenates and it reverses the signs of facial aging. It treats the neck, first and foremost. That's usually my patients' first complaint when they come in asking about their face. It's that excess neck skin. Then moving up is the jawline where they point to their jowls and then the smile lines are the next most common. Then going up, we treat the cheek as well. In combination with the facelift, we usually do the eyelids as well. That's considered a separate procedure from a facelift, but it's almost always done with a facelift. It can be just the upper eyelids or the lower eyelids or even both. To me, the ideal age for a facelift is between 45 and 55 years old, but anybody can have a facelift no matter their age as long as they're healthy. Like most cosmetic procedures, I think the most important way to choose your plastic surgeon for a facelift is to meet them in person and feel comfortable with that person. The next thing is to look at their results and looking at their before and after photo gallery to give you a good idea of the types of results that they get because they can vary from surgeon to surgeon. One surgeon may prefer a tight pulled look where another surgeon may prefer a more natural look. So, first off, you want to be comfortable with your surgeon, and next you want to see their results and understand that that's the type of result that you want. And then experience is a huge thing in facelift surgery as well. It's a procedure that all surgeons get better with over time and so you want to choose someone who has done plenty of these procedures as well. I tell patients after facelift surgery that they need to lay low for about two weeks. Their stitches come out about one week after surgery and at that point, they're still going to be swollen and probably have some bruising too. After that second week, the bruising is almost always gone. They still have a little bit of swelling, but they look fine. So, if they have a social event to go to, usually two weeks is a good timeline to know that they could be back and doing that again.