“What is the recovery period after a facelift?”
I want to have a facelift. What is the recovery period after a facelift, and what can I expect regarding swelling, bruising, and incision healing?
2 Answers
PlasticSurgeonPlasticSurgeon
It depends to some degree on the extensiveness of the procedure and the individual need. My techniques are customized to the individual sometimes integrating fat transfer or laser resurfacing. With that being said, the general recovery until one can go out in public and no one will know that you had surgery ranges from two to three weeks. If someone can work remotely from home, they can return to work in one week.
Thank you for your question!
It depends on your general health, your medical and skin conditions, your age and your facial structures. It depends on your surgeon, on what techniques and skills that your surgeon is planning to perform your facelift. And, I do think it also depends on some random factors during the operation_I say "random" for factors that we could not forsee, that happens.
Most of my facelift patients are in their middle age, some a lot older and some a bit younger. Most of them are healthy; some have common medical conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes. They all have signs of aging seen on their facial expressions caused by wrinkled and sagging skin and loss of supporting soft tissues underneath the skin; and some do have fat that needs to be remove.
If you don't have so much redundant skin, your skin still looks young and elastic; I may not plan to remove any but sculpt the soft tissues beneath your skin to a younger more attractive contours and shapes with liposculpting. If you do this, you need only a couple days to recover; there is no wound to care for. I only remove and add fat where needed to reshape your face. A note here: lasers don't work since you can not fill the defects or remove the bulging fat. Another note here: I rarely use fillers now since fillers can act strangely and do scar the underlying skin and soft tissue; and fillers don't rejuvenate your skin like fat even when the fat is re-absorbed.
If you have so much redundant and sagging skin, you cannot avoid removing it, but only where neeed, you need to be creative here finding a way to do it. My thinking is a bit different from other surgeons, so I have trained myself to get the skills to do it. A note here: Threads don't work in these cases since lifting soft tissues under the skin may make it even worse, the skin will not be smoothly distributed over it but got stuck adhering at some undesired place. You don't see it when it is still swollen, but after a few months you see it and the lift is also gone at that time.
As I have explained in some of my previous answers, my facelift procedure may include liposuction and fat grafting. With my techniques, I carefully control bleeding__I haven't had a hematoma since. I try not to traumatize the skin and soft tissue that I don't need to remove. I close the skin with minimal or no tension if possible, after I have sculpted the underneath soft tissue to the best shape that I can, depending on facial anatomy that is unique to you.
So, usually you may have some swelling for the first few days. If you have some bruises, it may takes a week or two to resolved. Sometimes you just cannot avoid it, especially when you have high blood pressure or other conditions that your blood takes longer to clot; some medicines and herbs do cause this. And I will remove the sutures in about a week. The healing process takes time. You should look pretty good after six weeks. Your face is still shaping for three months, sometimes more up to six months. And your scars may take longer to mature.
I will try my best and I may be able to shape your face to your expectations with the time that I have and what I see at the time, during the operation. It depends much on how your face actually looks at that time and what change I need to make. So, as any art or craft that you work on you may need to perfect it some time later. It doesn't happen often but I do plan to do touch-up work if both you and I think it will make you look a bit more attractive...
Khiem Lai, MD
Aesthetic Physician and Surgeon
It depends on your general health, your medical and skin conditions, your age and your facial structures. It depends on your surgeon, on what techniques and skills that your surgeon is planning to perform your facelift. And, I do think it also depends on some random factors during the operation_I say "random" for factors that we could not forsee, that happens.
Most of my facelift patients are in their middle age, some a lot older and some a bit younger. Most of them are healthy; some have common medical conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes. They all have signs of aging seen on their facial expressions caused by wrinkled and sagging skin and loss of supporting soft tissues underneath the skin; and some do have fat that needs to be remove.
If you don't have so much redundant skin, your skin still looks young and elastic; I may not plan to remove any but sculpt the soft tissues beneath your skin to a younger more attractive contours and shapes with liposculpting. If you do this, you need only a couple days to recover; there is no wound to care for. I only remove and add fat where needed to reshape your face. A note here: lasers don't work since you can not fill the defects or remove the bulging fat. Another note here: I rarely use fillers now since fillers can act strangely and do scar the underlying skin and soft tissue; and fillers don't rejuvenate your skin like fat even when the fat is re-absorbed.
If you have so much redundant and sagging skin, you cannot avoid removing it, but only where neeed, you need to be creative here finding a way to do it. My thinking is a bit different from other surgeons, so I have trained myself to get the skills to do it. A note here: Threads don't work in these cases since lifting soft tissues under the skin may make it even worse, the skin will not be smoothly distributed over it but got stuck adhering at some undesired place. You don't see it when it is still swollen, but after a few months you see it and the lift is also gone at that time.
As I have explained in some of my previous answers, my facelift procedure may include liposuction and fat grafting. With my techniques, I carefully control bleeding__I haven't had a hematoma since. I try not to traumatize the skin and soft tissue that I don't need to remove. I close the skin with minimal or no tension if possible, after I have sculpted the underneath soft tissue to the best shape that I can, depending on facial anatomy that is unique to you.
So, usually you may have some swelling for the first few days. If you have some bruises, it may takes a week or two to resolved. Sometimes you just cannot avoid it, especially when you have high blood pressure or other conditions that your blood takes longer to clot; some medicines and herbs do cause this. And I will remove the sutures in about a week. The healing process takes time. You should look pretty good after six weeks. Your face is still shaping for three months, sometimes more up to six months. And your scars may take longer to mature.
I will try my best and I may be able to shape your face to your expectations with the time that I have and what I see at the time, during the operation. It depends much on how your face actually looks at that time and what change I need to make. So, as any art or craft that you work on you may need to perfect it some time later. It doesn't happen often but I do plan to do touch-up work if both you and I think it will make you look a bit more attractive...
Khiem Lai, MD
Aesthetic Physician and Surgeon
