A face lift, or technically a lower face-neck lift, is a complex procedure with more variations than almost any other operation in cosmetic surgery. All face lifts have a common goal of repositioning sagging jowls, removing excess fat in the face and neck, and tightening loose skin. Occasionally a face lift is combined with a chin implant to produce better facial balance and/or to produce a more youthful, tight chin. It is surprisingly common to see an excessively done face lift that ends up with a "startled" and "overstretched" or a "windblown" look. If you want this La Jolla look, you are best going to a La Jolla surgeon.

Patients with heavy necks and significant laxity of the skin have not traditionally been considered good neck surgery candidates. The problem is not the fat. Removing fat from the submentum and the neck can be accomplished quite successfully by a number of techniques, including liposculpture for the superficial fat, and direct open surgery for the more problematic subplatysmal (submuscular) fat. The real problem has always been what do to about the excessive skin. This is the so-called turkey gobbler.

Recovery and Scars

A patients typical recovery is seven to ten days until makeup can be worn, and most patients feel comfortable returning to work and social events at seven to ten days. Surprisingly, pain is extremely mild.

Finally, there is a substantial number of patients (usually young) who have never had any surgery, injuries or stitches. They do not know if they have a scar-forming tendency and, like many young people, have a tendency to believe that even if this is possible, it simply will not happen to them. Doctors are always very careful with this group of patients lest do not meet their expectations. Doctors certainly do not wish to hear them explain that their scars are poor because the doctor was a butcher.

If you cannot accept any scar, or if you believe that because a plastic surgeon is doing your operation no scar will form, then you are not informed and you should not proceed with any cosmetic surgery.

The face is the most privileged part of the body and facial incisions heal far better and with finer scars than other parts of the same body.

It is often said that time heals all wounds, and while most of us think of emotional wounds, the etymologists can trace thissaying to the wounds of the body. It is certainly true that time will improve all surgical scars. One hundred percent of abdominoplasty incisions will look better at five years than at one year, and at one year the results are far better than two months after surgery. Many times on the thin eyelid skin doctors cannot find a scar that themselves created many years earlier.