Many people are now deciding to have face lift surgery to rejuvenate their skin by giving it fresh, firm, and more youthful look. Facioplasty, as face lift surgery is medically known, is an elective cosmetic surgery procedure which not only tightens the skin but also can remove excess skin – usually from the neck, chin and cheeks. It is usual for any scars to be hidden around the ears or the hairline and they usually fade away within a year.
A face lift can be carried out on the whole face, but it is also possible to simply treat the brow area, the lower face or just the neck. It is increasingly common, though, for the entire face and neck to be treated simultaneously. Typically, a face lift might need you to remain in hospital at least overnight, and frequently for two days. The procedure is carried out under a general anesthetic, sometimes lasting for as long as four hours.
Before embarking on face lift surgery, you should arrange a consultation with a well-qualified and suitably experienced specialist to discuss all of the implications and benefits of the surgery. It is vital that you actually speak to a medical professional at this stage – don’t allow yourself to be interviewed by a ‘sales rep’ who might well be interested only in the financial side of the business.
As there are several different face lift techniques, try to ascertain which one is going to be used in your specific case. Traditional face lift surgery can often result in your head being swathed in bandages after the operation, with tubes left in the wounds for anything up to 48 hours. Increasingly, though, Minimal-access cranial suspension (MACS) or keyhole surgery are now employed, which have the advantage not only of smaller scars but also of a shorter recovery period.
After the surgery you can expect to experience some soreness and swelling, which might last for three or four weeks. If you need to take them, your usual painkillers should be sufficient. It is common for a follow-up appointment to be made for you at the clinic within two weeks, by which time most people are well on the way to total recovery.
Because this is a surgical procedure, there are some risks involved – such as infection, bleeding underneath the skin, nerve damage or hair loss around the scars – but, in the vast majority of cases, people can return to work in two or three weeks confident that the effects of their face lift should last between about seven and ten years and with a rejuvenated spring in their step.
The average cost for face lift surgery in the USA is between $7,000 and $9,000 for a combined face and neck lift or an average of $5,283 for face lift surgery on its own. In Great Britain, you can expect to pay somewhere between £4,200 and £5,800 for face lift surgery
One of the inevitable consequences of ageing is that our faces begin to lose their elasticity, often resulting excess folds of skin that can give that saggy, ‘tired’ appearance.
Face Lift Surgery
