Face Lift in Greater Seattle / Bellevue
Today, you have many options available for reversing the effects of aging. Excellent skin care products can help achieve and maintain healthy skin. Photo facial treatments and laser procedures can erase the effects of sun damage and aging on the skin. Fillers can be injected to replace lost volume in the face. Botox can relax many wrinkles.
But sometimes, aging changes are too advanced for these non-surgical treatments to be effective, and a face lift may be the best option to tackle the sagging, wrinkled skin and loss of contour in the face and neck areas.
A face lift provides the most effective anti-gravity treatment. With this procedure, your facial plastic surgeon can smooth out wrinkles in the face and neck and establish a smoother contour to your cheeks, jawline and neck. The deeper tissues are repositioned to reverse the downward pull of time.
A facelift aims to tighten the deep muscles of the face in a very natural way to restore the youthful contours of the face, neck, and jaw line.
Neck and other features
Excess fat can be removed from under the chin with liposuction. Neck muscles that have stretched with time, often leading to the “turkey gobble” under the chin, are carefully tightened to provide a better sling or corset for the neck tissues, which results in more youthful, smoother appearance to the neck.
Often, other procedures on the face can be performed at the same time to enhance the overall result. Upper and lower eyelid surgery target lax or excess skin and fat around the eyes that when present, give an impression of fatigue or increased age.
Direct or endoscopic browlift addresses eyebrows that droop too much. Fat augmentation can be performed at the same time as the facelift and fat that is harvested from the lower body is used as a permanent filler for soft-tissue volume loss in the face.
How is a face lift performed?
Facelift surgery can be performed under local anesthesia with sedation or under general anesthesia. Incisions are typically hidden in front of and behind the ears, as well as under the chin and become almost invisible with time. Typically, patients take 1-2 weeks for recovery from surgery, and take medications for infection prevention , pain control and quick resolution of bruising.
The term “face lift” encompasses different surgical approaches as well as different levels of surgical aggressiveness. There are “mini-lifts” or “Week-end lifts” that usually involve lesser incisions and less aggressive degree of tissue change.
More involved facelifts target deeper tissues from upper cheek and lateral eyelids down to low neck tissues. With a thorough evaluation and discussion with you regarding your desires and expectations, your Seattle/Bellevue facial plastic surgeon will be able to recommend a safe and effective procedure that can dramatically turn back the hands of time.