Facelift

Before you read this, and especially if you have only incipient signs of aging, I recommend to learn to know about home made microneedling. If I had got to know microneedling at an earlier stage, I think that I could have postponed the surgical operations for a couple of years ahead.

How I ended up with a facelift

Via many detours I finally ended up with a facelift. Still five years ago, this was a totally utopian thought. When then surfing on the internet, looking for solutions on the incipient signs of aging, the prices gave me cold sweat, and an operation like that felt far too radical.

Now, after all what I've been through, I'm wiser. I have wasted several thousand euros and a couple of years of my life, because I wanted to believe in an easy way.

And the most important thing: the facelift was not that dramatic at all. I can't understand, why many Finnish plastic surgeons don't agree to perform facelifts also to a bit younger persons. One theory that has been presented here, is that Finnish surgeons don't dare to do it whether the patient don't have significant signs of aging, since the Finnish surgeons don't have enough professionalism. This again, is because in Finland we do quite a few facelifts, and there are a lot of surgeons. When doing facelift to a patient who has significant signs of aging, it's likely that the patient is more satisfied with the result, even if it's not perfect.

I am not able to say what is the reason, and I can only talk from my own experience. Facts based on that experience are anyhow, that both of the Swedish surgeons that I consulted, recommended facelift as the first alternative. I chose one of that surgeons, and the facelift was successfully done in July 2015.

Before

After

Story of my facelift

About half a year before the operation, I was seeing the doctor for consultation. The preliminary plan made, was to remove the fat transfered to the wrong areas of my face, and an upper facelift.

I had been asked to arrive at the clinic two hours before the operation the day for the facelift, so there would be plenty of time to make the final plan together with the surgeon. I had sent a list by e-mail in advance, where I described my wishes, and it was a bit pity that I hadn't remembered to print it and have it with me. It would have helped a little, because naturally it was not very easy to think clearly at that moment.

We made a strict plan together with the surgeon. He asked me to tell again, what kind of changes I wanted to what areas, and then he told me how he intended to realize it.

I told him that my biggest problem was my hamster cheeks, the line of the jawline and the corners of my mouth. Another problem was the outer line of my eyebrows and also the asymmetry between the eyebrows.

He told that he would make a cut, starting from the temples (in the hair), above the ears, along the front line of the ears and behind the ears (see pictures of the scars from here, under the heading "Scars"). He would remove all the extra fat from the hamster cheeks and he would also remove the old threads. He would lift the facial tissue with about two centimeters, and attach it to the cheekbones, so that it would form a beautyful curve of the cheek.

I got to know that the asymmetri was applied not only to my eyebrows, but to my whole face; the whole left side of the face was a little bit lower down than the right one. I had only noticed the eyebrows myself, but anyway, I didn't have to suffer from this problem more than about one hour of my life, since he told me he would fix it at the same time 😊.

Furthermore, the lift of the facial tissues would continue to the eyebrows, lifting a bit more on the left side.

After this he asked me to put my head forward. He then said, that he would like to tighten the skin of my neck a little bit. I am VERY happy that he noticed this: I had been thinking about it myself, but I hadn't remembered to mention it in my e-mail neither when discussing with him. Wonderful, wonderful how professional he was! He really had that aesthetic eye as well as the "surgical-technical" skills.

We were thinking about whether he would reuse the fat removed for exampel to fill the small hollows above my eyebrows, but we made no decision. He is not a proponent of fat-transfers.

When we had discussed everything, I got to change clothes and I had some pills that would make my blood coagulate better.

After this I was anesthetized and when I woke up 2-3 hours later, my facelift was already done 😊.

Thick bandage 

After the facelift

When I woke, I was immediately told that everything had went well. I had quite a thick bandage around my head. I had been told in advance that I was going to have the bandage, so I had prepared by bringing with me a big shawl. I had no pain at all.

I got to gather strength at the clinic until I felt that I could go to the hotel. I went there by taxi, wrapped in the shawl.

At this stage I had hardly no bruising or swelling, but by experience I knew that they were going to appear. Because of the bandage I could hardly see anything of the result, but to that what I could see, I was gently satisfied. At night I slept well, in a half sitting position.

Next morning I had a shower. I had permission to take off the bandage for the shower, and I was allowed to wash my hair with ordinary shampoo and conditioner.

It was REALLY exciting to look at myself in the mirror without the bandage! I did not yet dare to shout with joy, but the improvement was well noticeable, especially in the lower face.

I had time for control in the morning, and I went there walking. I had succeeded to choose the first hot summerdays for this happening, so as you can guess, it was quite hot walking around with the bandage and the shawl 😊 Fortunately, this is a big city with people from different cultures with different dress styles, so I didn't draw people's attention with my big sunglasses and "hijab" 😊.

At the control, the surgeon carefully examined my face, and he was satisfied with the result. My left eyebrow hadn't (again!!!) lifted as much as intended. I just can't understand, what malediction there is in my left eyebrow! It's possible that in the future we will have this fixed. (Update: this has been done with threads half a year after the facelift, more information here).

Only in this control I realized, that the facelift done to me was a ful facelift, and not a upper facelift which was the original plan.

Thin bandage 

The thicker part of the bandage was now removed, and I only had a narrow bandage left. I would have to keep it 24 h for three days, and after that at nights for 7 days.

I went home in the evening, one day after the operation.

The result

At this stage (one week after the facelift was done), I think that I am going to be very satisfied with the result in the lower face. I can't pass a mirror without looking at myself from different perspectives. And I can't stop smiling, I am so happy with the result 😊. There is still some swelling, so presumably the result will get even better from this.

The fat removed from my hamster cheeks had not been reused. Perhaps it should have been transfered to above my eyebrows. In that area I think there are still some improves to be made. But we will come back to that later. Within half a year I will go for an inspection visit to the surgeon.


More information about my recovering from here.