Should I have facelift? Necklift? or just Blepharoplasty?
So I am considering surgery. I have had plastics in the past but have been afraid to consider
anything around my face. Now my eyelids are getting in my way. So since I have to be able
to see in the future, I am going to take of this now. And while I am taking care of this
area, my daughter has suggested I do something about my 'gobbler'. So now I am thinking about
the whole shebang. What is your opinion? I know the pictures are not the greatest...
Thank you for your question!
You have submitted some very good photos and you are asking if you should get a facelift
a necklift, your eyes, what would be the recommendation of any of the doctors who are reviewing your
question.
The photos you submitted certainly demonstrate the presence of some particular issues such
as the upper eyelids and lower eyelids. We refer that as dermatochalasis which means
extra skin as well as fat prolapse of the upper eyelid and lower eyelids. With the side
view as well as the view from below, we see that there is clearly extra skin under the
neck. There are these two bands in the neck area, we refer to those a platysmal bands.
So the question of are you a candidate for blepharoplasty, face and necklift surgery,
if you were to come to our practice and say what should I do, I would say that you are
a candidate for all of those procedures. Now, the question that becomes, are you ready for
all those procedures.
What I do is that I spend a lot of time talking to my patients. I feel that communication
is very important. Many people go to a plastic surgeon or cosmetic surgeon and their consultations
are very short and they get pushed to doing something that they would have done otherwise
but they feel that they are pushed without getting proper information. So the surgeries
all have risks and benefits and a detailed discussion of what's involved and how the
procedure is done, where the incisions are placed, why the incisions are placed and what
to expect. Very often, it is the combination of a good discussion, physical examination
and review of the doctor's of the previous patients to get an idea of what their personal
style is. It's very important so that you can make an informed decision.
When you asked a question should you have a facelift versus a necklift, you could find
many doctors who will say and have overlapping concepts in their minds of what a facelift
and a necklift are but in our practice, we define a facelift from the cheek to the jawline
and the necklift from the jawline to below then into the neck so that most of our facial
rejuvenation surgeries for people at your stage would be a face and necklift and that
can certainly can be explained through where the location of the incisions are and the
vectors in how things are lifted but that's more of going into the technical details.
So the most important thing is, although it's your daughter that mentioned the little excess
skin on the neck, it's how important it is to you. In our practice, there are patients
who come who are focused very much on their eyes and I always say, if someone's going
to do anything on their face in their entire lifetime related to facial aging, it will
be their eyes. The eyes make a very big impact on the facial appearance. Now that being said,
when you do the eyes and face and necklift together, I always say the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts. Everything is in place. You literally bring back 10 years if
not more and you look really great. But it's a very subjective thing. So you should always
think to yourself, in your heart, what do want to see change, how motivated are you
and of course, are you ready to make an investment on money, time and the whole process.
Learn about the style, the methods as well as an important factor, the anesthesia. In
our practice, we have made it a mission to avoid general anesthesia. We feel that people
do much better with local anesthesia with LITE IV sedation which is just intravenous.
And our patients recover much faster. I feel that I do my surgery much better. Again, this
is my opinion and this is my experience as a doctor. I'm not interested in disparaging
anyone's approach but that is something that our patients have found tremendous appreciation
and value.
So learn details and organize those details. Get to know the doctors you have consultations
with and then move forward with what your priorities are.
So I wish you the best of luck, I hope that was helpful and thank you for your question!