“Hi, Corey S. Maas MDTM I’m back again with this, trying to get a few of the questions answered through our video blog that have come in through the last week. One that I thought was really important was “What is the best alternative to getting a facelift?’
I think a lot of people, like this patient who wrote in to me, would like to find a non-surgical options rather than getting a facelift and I think the question is “What do most doctors say or is the best alternative?”
I will say in summary that a facelift does a specific thing. It helps to improve the contours of the face, the neck and the jawline specifically and also can help with the cheek area so there really is no non-surgical substitute that will do exactly what a facelift can do.
However there are number of people who come in with fine lines and wrinkles on their face and even volume loss, that really don’t need a facelift at all. So to give the simple answer to this, I would say there’s no easy substitute for facelift. There are some alternatives than can be used, including judicious use of facial fillers and volume, particularly through the cheek area, around the lips and marionette lines and the jawline, which can disguise things and make it look like a facelift.
There are also options in terms of skin tightening that can be done and for fine lines and wrinkles by far the best option is some type of resurfacing whether its fractional laser, which is preferred for recovery time, chemical peels, and dermabrasion, which is rarely done anymore. So those are all things can really improves skin surface texture, improve the contours, again they’re not substitutes for facelift.
A lot of these devices that are out now that claim to be substitutes for face-lifting surgery. There’s the Velashape machine which is a very good machine for tightening skin. The Ulthera machine, which is an ultrasonic device that heats tissue below the surface. Thermage. The eMatrix. There’s a dozen more of them that do have some improvement in skin tightening but they’re not close to a facelift.
So that’s a summary on facelift and later in the blog I’m going to show some ideas about face-lifting technique and if you watch the video I’ll have some little clips on how we do face-lifting to improve facial contour. Thank you, this is Corey S. Maas MDTM, checking out.”
