-While fillers can create structure,
suture suspension gives you pure lift.
So it's ideal for someone who wants a lift and reshaping.
Hi. I'm Rachel. And I'm here getting
a suture suspension lift today.
I'm a mom of two kids and I work full time.
I spend most of my days on Zoom calls staring at my face.
And I think over the past year,
I've learned that I'm more resilient
than I thought I was. I'm more positive.
I have a better sense of humor.
But when I was looking at myself on those Zoom calls,
I didn't see that person anymore.
I'm really excited to look like myself again
and to feel like myself again.
Hi. I'm Dr. Lara Devgan, and I'm a board-certified
plastic surgeon in New York City,
and I specialize in facial optimization.
Facial optimization is the combination
of surgical and nonsurgical procedures
that I use to optimize facial beauty
while preserving facial identity.
Tell me a little bit about
what you're hoping to get out of this.
-What I'm noticing in my face
is that my laugh lines have become very deep.
-This is the malar fat pad, or the apple of the cheek.
And when you're 25, it's right here.
And over time, it comes down a little bit.
So you're getting a little bit of mid-face flattening.
We'll do a couple of little tweaks here and there.
I think it's gonna be awesome.
Suture suspension is a modern technique
that allows us to lift the deep planes of the face
using a tiny little needle access site
and dissolvable surgical stitches.
-I have had Botox in the past,
and I have had a little bit of filler in my cheeks.
And both times, I loved the effect.
My only fear with having this procedure
is that I'm gonna love it so much,
I'm gonna want to do it more.
-We'll use injected numbing medicine
to make sure that the patient feels comfortable.
And that's really the only part
of the procedure that hurts a little bit.
It feels like a little bee sting for about 10 seconds.
♪♪
Once the injected numbing is in place,
I'll then turn my attention toward the procedure itself.
The first step is to make a tiny access hole
and a pilot hole using a little needle prick
that's hidden right in the sideburn area.
Next, I'll use sterile cannulae,
which are basically stainless-steel, surgical,
tiny little tubes, like, thinner than a coffee straw.
And those will be inserted into the tissue in the deep plane.
So the deep plane of the face is the deep, muscular layer
that I actually will lift in a surgical facelift.
The amazing thing about the modern generation
of suture suspensions is,
I'm able to access the deep plane of the face
through a tiny little needle hole.
♪♪
So once I insert the cannulae, those will deliver barbed suture
suspensions, and the sutures that are being placed are made
out of a dissolvable material that's a complex sugar molecule.
It stays in the tissues for about a year
until it fully dissolves.
And in that time, it also causes the body
to stimulate collagen production.
Once the sutures are placed, I double-check the vectors.
So they can be placed in many different orientations
depending on the patient and their goals and anatomy.
I'll suspend the sutures, I'll tighten them.
♪♪
I'll trim them, and then I'll re-drape the patient's
soft tissues with respect to the deep plane of their face.
♪♪
[ Clicking ]
You might hear a little bit of clicking
because some of the suture suspension gets transmitted
through bony hearing conduction into the ear canal.
♪♪
And then finally, the patient will sit up,
I'll take a look at everything in the mirror,
and we'll do little adjustments to build structure
with injectables in addition to the lift
that we created with the procedure.
♪♪
So looking really beautiful.
You want to take a look? -Yes.
-Okay.
-[ Gasps ]
[ Laughing ] Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I was absolutely blown away. When I first saw myself,
it was like looking in a mirror from 10 years ago.
I look like myself again. I love how uplifted my face looks.
My eyes are brighter. I just -- I feel so great.
-I'm so glad you're happy. -I'm obsessed.
-You look so beautiful and refreshed.
So what we did was give you a lift of the mid-face
and definition of the jawline to pick up the jowl.
And we have a highlight on the cheekbone,
a low light in the cheek sulcus shadow.
And then right here is an almost textbook gonial angle,
or angle of the mandible. That's looking very beautiful.
-I expected the treatments to be painful.
You know, the surgery does involve barbs
going into your face, which sounds really painful.
And the biggest surprise for me was that it really wasn't.
It looks amazing.
I don't think anyone would know
that I had had something done.
They would just say I look great.
-Yeah, and that's the idea.
After a suture suspension, I suggest no exercise
for two to three days
and avoiding alcohol, aspirin, Advil, and blood thinners.
Most of my patients will come in for a follow-up
visit around two to three weeks
to make sure that everything's looking perfect.
-Dr. Devgan is incredible.
I love the way she would make a small change to my face,
step back, and assess the overall symmetry
and effect of what she was doing.
It made me feel like she was really paying attention
to the overall effect. And I think it really shows.
-I think what I do is all about empowerment.
I think beauty can be very misunderstood,
but real beauty is about feeling good about yourself
and feeling like you want to present yourself to the world
and you want to participate in the world.
So what I do is really not about how lifted your cheekbone
is or how sculpted your lip is. It's about how you feel
and how confident you are in making your decisions.
-I would absolutely do this again.
In fact, one of the questions I asked Dr. Devgan
was, "How many times can I do this procedure?"
And it turns out there really is no limit.
But the results surpassed my expectations.
I feel younger and brighter,
and I can actually feel the difference in my face.
I no longer feel that sagging, and I feel more like myself.
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