FACE LIFT SURGERY (RHITIDECTOMY)

• It tightens the skin and lax (hypotonic) muscles of the face.
• It helps improve the youthful appearance of mature people (about 40 years old) that have not aged yet and that wish to delay the aging process for personal or professional reasons.
• It rejuvenates a mature and aged face. The rejuvenating effect will be more impressive if the aging marks, such as wrinkles and hanging skin, are more pronounced.
• It is divided into two areas: 1) Upper or Temporal Lift (also known as mini-face lift or lateral brow lift): This procedure illuminates and refreshes the face; it can be performed as a single procedure in young people who do not need to have their cheeks rejuvenated. 2) Mid Lift: used to correct the cheeks.
• Performed together with eye lift surgery (blepharoplasty), neck lift surgery, and brow lift surgery, it completely rejuvenates the face and neck.

• It does not eliminate crow's feet, nor wrinkles around the lips — since these wrinkles do not appear as a result of the aging process — but because of repeated muscle contraction.
• It does not produce any changes in the area above the eyes. In order to do that, forehead or brow lift surgery will be necessary.

Local anesthesia and complementary sedation, or general anesthesia, according to the complexity of the case.

Between 90 minutes and 2 hours if it is partial.
Between 3 and 4 hours if it is complete.

The surgeon makes a vertical incision from the temples to the upper part of the ears. This incision, which is usually made behind the hair-growth line so that the resulting scar will be concealed, is the one used in upper or temporal lift surgery. In mid lift surgery (cheeks), the same temporal incision we just described extends further down in front of the ears and follows their natural outline to the back (periauricular line). By means of this incision, the surgeon separates the muscle and the skin from the face, he tightens them and replaces them further up to achieve a more youthful look. He cuts the excess skin and muscle, then close with sutures. In order to rejuvenate lower areas of the face, such as the outline of the jaw, it is necessary to perform neck lift surgery.

Hospitalization

No hospitalization is required if the surgery is performed with local anesthesia. If it was performed with general anesthesia, you will be hospitalized for one day or one night.

The results of face lift surgery are very noticeable and will last quite long — approximately 10 years; most patients are satisfied with them. A face lift will not, of course, make time stop, but it will make your face look younger and fresher for a considerable amount of time. A face lift will help you to look approximately 10 years younger, if not more.