Facelift: The Option to Which all Others are Compared
The options you can consider when you talk with an experienced, board-certified facial plastic surgeon have never been broader, more articulate, or more numerous. Surgical and non-surgical ways of restoring a youthful appearance and outlook have developed rapidly during the past two decades. The result is more to choose from, for anyone considering what steps he or she can take to freshen up the look they bring to the world.
In fact, as the number of non-surgical options increased, for a few years facelifts fell from the top-five most performed plastic surgery procedures. But, in 2016, the facelift returned to the top five. Here are some observations about why this occurred that might help you review your own options.
The Results Last
Injectables and fillers, treatments based on heat and cold, and other non-invasive steps generally call for repeated treatments to provide the results a patient was seeking.
Even when the series of treatments is complete and the optimum result is achieved, most of these non-invasive procedures have to be repeated periodically to maintain that result.
Facelifts proved a much longer-lasting improvement. Generally, the results are considered permanent. And although the natural results of subsequent aging sometimes prompt patients to seek a “refresher” surgery, that takes place – in most cases – after many years, if at all.
The Results are Significant
While non-surgical procedures can provide remarkable results, in many cases there are limits to what can be achieved with non-invasive procedures alone. One of the virtues of many non-invasive options is that results are generally subtle and incremental.
A facelift, on the other hand, moves directly to a person’s objective, as developed in careful consultation with the surgeon. Techniques and experience have grown exponentially with the widespread acceptance of facelifts, and so the ability to achieve natural-looking results has also increased significantly.
The Results are Specific
Many non-invasive procedures are used to fix something that hasn’t gone wrong. For example, fillers are often used to eliminate wrinkles and folds around the nose and mouth – the “laugh lines” that occur for many people as a result of their natural expressions and environment.
Yet, these areas do not generally lose much volume with age, and so adding volume with fillers, or with treatments that increase collagen production, just fixes the folds by inflating them. The resulting look might have less noticeable wrinkles but look somewhat unlike the person who began the process, because volume has been added where it never existed before.
Facelifts, on the other hand, usually address situations like these by fundamentally restoring the tone of skin and underlying tissues, using incisions that are often hidden entirely.
The Results are Integrated
Facelifts offer a patient the greatest opportunity to address their whole look. Esthetically, this makes sense because no single feature or group of features is the key to restoring a youthful look. Rather, it is the balance of many features and the proportion of their relationship to each other that makes up a person’s true appearance.
Achieving this true appearance calls for both art and science. So, selecting an experienced, board-certified facial plastic surgeon who offers this unusual combination of skills, compassion, and judgment is the key.
The process begins with an easy, sincere conversation. We hope you will contact us to take that step and see whether facelift is the real option for you.
About Mike Majmundar, M.D.
Dr. Mike Majmundar has been named a Top Doctor by Atlanta Magazine, a National Top Doctor by U.S. News & World Report & Castle Connolly, a Top Beauty Expert by The Atlantan, Best Self, and Northside Woman, and Best Botox and Filler Injector by Jezebel. To read his patient reviews, visit RealSelf or Google+. Dr. Majmundar is also a member of the American Association of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS), the world’s largest association of facial plastic and reconstructive surgeons (with over 4,000 members) and the only organization dedicated to the advancement of plastic and reconstructive surgery of the face, head and neck, as well as the American Board of Facial Plastic Surgery.
