The mirror is showing that a face-lift might be in order. Now you only need to decide if you want small, almost painless treatments each week or so, or if you have the courage to go under the knife with a recovery time of perhaps months. There are advantages and disadvantages to both lunchtime facelifts and the traditional lift.
Imagine laying down at your friendly plastic surgeons office one afternoon on your way home from work. With his Cool Touch Laser, he takes aim at the bed of tiny crow’s feet by your eyes. Pop! You hear a puff and feel the cooling spray of the laser, and feel the snapping like a rubber band on the area. After the doctor blasts the wrinkles by the left eye, he moves on to the right. He asks if you want the old chicken pox scar removed. By the time he moves the laser to your chin, your left eye is puffy and red. And that’s what the good doctor wants. The concept of the lunchtime face-lift is to heat up the dermis – the underlying level of skin – to urge the fibroblast cells into producing collagen. The fine wrinkles and scars will push out, filling them in. Don’t worry about third degree burn shots from the laser; there’s fail-safe device attached that monitors skin temperature so the Cool Safe Laser won’t let the doctor go any further. Lunchtime face-lifts, also called featherlifts, can turn the clock back about two years, and lasts about a year. This type of procedure won’t take care of those deep wrinkles, however. Recovery time is a matter of a few days. Patients must return to the surgeon for maintenance procedures to keep the dermis making collagen. The cost? Anywhere from $250.00 to $500.00 per visit.
Face-lifts are nothing new, but now the use of lasers and chemical peels, which promotes fresh skin growth, is a great alternative option to the traditional method. A skilled plastic surgeon will leave no telltale signs of the surgery. The lunchtime face-lift has become so popular by busy business people; it has increased by 150,000 patients a year.
Traditional face-lifts consist of major surgery that requires weeks if not months of recovery. This type will take off about ten years from your face, lasting around that long. But this type of face-lift is very invasive. There will be a lot of preparation before, during, and after the surgery.
The traditional method of face-lifting is to separate the skin, pulling it back to the ears, making it tighter. The surgeon cuts away and sutures the edges together, sometimes also using skin staples. If you have thin skin this procedure is not for you because it can make it look stretched and misshapen. There will be scars up by the hairline and in front of the ears and there is no other choice. A surgeon who knows his stuff can last ten years before needing to be done again.
It will take a number of weeks, even months, to feel sufficiently normal and comfortable enough to go back into the public. An important issue to remember is that if your face-lift doesn’t meet your presumption of what you hoped to look like that is also permanent.
Some plastic surgeons will leave a drain in the wounds that will remove excess blood. The face is then bandaged up. The surgeon may also go deeper into tissues if he feels it’s necessary. Complications aren’t usual, but can include bruising, bleeding, infection, thickened scars, and loss of functioning of the muscles though temporary.
Face-lifts are satisfying and boost the self-esteem. Science has developed wonderful technology that takes the risk and misery out of the procedure. With a trustworthy and experienced surgeon, your experience could pay off for the next ten years.