Maryland Mini Face Lift

Questions About Facelifts

Serving patients in Northern Virginia, Maryland, & Washington, D.C.

What Is a Facelift?

A facelift is a surgery or series of surgeries performed in order to reduce visible signs of aging in the face and neck. While it cannot halt the aging process, nor change the underlying features of your face, a facelift can make a face appear younger and more rejuvenated.

What Can a Facelift Do?

Facelifts can essentially “turn back time” on your face, boosting confidence and restoring a youthful appearance. Common visible signs of aging that a facelift fixes are:

Deep creases below the eyelids
Sagging skin in the facial region
Jowls formed due to a loss of muscle tone
Excess fat deposits
Removal of loose skin along the chin that can give the appearance of a double chin on an otherwise average weight person
Wrinkles along the nose and around the corners of the mouth

It is not uncommon for a facelift to be performed in conjunction with other facial cosmetic surgery procedures, such as a neck lift or blepharoplasty to lift droopy eyelids.

Who Is a Candidate For a Facelift?

Anyone who desires a more youthful face, is not a smoker, and is in good physical and mental health can have their facial aesthetics enhanced through a facelift.

What are the Risks Involved?

As with any cosmetic surgery procedure, inherent risks are associated with reaction to anesthesia or dissatisfaction with the final results, which is why it’s essential to maintain realistic goals and expectations.

Other risks associated with facelifts are:

Scarring
Skin discolorations or contour irregularities
Facial asymmetry
Hair loss along the incision line
Facial nerve injury
Loss of skin sensation
Unwanted death of fatty tissues in the facial region

What is entailed in the facelift procedure?

Facelift surgery, or a rhytidectomy, like all facial cosmetic procedures has undergone an evolution of technique, especially with the advent of new technology like the laser and endoscopes. Dr. Hamrah offers a wide variety of facelift procedures, ranging from the least invasive, Mini-lift, to the 4-Dimensional Facelift. Dr. Hamrah will tailor each treatment plan depending upon the patient’s needs and desires. The greatest contribution (awarded by the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery in the year 2001) in the last few years is that of the development of the Four Dimensional Facelift, as pioneered by Dr. Stephen Watson of Dallas, Texas. Dr. Hamrah spent an entire year working under the direction of Dr. Watson perfecting this technique.

A "traditional facelift" was a purely skin-stretching procedure whereby patients often complained of the "tight, operated" look that lacked longevity of results. Later, surgeons learned to reposition the muscle deep to the skin as well. In the hands of many cosmetic surgeons, this led to longer-lasting results and a somewhat more natural appearance.

The Four Dimensional Facelift utilizes sophisticated, high-tech instrumentation to allow the skin and muscle facelift to evolve to a completely new and revolutionary level.

Good form follows good function. Problems with the old techniques of facelifts revolved around improper positioning of the skin and muscle which over time descended due to gravity and laxity of the collagen matrix, or the scaffolding complex of the skin. Patients developed the "unnatural operated" look because the vector of the pull of the tissues was straight back, as though human beings walked on all fours. When patients would speak, smile or exhibit other facial expressions, this improper surgical positioning of the skin and muscles of facial expression would exacerbate the resultant deformity. So essentially, in order to accomplish good "form" or appearance, an intimate knowledge of good "function" of the muscles needed to be applied to the repositioning of the drooping muscles affected by gravity. This should be the foundation of all modern cosmetic surgery.

Reposition and add to before you take away. The traditional techniques always applied a stretch to the tissues and then involved a removal of "excess." This is a false pretence. We do not typically grow "excess" skin as we age (unless accompanied by large weight gain) in the facial tissues. Rather a laxity of the collagen matrix occurs and the underlying skeletal structure degenerates, or melts away with time, much like elderly family members seem to get shorter every year. Therefore, it is logical to address the aging effects of skin laxity with the skin-tightening effects of the laser and augmentation of the aging skeletal features with biocompatible implants or grafting techniques. These are minor parts of the procedure that yield tremendous rejuvenating effects!

Consider the face as a whole and do not divide it into anatomic parts. As analytical surgeons and as artists, we learn to study the symmetry of the face in parts: the forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, the nose, the lips, the mouth, the chin and the neck. We have been trained in multiple techniques in order to address these "parts" of the face that patients want addressed. The problem is that the over thirty muscles of facial expression don’t adhere to this division of anatomy. That is to say that the bone, skin and muscles are all connected and if we effect change on one part, it may adversely effect change or prevent change as desired. A facelift without a component of neck lifting will not correct the common complaint of jowling, or irregularity of the jaw line. The neck muscle, the platysma, crosses this anatomical division of parts and will prevent change without repositioning the entire muscle. As such a facelift alone will not affect the crow’s feet around the eyes unless the drooping muscles of the lateral forehead are repositioned.

Multiple small procedures are better than one large one. Together multiple small, minimally invasive procedures addressing the face and neck as a whole can yield a more natural result with a shorter healing period.

The components of the complete Four Dimensional Facelift include an endoscopic brow/midface lift, a multivector/multilayer face and neck lift and chemical or laser resurfacing. This is a very safe and predictable procedure and is often combined with rhinoplasty, cheek or chin augmentation and eyelid blepharoplasty when indicated. For patients who have limited skin laxity, a Three Dimensional Facelift may be performed which does not utilize the component of laser resurfacing. The finesse of this procedure involves a tailoring of the technique to each individual in order to achieve long-lasting, natural-appearing rejuvenated results.