“This is Corey S. Maas MDTM on Looking Your Best. I want to take a few minutes just to give a very short synopsis on face-lifting and the current state of face-lifting in our world. And there’s a lot of confusion about it but it really is become very important, as the techniques and the technology have made it quite simple. And with today’s world with people living much longer, living healthier lives, many working and being very active well into their 80′s and even 90′s, the face of aging is something that, really a lot of people are concerned about. We can change our bodies, we can stay healthy but those aging changes that occur and are often seen when we looked in the mirror are something that really are best addressed with a surgical intervention and we do have very good answers for that.
The surgical techniques involved are relatively well established and with advanced surgical techniques, like those that offered at the Maas ClinicTM, we’re actually using the thick connective tissue layers underneath the skin to restore contour to the lower face. As you can see here, this is often referred to as the so called “SMAS layer” and the SMAS layer, when it’s elevated, allows us to achieve really effective restoration of contour without giving that poled or windswept look that is so commonly seen in televisions in Southern California, and that’s just something that most of our patients are not interested in having.
The results of these surgeries are most commonly very natural looks when we see aging and jowling in this area, and we see the neck restored to a nice and natural contour with very good improvements. We’re very happy and the patients are genuinely happy. They go from a kind of a “grandmotherly-look” where this jowling effect that tracks along the jawline, and the hanging extra tissue around the mid-cheek area is restored.
In this case, the patient has also had laser skin resurfacing, and we really see that the patient transformed from someone that looks tired or weary into someone that looks much brighter and much fresher.
These can be done in any age range of patients but typically, we see patients that are in their early to late 50′s and moving on into their 60′s. We see these in both men and women as an example here, a gentleman who just said his neck bothered him, he looked like a grandfather, didn’t feel like one and wanted to see the improvement.
You can also see that after the surgery, even in a man, the scars that are hidden along the hairline and in behind the ear area are almost impossible to see within a few months after the surgery. So surgical scars are not an issue and the other issue that most people ask about is comfort. The techniques we use with anesthesia, monitored deep sleep anesthesia, as we refer to it now, are quite simple.
There are newer technologies you don’t have to be under general, where you’re paralyzed and have a tube down in the trachea, and on a respirator. We can keep you at a nice gentle level of sleeping and I use local anesthesia to numb the surgical areas up effectively so that there’s no pain that your brain even perceives during the procedure. So we can see these reliable and consistent results with patients, and really have no scars or visible scars and really change somebody’s life by restoring that natural contour and improved appearance of the face.
This really has a big impact on the people that are looking at the professional workforce and getting back into it, or reentering it. The youthful workforce that is out there now associates aging changes with loss of energy which is completely untrue and we can restore a very natural and very long lasting youthful and vibrant look, with the procedure that can be done with a recovery period of not much more than about 10 days.
So the summary about facelifts now I think are putting to rest a lot of the older concerns, I’ll also mention that many of those that you see advertised on TV, that can be done in an hour, are much less than what we’ve describe here. Pulling a little skin up is certainly not going to give you an effect like you see demonstrated here, that last the patient for 10 to 15 years at a minimum and so we really want to make sure that if our patients are making an investment, they get a long term and effective return with the procedure, and a great result that they’ll be very satisfied with for the long term.
If you have any questions about facelift or any other aging face or balanced symmetry procedures, don’t hesitate to call the clinic at 415-567-7000. Reach out to us at Massclinic.com there’s a contact form there.
You can visit my video blog at DrMaas.com, or of course we’re welcome to have you come and join us as a fan at Facebook.com/Maasclinic. As always, I appreciate your attention. This is Dr. Maas on “Looking your Best””
