What Can Be Done to Repair my Neck/facelift?
I'm 72.
In June, 2012, I had a neck & lower face lift & liposuction on neck.
After, there was a lumpy area under my chin.
My doctor said to wait nine months.
My lips were stretched, but within two weeks, that had improved.
However, it's continued to come undone - my jowls, lines from nose and mouth, neck wrinkles
are reappearing (about 50% undone) and under chin is much worse.
Two plastic surgeons said I had good skin elasticity.
What can be done?
An in-office procedure?
Should I trust the same doctor?
Help!
Thank you for your question!
You're asking about, can the situation you're in be corrected and can it be done in an in-office
procedure.
Well, the situation you have, appears to be, where you had liposuction and you had lifting
done but there appears to be regression and collection of extra skin below the jawline.
And I clearly need some revision in order for you to look good as you appear to be after
surgery.
There is, unfortunately, some cases where there's a lot of regression and it depends
a lot on factors such as skin elasticity.
As far as an in-office procedure, I have to say, what matters is what decision you make
is really the surgeon who did the procedure and what kind of situation when you had it.
So, let me explain, if you had a procedure under general anesthesia, then most likely,
your surgeon is comfortable doing this kind of surgery under general anesthesia and if
you had it under local anesthesia with sedation, well then fine.
Your surgeon is more comfortable doing it that way.
I can tell you in my practice, I do all my facelifts and neck lifts under local anesthesia
with sedation and that means getting an IV and getting some liquid valium and propofol
and just being be relaxed throughout the procedure and patients recover pretty nicely that way.
So, as far as in-offices are concerned, in my practice, we have our own facility within
our office.
So, technically we do is an in-office procedure.
I would say, if there's a certain amount of laxity and the surgeon feels comfortable doing
this under local anesthesia and feels that this can be done as an in office procedure,
well, that's fine.
You see what we can't do in our assessment and opinions you have submitted with these
questions is do a physical exam.
And a critical important decision about the level of surgery with the extensiveness of
the procedure is actually the simple movement of lifting the skin and when I lift the skin,
I look at the directions.
And so, if I have to move very high and there's a lot of skin has to be move, that means that
the incision in the temple has to go a little higher in order to move the skin in a way
so there's no pleating and there's somewhere for that skin to go.
So I would probably say, your procedure, based on your photos alone, in my practice, I would
do it under local anesthesia with sedation and that's basically for our practice and
in-office procedure.
So, if your doctor did this under local anesthesia, you just have to have a clear understanding
from your doctor about what the comfort level and what extent of the surgery is and then
make a decision.
And again, I suggest whenever people consider revision surgery, with something like face
lifting and the doctor has been doing a lot of facelifts then most likely, it's your first
doctor who should be doing the revision or enhancement of the surgery since they are
already familiar with you and they're familiar with the elasticity and the quality of the
skin and what they can expect.
I think if all those things feel right with you and then you can go ahead and proceed.
So I hope that was helpful and thank you for question!