Dr Julian De Silva: Hello, welcome to my frequently asked
questions. Today I'm answering a commonly asked question how to
recover faster from facelift surgery? What do you absolutely
need to know? So, in answering this question, well, why is it
important? Well, we all want to recover quicker get on with
meeting people, our social lives or professional life. So this is
a very important subject. And these are the aspects that I'm
going to cover in this talk. One, what is ice packs? How can
that be helpful? Hot showers? When are they important to
avoid? How to keep your head elevated after surgery? And why
is that important? Avoid hot drinks and hot food and the
reason why smoking and alcohol consumption, using a warm
compress after 48 hours, cleaning your stitches,
antibiotics, and of course nutrition. So, before we go on
to this, my name is Dr. Julian De Silva. I'm an oculofacial
plastic surgeon based in London, and this is what I do every day
for my patients. So in terms of this, well, it's kind of
construir consultation. It's really for education informative
purposes. So how about ice packs? What are they helpful?
Well, there is very good science behind this that using cold
compresses using ice after any surgery or traumatic injury can
reduce swelling and speed up healing. So it's important to
use it for approximately 10 minutes, and then you can have a
break and you can apply it to different areas of your face,
and then have the rest of the hour the other 50 minutes off. I
would wrap the ice or frozen peas or the or the frozen
material in like a hand towel or flannel so it's not directly on
your skin. And this will definitely help reduce swelling
the first three days. Hot showers Well, it's important to
avoid hot showers immediately after surgery and we recommend
for three days for two reasons. Firstly, the heat soon after
surgery can increase swelling which ultimately can increase
your recovery. And secondly, it can also harbour infection. And
really, there are waterborne infections that can actually
give you rare but quite serious infections after surgery. Now in
my office, in my practice, I have like seven filtration
systems that filter all the water that comes into my
practice so that we can be sure that it's clean, and we test the
water for organisms microorganisms in addition to
that, however, when you're at home having a shower tap water,
this water can harbour, bacteria and microorganisms. So it's
important to avoid it in that first three days until the skin
is really healing. It's now the other element of this is head
elevation. And the reason for this is gravity because swelling
is how the body heals and some of the swelling will settle with
gravity. So it's important to sleep with your head slightly
elevated to help reduce that swelling. Now there are a number
of ways you can do this. You can use a number of pillows two or
three pillows to keep your head elevated. You can actually use a
reclining chair, you can from Amazon or other shops, you can
buy a triangular pillow that will support your upper torso
and head neck when you sleep at night. And that can be really
effective in reducing swelling after surgery because swelling
will generally settle with gravity
How about eating hot drinks in hot food? Well, this is very
important in the very initial period of hours after the
surgery and the reason is when there's local anaesthetic around
your face, you won't necessarily be able to feel a temperature of
hot food drinks. So in that initial four hour period after
surgery is it's important that you're quite careful with these
aspects. Particularly with face of surgery, heat can be quite
relevant and so after a few days when you can use of shower Be
very careful with things like hair dryers because the heat may
not be detectable in your skin soon after surgery. Because
areas of the skin will be no and that's completely normal. That
numbness will complete the result. But be careful with
particularly with hot things of things that potentially can
damage the skin because you won't be able to feel a
sensation immediately after the surgery and that sensation will
absolutely come back. But it really takes some months for the
sensation to come back around the ears and under your neck.
And so in that initial period, be careful with things like hot
drinks, hot food, and of course hair dryers and other things
that might contain heat.
How about smoking and drinking while smoking reduces oxygen in
the body. So you really want to be careful about having smoking
both before surgery and after surgery. So we really recommend
you stopping for a period of weeks before surgery to make
sure that the oxygen in your body is at the highest level and
oxygen. And oxygen really is one of the elixirs for speeding up
healing. And for some patients, particularly with face of
surgery, we give high concentrated oxygen to to
enhance recovery and healing. However, if you're smoking and
that really is doing the opposite, it's delaying your
healing, delaying recovery. And certainly one of the most
serious issues with Asus surgery is where part of the skin
particularly Rock Around the years doesn't get enough oxygen,
and that's cool skin necrosis. And that can result in the skin
not being a normal pink and oxygenated colour. But the skin
can be almost black in colour. And the number one risk factor
for that is smoking. And so it's so important to do your very
best to stop smoking to give you the best recovery and the best
results after surgery. alcohol, alcohol can affect things
because alcohol reduces your water content, it's dehydrated
causes dehydration, and also it can thin the blood. There are
various blood thinners within different types of alcohol, that
potentially can give you more swelling and more bruising. So
we recommend reducing alcohol content before surgery in that
that will give you the faster to recovery by reducing swelling
and bruising. Now the other aspect of this is infection. And
although infection in my experience is very rare after
face of surgery, smoking is a risk factor for that because by
having less oxygen it can replace increase that chance. So
for further reasons still best to reduce that before surgery.
How about warm composites? Well, after 48 to 72 hours, it's
absolutely fine to use warm compresses, warm flannels on
your face. And that can be really helpful if you have some
discomfort. Now, pain is not a common thing in my patients.
However, if if the air feels a bit sensitive, then using warm
compresses can really help because it just soothes the skin
while it's healing. How does it work? Well, warm compress tend
to increase blood flow and circulation in that area of the
skin, which ultimately can help you. And you can do this up to
four times a day for 30 minutes. And that can be really helpful
in stimulating blood flow and enhancing recovery and healing.
Changing bandages and cleaning your incisions Well, I no longer
use a head bandage after surgery as there's no scientific
evidence for this. And from my experience over more than 10
years. Well really in some patients, I find that a bandage
can actually reduce swelling by causing compression. In terms of
stitches, well I prescribe like antibiotics for all my patients
to use over the stitches in the first few days after surgery
just to ensure good healing and moisturise the skin. Every
doctor differs in their approach regarding this and it's worth
listening to your doctor to see what their specific instructions
are. And of course, if you have anything concerning while it's
important to take some photographs, send it to your
doctor and he'll be should be able to get back to you within a
few hours. But from my experience, infection after face
of surgery is really very uncommon or rare. And so
anything unusual, it's worth speaking to your doctor, a guy
or us finally, what about nutrients? Well, it's important
to have a healthy diet after surgery and that means in terms
of nutrients, balanced diet means carbohydrate, protein and
fat. It's not a good time to go on a crash diet because starving
your body is going to delay healing delay healing of the
soft tissues after surgery. In addition to that it's important
to have a well hydrated intake and that means drinking at least
three litres of water a day water is very important in
healing and so drinking plenty of water is important. salt
intake well salt intake is moderation and we all need a
certain amount of salt in our diets. However high salt intake
will tend to cause you to retain excessive water and give you
more swelling. So it's a good idea to have a relatively low
salt diet. Vitamin K, Vitamin K is an important constitute of
healing and so that can be available and in various psych
supplements and that can be helpful in healing and it can
also help produce bruising and swelling. So in summary, what
are the things that can really help in reducing swelling and
enhancing your recovery after face of surgery? Well, we talked
about using ice and cold packs in the first three days. We
talked about avoiding heat and avoiding the water from showers
in the first few days, keeping your head elevated particularly
at night to reduce swelling from gravity, avoiding hot
temperature that can be in the form of food, drinks, and of
course, hair dryers in the initial period after surgery,
avoiding smoking, avoiding alcohol consumption, using a
warm compress 40 to 72 hours after surgery, using and
applying antibiotics to your stitches after surgery and
finally making sure that you're hydrated eating a balanced diet.
I do hope this information has been helpful for you. Thank you
for watching, and if you have any further questions or queries
do not hesitate to contact me. I'll be delighted to answer
them. Thank you