Surgical Facial Rejuvenation

Facelift, Eyelid Surgery, Brow lift

With sensible life style changes many people are living longer, healthier lives. Active lifestyles and outdoor activities expose skin to sun damage. Photoaging skin shows blotchy uneven pigmentation, actinic keratosis, wrinkles and laxity. No where is photoaging more evident than the facial skin. Skin is graded from Type 1 which is smooth youthful skin of 20s with no wrinkles , minimal if any pigment changes to Type 4 in 50s and 60s with constant wrinkles, severe signs of photodamage with loose skin and folds and advanced keratosis.

Skin care with chemical peels and laser treatments can help only in Type 1 and 2 patients. Most others will need some rejuvenative procedures. The art of cosmetic surgery advanced in great strides in this respect in formulating treatment options. Even for those who will only benefit from a skin tightening procedure, the new 'reposition' procedures replaced the old 'lift and tighten' procedures.

Look at a photograph of a twenty year old. Face is somewhat square, cheeks are full, skin is firm and smooth, textured and glowing with a defined jaw line separating cheek from the neck. Look at a photograph of a sixty year old. Face is more rounded, cheeks are hollowed out, skin is lose and rough, red and pigmented, jaw line descends into the neck with no transition, fat is distributed in the wrong parts of the face and neck. The 'newer' face surgery techniques address these changes with smaller incisions, deep layer repositioning, correcting hollowed areas with less invasive surgery and utilizing more non surgical techniques. The short scar incisions are more commonly used. These techniques allow faster healing while producing similar if not superior results.

Face ages uniformly throughout. For most, a well thought out, planned and executed comprehensive facial rejuvenation procedure addresses this issue. Face lift often is combined with eyelid surgery and brow lift. Eyelid surgery may require repositioning of eyebrows. Often the hooding of the upper lids causing the 'severe' look is due to eyebrow descent. Most of the time eyebrow repositioning is done with minimal incisions; the endoscopic lift, using a 'holding' device like the Endotine. For more information, please visit www.coaptsystems.com.

Face lift procedures take about 3 to 4 hours to complete. Most face lift, eyelid and brow lift patients do go home to convalesce.