Facelift Dallas, TX

Facelift surgery, or a rhytidectomy, is a cosmetic procedure that improves the visible signs of aging in the face and neck.

As you get older, your face loses volume, and the facial tissue migrates downwards. That can result in looseness in the neck, sagging of the jowls, and fallen cheeks.

A facelift is designed to address those cosmetic concerns and restore a more youthful and natural look to the face and neck.

Here are some of the many benefits of getting a facelift that may make you consider getting one:

1. It reverses signs of facial aging

The natural aging process can cause various changes in the appearance of your face and neck. Facelift procedures target several facial aging signs, such as deep wrinkles and creases, loose skin, and excess fat, and give your face and neck a more youthful look.

2. It tightens up sagging facial skin

A facelift allows us to reposition the facial tissues and tighten the neck muscles. Afterward, the skin is re-draped over the face firmly to smooth out any wrinkles or creases, and excess skin is trimmed. That allows us to reduce facial sagging and restore a smooth appearance to the face.

3. It can get rid of your double chin

A facelift procedure can help eliminate the extra skin and excess fat around your neck that can make you look heavier than you are.

4. It contours your jawline and neck

We can address loose skin that hangs down from your jawline (jowls) during your facelift. This cosmetic procedure allows us to create a stronger, more defined jawline and recontour the neck.

5. It works well with other cosmetic procedures

You can pair your facelift with other cosmetic procedures, such as eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty) or a brow lift. Combining those cosmetic procedures with a facelift helps improve the appearance of your entire face with only one recovery period.  

6. It produces fine scars

The exact size and location of a facelift scar will differ depending on the type of facelift and your own healing. However, most facelift incisions are concealed along the hairline or behind the ear. The portion of the scar in front of the ear almost always heals as a thin, pale line. It’s usually hard to see without close inspection.

7. It gives you natural-looking results

A facelift gives you a natural, refreshed look and takes years off your face. We’ve modified our facelift techniques to avoid the overly tightened face appearance that makes it look like you’ve had work done.

8. You can get one even when you’re young

You don’t need to be older than 50 to get a facelift. Anyone with signs of skin and tissue sagging in the face can benefit from a facelift procedure. We perform many facelifts on women in their forties (and occasionally in their thirties.)

Robert Schwartz Plastic Surgery, we customize each facelift for that patient’s needs because:

1. Patients come in at different ages and with different levels of face and neck aging.
2. Faces age differently. Problem areas include hollowed eyes, sunken cheeks, sagging cheek skin, wrinkles, jowls, and hanging neck skin. Based on your skin, weight, bone structure, and health, you will have your own unique set of issues. Your facelift needs to target your needs precisely.

We always want to choose the right combination of procedures to achieve the best results in the least invasive way possible. Here are some options:

SMAS Facelift

The SMAS (Superficial muscular aponeurotic system) is the most commonly performed facelift and offers a combination of effective rejuvenation, long-lasting results, and relatively short downtime.

The acronym “SMAS" stands for the superficial musculoaponeurotic system, which is the layer of tissue that lies beneath your facial fat. Though you can’t actually tighten your facial muscles, your surgeon can tighten the SMAS layer, which covers the muscles. Doing this indirectly tightens the muscles by moving them to a higher, more youthful position.

The SMAS facelift is effective for reducing jowls, smoothing the jawline and tightening the neck.

Mini Facelift

A mini facelift also called a short-scar facelift or a “lunchtime lift,” is a cosmetic surgery procedure that is used to improve the appearance of the face. Unlike a traditional facelift, which involves making incisions in the hairline and around the ears, a mini facelift only requires incisions directly in front of the ears. This results in less scarring and faster healing time. The advantages of a mini facelift compared to a traditional one:

• The scars are limited to an area in front of the ear – no scars behind the ear
• It requires less surgery time
• Faster recovery and healing (1-2 weeks)
• Less swelling

Though the short incision allows for faster healing, it limits the surgeon’s ability to remove excess skin and tighten the deeper facial layers. It works best for younger facelift patients (think forties) and those looking for more subtle corrections. If you’re looking for more dramatic changes, then you may want to consider a full facelift instead.

Quicklift

You can think of the quick lift as the middle ground between a mini lift and a full facelift. Like the mini facelift, it can be performed through a short incision. But, when we do the quick lift, we lift a little more cheek skin. This allows us to tighten the cheek skin a little bit better. It also allows us more access to internally lift the facial fat and muscles.

The quick lift is unique in that it uses a single permanent internal stitch to tighten all of the deep tissue in the cheek and the neck. This innovative technique has almost all the lifting power of a full facelift while being less invasive.

MACS Facelift

A minimal access cranial suspension (MACS) or short-scar facelift is a relatively straightforward facelift technique. This technique can work well for patients with only mild facial aging and limited sagging in the neck area. The technique is similar to the Quicklift, but with the MACS, we use three dissolving  stitches to lift and tighten the internal tissues of the cheek and upper neck.

The advantages of a MACS facelift:

• It can produce good results and improve the appearance of the face
• It has a fast recovery
• It can be done under local anesthesia

The MACS facelift will not remove skin from the neck and isn’t a good choice if you have significant neck laxity.

The Deep Plane Facelift

The deep plane facelift, also known as the high-SMAS facelift, and the vertical facelift, uses the SMAS, in a slightly different way to lift the facial tissues. Here, the skin, fat, and SMAS are lifted as a unit, and the SMAS is cut transversely high in the cheek. This modification allows the surgeon to tighten the SMAS in a nearly vertical direction. This can produce a more natural and longer-lasting facelift result but will also cause more swelling and require a longer recovery.

The Midface Lift

One of the first signs of facial aging is the loss of fullness over our cheekbones. When we are younger, our cheekbones are padded with fat and muscle. As early as our 30s, this pad starts to slip downwards into the lower cheeks. The area below the eyes looks hollow, and the lower cheeks look heavy. These problems can be fixed with a midface lift.

The surgeon first releases all of the cheek tissue off of the underlying bones. This is done through small incisions in the mouth and behind the hairline in your forehead so there are no visible scars from a midface lift.

Once freed, the cheek tissue is lifted to a more youthful position and suspended with an internal suture. Since this repositioning happens at a level just above the bone, the midface lift is the deepest of deep-plane facelifts.

Among the benefits of the midface lift are:

• More prominent cheekbones – the midface lift has a similar effect to inserting cheek implants, but with results that look more natural.
• Softer nasal labial folds - a midface lift softens the creases that run from your nostrils to the corner of your mouth.
• Younger, looking eyes – by raising your cheek tissue, a midface lift can fill in hollow under-eyes, making you look prettier and less tired.

Facelift Alternatives (Non-Surgical)

These non-surgical facial rejuvenations is can help reduce facial aging and delay the need for surgery.

These procedures have a more limited range of benefits and more modest results. For each of these will discuss their benefits and limitations.

• Botox - There’s little overlap between what Botox and facelifts do. Botox is most often used for correcting wrinkles on the forehead, between the eyebrows, and at the crow’s feet area. Facelifts generally treat the face and neck from the eyes down unless a brow lift Is added. Botox is very effective at the things it does, but if you need a facelift, Botox is not an acceptable replacement.
• Fillers - As we age, our faces lose volume. Fat pockets, muscles, and even our facial bones get smaller. Restoring facial volume will help you look younger, and there are many fillers (Restylane, Juvéderm, Voluma, and Bellafill, to name just a few) available to do so. In the early stages of facial aging, using some filler to add a little facial fullness may be all that’s needed. This procedure, called a liquid facelift, can be very effective. But once your skin starts to sag and loosen, trying to correct this by just adding filler becomes a mistake. You simply can’t fill up all the extra space without using way too much filler. That not only gets expensive, but it also looks bad. Putting in too much filler will make your face look heavy and distorted. So if your skin has loosened, it needs to be tightened. Then an appropriate amount of filler can be added to shape your face properly.
• Skin Tightening Devices - The last 10 years have seen an explosion of machines designed to tighten skin without surgery. These typically work by promoting the production of collagen in the skin, which improves its texture and elasticity. They do this by delivering ultrasound (Ultherapy) or radio frequency (Morpheus, Facetite, Trilift). We have generally been unimpressed with these devices. Their results tend to be minimal, unpredictable, and short-lived. In our experience, most patients treated with these machines still end up getting a facelift having wasted thousands of dollars on these less effective measures.

Given the sheer number of different facelift techniques, it should be obvious that no one of them is the perfect facelift for everyone. We view each of these techniques, instead, as an individual component – basically, a module. We mix and match these various modules for you depending on what you need.

How do we determine what you need? These are the factors that go into it:

• Your concerns - Nothing is more important than what is bothering you when you look at your face. There is rarely a good reason to do cosmetic surgery on a part of you that you already like.
• Your anatomy – What are the specific aspects of your face that make you look older or less attractive? Drooping eyebrows or eyelids? Puffy lower lids? Sagging cheeks? Loose skin? Wrinkles? Jowls? The list is extensive. We need to assess all of it to diagnose your problems accurately. Only then can we choose the best facelift components for you.
• Your budget – A great facial rejuvenation plan that you can’t afford is the same as no plan at all. With the wide range of treatments available to us, we can almost always generate a strategy that you can afford.
• Your lifestyle – Facelift techniques have varying recovery times, and this needs to be considered in planning your surgery. For instance, a deep plane facelift will make you swell more and for longer than other techniques. Regardless of the results it can produce, a deep plane lift is not a good choice for you if you have three weeks to recover before a major social or work function.

How do you know if you’re a good candidate for this type of procedure? Here are four things to consider.

1. Age - The ideal candidate for a facelift is between 40 and 60 years old. This is because the skin has typically begun to lose elasticity and collagen production has slowed down. In this age range, you’ll be showing enough signs of aging that a facelift will produce powerful and meaningful results. Equally important, your skin and facial tissues will still be youthful enough to produce the best results. This age range is not strict, though. We frequently perform facelifts on women in their 60s and 70s with excellent results. And women in their 30s (and sometimes in their 20s) will often look prettier with the added cheekbone fullness from a midface lift.
2. Health - Most facelifts are performed under general anesthesia and require several hours. You must be free of untreated, significant health problems that could interfere with anesthesia or compromise your healing. For the best facelift results, you will also need to be at a healthy weight. Typically, this means a BMI of 30 or less.
3. Smoking - You can’t. Smoking can cause serious healing problems with a facelift. This surgery can only be done safely on non-smokers. If you smoke, you will need to stop for at least one month before and two months after your facelift.
4. Expectations - It is important to have realistic expectations about what a facelift can do for you. A facelift will improve the visible signs of aging in your face and neck, but it will not change your entire appearance. You should also keep in mind that a facelift is not permanent; over time, the effects of aging will eventually catch up with you again.
   

We perform facelifts on an outpatient basis, and our patients go home the same day. Most can take care of themselves within one to two days.

Contrary to popular belief, facelifts are not usually particularly painful. Most of our patients do not require narcotics during their recovery.

What limits most patients' return to activity is their appearance – facelifts almost always produce bruising and swelling, which, depending on which technique is used can be significant. Here are some guidelines for what you can expect:

• Bruises are usually gone within 10 to 14 days. For casual purposes, they can be covered with makeup after about one week.
• Deep plane, facelift, and midface lifts cause more and longer-lasting swelling. Mini facelifts will produce the least swelling. SMAS techniques fall somewhere in between. Following a SMAS facelift, most patients are comfortable returning to work within two weeks. We recommend allowing at least 3 to 4 weeks of recovery before important work or social events.

You’ll likely see about 75% of your final facelift result after about one month. After two months, your facelift will be 90% healed. Complete healing along with the fading of your scars takes 6 to 12 months.