How your facelift is performed is as unique as you are. Everyone ages differently. For instance, environmental factors (such as sun exposure) and certain facial characteristics can make the face age faster. Specific facial characteristics can mean things like a small chin, a low eyebrow position or overactive forehead muscles.

Your surgeon will ask for a detailed medical history, including information on diseases that can cause complications. These include blood pressure problems, diabetes and liver or heart diseases. Your surgeon also will ask questions about your emotional and psychological outlook on the surgery. Your decision to have a facelift is deeply personal, but your surgeon will help in your decision.

The Next Step: Improving Skin Quality

The facelift repositions muscle, skin and fat. Additional procedures such as laser skin resurfacing or chemical peels improve the quality of skin that has been aged by the sun. The severity of the skin's aging or sun damage dictates what type of skin resurfacing agent might be suggested.

How Should I Prepare for my Facelift?

You should wear loose, comfortable clothing on the day of surgery. Ideally, you should wear a button-down blouse or shirt that does not need to be pulled over your face.

Plan to have someone with you who can drive you home afterwards and stay with you the first 48 hours. If possible, you may consider hiring a nurse who can tend to you for the first 24 hours after you've arrived home.

If you are a smoker, follow your surgeon's instructions on smoking cessation. Stopping smoking will promote healing and ensure proper recovery.

If you take aspirin regularly or certain vitamins, your surgeon may instruct you to stop taking these for a certain period before and after your facelift.

Setting Up a Home Recovery Area

Before you undergo facelift surgery, make sure you take the time to establish a recovery area in your home that includes the following:

• Ice
• Freezer bags or bags of frozen vegetables
• Gauze and clean towels and washcloths
• Telephone within reaching distance of the area where you'll lay or sit most of the time
• Ointments or creams as recommended by your doctor
• Magazines or books
• Supply of loose, comfortable shirts that button down
• Thermometer to check for fever

What Happens During Facelift Surgery?

Your surgeon will make the incisions in the area of natural creases. That is, at the temple in front of your ear, continuing around your ear and behind it. He or she will then access the muscle and connective tissue beneath the skin to make the appropriate manipulations.

Depending on your personal circumstances, the facelift can take anywhere from two to six hours. Excess fat or skin may also be removed during this time.

Your surgeon will close the incision site with sutures and your face will be bandaged. It's extremely important to follow instructions on how to care for and handle the bandage.

What Are The Complications and Side Effects From Facelift Surgery?

Tightness, numbness, and subtle swelling will possibly last several months.

The effects of your new look will last for five to ten years in general. You will continue to age after the facelift operation; however, your aging will not be accelerated as some people may think and the procedure can be repeated at five or ten years or at a later date.

After Your Procedure, You Should Contact Your Doctor Immediately If:

• You experience a fever of 100 degrees or higher.
• You have abnormal discharge from incision site, including pus.
• You feel extreme pain or tenderness.
• The sutures come out before you're due to have them removed.

What Should I Expect During Recovery From a Facelift?

You will experience bruising and swelling, which lasts about two to three weeks. Of course, some people heal more quickly while others will heal more slowly. Even though you may not wish to go out in public during that time, you should begin to feel well in the first several days after surgery.

Your surgeon will remove your bandages just a few days after facelift surgery. He or she will determine this timeframe.

Your doctor will want to see you several times during the two to three week period to assess your bruising and swelling and to remove sutures. Most people can return to work in two to three weeks, so it's very important that you schedule time off from work accordingly.

Reviewed by the doctors at The Cleveland Clinic, Department of Plastic Surgery.
Edited by Charlotte E. Grayson, MD, WebMD, Sept. 2003.

Portions of this page © The Cleveland Clinic 2000-2003

Suggested Reading by Our Doctors

• trypsin-balsam peru-castor oil-topical spray, Balsa-Derm, Granul, Granulex - Consumer information about the medication TRYPSIN/BALSAM PERU/CASTOR OIL - TOPICAL SPRAY (Balsa-Derm, Granul, Granulex), includes side effects, drug interactions, recommended dosages, and storage information. Read more about the prescription drug TRYPSIN/BALSAM PERU/CASTOR OIL - TOPICAL SPRAY.
• Questions To Ask Before Surgery - Surgery questions to ask prior to having a procedure are important. Your surgeon should be available to answer your surgery questions prior to the procedure.
• Facial Nerve Problems and Bell's Palsy - Learn about facial nerve problems and Bell's palsy symptoms such as facial muscle paralysis, weakness, twitching of the face, dry mouth, altered taste. Causes and Treatment options are included in the information.

Read more Face Lift related articles »

Latest Medical News

• New Surgery Removes Fat on Your Back
• Plastic Surgery Up in 2007