A Facelift Restores More Youthful Fresher Face

Rhytidectomy is the technical term for repositioning tissues of the face and neck-commonly called facelift. A facelift restores contours and appearance of a more youthful or fresher face, contours which have been distorted by gravity pulling and loosening tissues over time.

Many areas of the face are improved: sagging, loose tissues of the midface, deep folds of loose skin at the sides of the nose and mouth, jowls or loss of definition of the jawline and excess fat or loose skin causing loss of definition in the neck area.

A Plastic Surgeon will discuss your areas of concern during your consultation and demonstrate the degree of correction you can expect in each area.

Facelift does not stop the clock. It simply "resets" it. How long a facelift lasts depends on many factors including the characteristics of your tissues. You'll notice some loosening within a few months following a facelift, but you may never regain the degree of your original deformities. Many patients will request a less extensive tightening procedure in 7-10 years to maintain the best possible appearance.
Limitations

Facelift is often combined with other procedures to simultaneously correct other areas of the face such as the forehead or eyelid areas and give you a balanced, more youthful appearance of the entire face.

Facelift procedures can be limited by certain characteristics of your tissues. Some examples are:

* Thick, heavy, oily skin
* Sun damaged skin
* Excessive fatty tissue
* Changes in the tissue from previous procedures

The goal of a facelift is to make you look as good as possible for your age, not necessarily to make you appear twenty years younger.

A plastic surgeon will discuss specific limitations with you (if there are any) at the time of your consultation. We have techniques available to deal with most limiting factors.
Risks

Facelift procedures involve more risk in smokers. Nicotine causes constriction of blood vessels which supply the skin, reducing blood flow and increasing the risk of skin loss. If you are a smoker, a surgeon will make specific recommendations to you to reduce those risks.

If you have hypertension or high blood pressure, it must be properly controlled prior to surgery to reduce risk of bleeding. We will coordinate this with your internist or family physician.

There is a very small risk of impairing nerves which control facial movement during facelift surgery, depending on the extent of procedure-necessary to correct your deformities. A Surgeon will discuss this in more detail with you during your consultation.

Other risks common to all surgical procedures such as bleeding, infection and scar tissue formation occur in a very small percentage of cases. We will give you more detailed information about these and other rare risks in our written information, and encourage you to discuss any concerns you may have during your consultation.