The face and neck lift can be considered to restore a youthful appearance of the face when non-invasive options do not provide satisfying results. However, the face lift is a surgical procedure, which means patients have to expect certain consequences of surgery such as bruising, swelling, discomfort… In order to ensure the success of the operation, preparation and follow up are essential.

Assessment before the face lift

The face lift can rejuvenate the whole face by correcting tissue sagging in the face and neck areas. This procedure targets every component of aging: wrinkles, fat tissue loss or excess, skin sagging and loss of firmness. One of the mains difficulties for the surgeon is to rejuvenate the patient’s face without changing its natural expression and features. This is essential for the result to look natural and to achieve that, a thorough morphological analysis has to be done, which takes into account the facial bone structure and its characteristics. Many tools are available today to help with this step such as 3D simulation and drawings.

Postoperative course management

During the whole recovery, surgeons make sure their patients are healing properly:

  • During the first days following surgery, swelling and bruising are checked as well as wound healing. Dressings are typically removed the day after surgery. Sutures can be removed after a week, unless they are resorbable. Discomfort and tightness usually stop after 2 weeks whereas as swelling needs more time to resolve. Even though patients are often concerned with postoperative swelling, this is a normal consequence of surgery that needs a couple of months to completely resolve.
  • Postoperative care in the incision sites can be done by the patient during the initial recovery with the surgeon’s supervision in order for the patient to be able to continue at home. Scars have to be completely clean and risks of infection have to be avoided.
  • Definitive results can begin to appear after 1 to 3 months. At this stage, patients can compare before and after pictures of their face to see the improvements.