Are you considering a facelift? This guide below will help you to know the facts about facelifts.
Why do you need facelift?
Skin of our facial area and the neckline is especially susceptible to the process of aging. These are the areas where signs of aging begin to appear first and these signs include sagging skin around the face and neck, wrinkles, fine lines, creases and drooped jaw line and many more.
As a result you appear to be much older than you actually are. The facial expressions also change to give a wrong impression of what is going on in your mind.
With these prominent signs of aging on your face, you may look miserably depressed at the time when actually you are in a pleasant mood!
Apart from aging, several other factors like gravity, excessive exposure to sun or smoking may also lead to this type of unbecoming appearance at an early age.
The net result of all these is massive skin damage due to the loss of elasticity of skin around the areas of face and neck.
What is Facelift?
Facelift offers the best solution to these problems regarding damaged skin. Facelift is a clinical process that does not claim to restore back the elasticity of your skin.
But it definitely brings you back the youthful appearance of which once you were so proud, by eliminating the most prominent signs of aging from your facial skin.
Rhytidectomy, which is popularly known as facelift is a clinical process of tightening the sagging skin.
In this process, the facial tissues and muscles underneath are tightened by pulling the excess skin firmly and smoothly across the face and neck.
The Procedure
Facelift is a surgical procedure involving the application of either local or full anesthesia depending on the physical condition of the patient.
It is usually an outpatient operation lasting for several hours. The operation involves removal of excess fat and tightening of the muscles underneath.
This is done through making an incision along the hairline near forehead or behind the areas near ears. For tightening of the skin in the neck area, incision is made near chin.
Then, the remaining facial skin is smoothly straightened. In case there are pockets of fats in the patients face, they are removed through liposuction.
The skin near the area of incision is held tightly by stitches or metal clips. The pain involved with the operation is just minimal and in case of local anesthesia, the patient remains conscious but cannot feel the pain.
In most of the cases Facelift is done as a part of a set of other cosmetic surgeries like eyelid or brow lift surgery.
Post Operation Recovery
After the operation, the bandage remains on the face for 1 or 2 days. After 7 to 10 days the stitches are also removed.
During this time you may feel slight pain which can be dealt with medication. There may be numbness along the region of incision.
But this will disappear in due course of time. Some of the patients also suffer from temporary swelling and bruises.
A regular cold compress is a must to reduce these side effects and you also have to keep your head in an elevated position as far as possible.
Smoking is strictly prohibited within the first month of the operation, because that may delay the healing process and can produce adverse effects.
In normal cases, the patients are permitted to get back to their normal routine within two weeks time. But it will take months before you can start strenuous physical work-outs.
Side Effects
Like all other surgical procedures, facelift also has some minor risk factors like drowsiness due to anesthesia, infection or blood clots.
In some rare cases it causes such side effects as loss of tissues or damage of nerve and hair loss.
Result
Facelift is one of the cosmetic procedures that come with highly individualistic impacts.
Depending on the facial appearances, the impact may be either very insignificant or extremely dramatic. This happens due to the unique facial features of each individual.
How long the effect of the surgery will last that also varies with individual cases. Generally, the effects of a successful facelift stay for at least five and maximum ten years.
After that the skin will again start to show the signs of aging. At this stage the surgery can be repeated once again.
Qualification for Candidature
The smokers and the patients who have been injected with cosmetic medications like Botox, Restylane, Radiance and like are not considered ideal candidates for facelift.
Those who are under cosmetic medication, can avail facelift, but only after the effects of medication have gone.
Cost
Facelift is a costly affair. Depending on surgeon and anesthetists fees, the total cost of facelift in the USA may vary somewhere 6,000 to 12,000.
Because it is a cosmetic surgery, the costs are not covered by most of the health insurance companies.
