Facelift
With aging, the elasticity of the skin reduces and it offers resistance to gravity more and more difficult. The folds between the nose and the lip, wrinkles of the forehead become deeper, the skin around, and below the chin loosen more and more. The different cosmetic, wrinkle filling up, light therapy, laser therapies do not yield satisfactory results. In this case, the desired effect can be attained only by the methods of plastic surgery, by tightening the skin and tissues underlying it, and by excising the excess skin.
Face plastic surgery is actually the tightening of the skin of the face and neck, and the connective tissue (muscle under the neck) layer, and the excision of the excess skin. The operation can be performed under local or general anaesthesia. In both cases consultation and medical check-up precede the intervention. The operational incision is started at the temple region of the hairy scalp, continues directly in front of the ears, then curving along the hairline.
From this excision, the skin is dissected in front, from the cheekbone arches almost to the nasolabial folds, and the cheek angle, and under and behind the ear to about 5 cm. (There are so-called “minor” facial plastic surgeries, where excision and preparation are performed on smaller areas.) Then appears the connective tissue layer at the basis of the preparation that is tightened depending on the operational method, or the excess is removed. After mildly tightening the skin, the amount that has to be excised appears and the lips of the wound are united.
On the area under the cheek, often fat excess develops, in these cases liposuction also has to be applied. In forehead plastic surgery, the task is similar; the incision is made higher up the edge of the crown of the hair, or along the crown of the hair on the hairy scalp, the desired effect is attained by the excision of the excess skin.
In lower eyelid plastic surgery, not only the excess skin is excised. The “protrusions” of excess fat, situating in the eye-socket, padding the eyeball, causing the “bags”, are also removed. In case of the upper eyelid, a bay-leaf shaped skin area is excised. With the above operational methods, the impression of being younger by 5-10 years can be given.
In the first 24 hours, ice-pack is recommended. The drain (tube), inserted during the face operation, is removed on the first day after the operation. On the first week, on the dissected areas, swelling, suffusion may develop that disappear gradually. The stitches are removed on the 5th-7th days. In optimal cases, the trace of the intervention is hardly visible on the 3rd week. To the 5th-6th weeks, you can completely return to the lifestyle you led before the operation. In case of eyelid plastic surgery, this period is about 2 weeks. As in all medical interventions, complications may develop here also, even despite the most careful work.
These are bleeding, inflammation, disturbance of wound healing. Behind the ear, at the area of the neck, keloid wound healing, small skin necrosis may develop. In face plastic surgery, the most severe complication is the facial nerve damage and the consecutive facial nerve paresis. Fortunately, these problems develop only in 1-2% of the cases.