Facelift Beverly Hills

Treatment Overview

Dr. Anita Patel offers facelifts and Neck Lifts to rejuvenate the face and neck, lifting lax tissues, tightening loose skin, and repositioning tissue to more aesthetic contours.

• Length of Surgery: 4-6 hours
• Anesthesia: General or Local with Sedation
• Post-Op Activity: Avoid strenuous activity or full exercise for 6 weeks.
• Return to Work: 2 weeks

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do Doctors Do a Facelift?

There are a variety of different techniques and ways to do a facelift. Not every surgeon uses the same techniques, and there is no single technique that applies universally to all patients. One thing most have in common is the location of the incisions, typically hidden along the border of the face and ears.

What Does a Mini Facelift Include?

A mini facelift generally offers mini results. It involves a more limited dissection of tissues and lifting.

How Many Facelifts Can You Have?

There is not a limit per se to how many facelifts one can have, but the surgeon and patient need to decide if the goals are realistic and safely achievable.

How Long to Recover From a Facelift?

The recovery after a facelift typically involves a dressing for a week, and swelling that subsides to a large part over the first few weeks.

How Long Until the Swelling Stops After a Facelift?

A large improvement in swelling occurs at around 2-3 weeks, and residual swelling continues to diminish over the subsequent weeks and months.

How is a Necklift Done?

A neck lift is typically done using a small incision under the chin, and the same incisions hidden along the borders of the face and ears that are used for the facelift.

Is a Necklift Painful?

A necklift is mildly painful after surgery, and can feel tight with movement until healed.

How Long Does a Necklift Last?

How long a neck lift lasts depends on the technique used, and the characteristic of the skin and tissues, but typically lasts for 4-10 years.

Why Get a Facelift or Neck Lift?

Your face is typically the first thing people see, and first impressions are very powerful in creating your image. With age, the face undergoes some characteristic changes. The face typically loses volume with age (hollowness under the eyes, less fullness to the cheeks, hollow temples), and what volume is left tends to droop lower on the face (bag under the eyes, jowls on the lower face).

The skin also shows signs of aging, with loss of elasticity and discoloration from sun damage. The neck skin also tends to become loose and droopy, with a loss of the youthful jawline and angle of the neck. These types of changes occur in men and women, and can affect one’s self-esteem and confidence. Patients also report this in turn affects their job performance, and relationships.

The reason Beverly Hills facelifts and neck lifts are described together is they are typically addressed at the same time. For example, even if only the neck is bothering you enough to have surgery, if the neck skin is tightened without touching the face, the result can look artificial and strange.

Do I Need Specific Skin Care Leading Up to Surgery?

The skin care before surgery can consist of high-quality products, laser treatments, Botox or Dysport, and fillers (JUVÉDERM® Restylane®). If you start with good skin care and non-surgical treatments early on, you may postpone the need for surgery, but doing one does not take the place of needing the other.

What Are Some Common Reasons for Getting a Face or Neck Lift?

Common reasons for having a facelift and/or neck lift include:

• Restoring a more youthful contour to the face and neck
• Tightening of face and neck skin
• Repositioning the volume of the face
• Restoring fullness to cheeks
• Getting rid of jowls
• Getting rid of “turkey neck”

A good facelift or neck lift in Beverly Hills can turn back the clock so-to-speak, but it does not stop the clock. Aging will resume, but the effects may be lesser since the tissues have been repositioned.

What Are the Types of Facelifts?

There are different types of facelifts in Beverly Hills, and they vary based on the length of scars, and the type of lifting involved. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Patel has continually refined and evolved her surgical technique to provide her patients with the most natural result, while still achieving a powerful degree of lift.

Skin-Only Facelift

The simplest procedure done in the past was a skin-only facelift, or a skin/ superficial muscular aponeurotic system (SMAS) together. These are not typically as popular these days due to the often unnatural or pulled appearance.

Skin/SMAS Layer Facelift

Other types of facelifts recognize the benefit of treating the skin and SMAS layers differently, lifting the SMAS in a more upward or vertical manner. The skin vector can be vertical, in an oblique posterior fashion, or somewhere in between these two. Facial skin laxity assessment is critical in deciding which vector is appropriate in any given patient.

Deep-Plane Facelift

Another type of facelift in Beverly Hills is the deep-plane facelift. This is where the tissues of the midface are elevated as a single unit, and the skin and SMAS are only separately dissected at the outermost aspect of the facelift. This is often considered a more advanced technique, given this type of facelift has a theoretically higher risk of nerve injury than the others.

Mini Facelift

The thing to know about mini facelifts are that the results are likewise mini, or small. They either do not realize the potential of a full facelift, or last only a short time. This may be worth it to you if you have a small budget and are happy with a small result that lasts six months to a year. If you want a full lift and long-lasting results, a real facelift is typically your best option.

Dr. Patel also offers non surgical facelifts for short term aesthetic goals.

Where Are the Incisions Located?

The incisions used for facelifts and neck lifts come in a number of different variations in Beverly Hills. In general they start in front of or in the hair above the ear, extend along the border of the front of the ear, around the base of the earlobe, and behind the ear, either along or into the hairline. The length and location of scars will be discussed at your consultation, and the reasons behind those decisions will be discussed.

The reason for the variations is to use the least noticeable incision in any given patient. Ideally the incisions are not noticed at all once you are healed, even for people with short hair or wearing their hair up. The length of incisions needed depends on the degree of lift and the vector of pull. Some patients are candidates for short scars, and others need the full extent of the scars to get rid of the excess skin.

To learn more about your facial surgery options, book an appointment with Dr. Patel in Beverly Hills today.