What Happens During a Facelift

It can be stressful when making a decision to have elective surgery. Choosing one of the worlds most recognized and skilled facial plastic surgeons for your facelift, Norman J. Pastorek, MD, PC, FACS, places you, literally, in good hands. His experience, compassion and artistry all contribute to a better experience and outcome.

We would like to provide a better picture of what happens during a facelift that may give you more ease and confidence that you’ve chosen the best care.

What is a facelift?

When your face has loose skin and wrinkles you can feel like your face is not representing your inner vitality. Sometimes, a tired appearance can make you feel more invisible to others and this can translate to feeling you’ve had a loss of personal power. A facelift can restore your youthful appearance and help you feel that your face is a better match to the energy and vitality you feel inside.

Clinically known as rhytidectomy, a facelift is a procedure that improves the appearance of your face and neck by removing excess and saggy skin and repositioning the underlying structures to create a more youthful appearance. With years of practice, Dr. Pastorek has developed techniques that lift your cheeks and jowls and also smooth the contours of your face to restore your youthful appearance. His techniques are always aimed to be minimally invasive, when possible, and he always applies known techniques to minimize trauma and speed your recovery.

Types of facelifts

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to having any type of surgical procedure, especially for a facelift. The two types of lifts that he performs most often are:

Facelift: If your skin has lost much of its resiliency and there are deep lines. Dr. Pastorek will reposition your drooping cheek pads under your skin to a youthful position, firm up your underlying tissues and neatly, and most invisibly, hide the incisions necessary in the natural contours around your ears, under your chin and into your scalp. He uses NASA technology to speed your healing and the finest non-reactive sutures to insure the least inflammation so that you heal with speed and the most minimal evidence of any surgery.

Necklift: If your face looks good to you, but your neck is drooping, Dr. Pastorek can work on your neck alone. Again, he repositions your tissue, firming the muscles, removing excess fat and skin to provide you with smooth, firm youthful contours. All incisions are minimized and treated to be the most invisible.

(If you are not quite ready for these types of procedures but want some relief from the loss of firmness, read about our Novathread Lifts.)

After the Facelift

Dr. Pastorek has a careful guide for you to follow a few weeks before surgery to help minimize bruising and speed healing. After surgery, you will be wearing a soft bandage for a few days. He changes the initial bandage to a smaller, more comfortable support the day after your surgery. You may feel a little sore, there can be some bruising, and you will have some swelling for the first few days after a facelift. Dr. Pastorek has special technologies for speeding the resolution of your bruising and speeding the overall healing process so that you are back to your active life as quickly as possible. Some sutures are removed at 4 to 5 days after surgery. All are removed 10 to 14 days from your surgery. Most people feel comfortable venturing out of the house about a week after a facelift. They feel very comfortable about be out and about at 2 weeks after surgery, even though the healing is not entirely complete

Although you can’t stop the passage of time, you can slow it down. After a facelift you’ll always look years younger. Be sure to continue to use safe practices in the sun, and eat a healthy diet to keep your skin looking as youthful as possible for as long as possible. Exercise and a healthy lifestyle contribute to speedy recoveries and good health.