10 Tips for Fast Facelift Recovery
If you’re planning a facelift, one question you may have is how to speed up recovery. Since your face essentially presents you to the world, it will be understandably important to you to feel confident about showing it in public as soon as you can.
What can you do to ensure the recovery process goes as quickly as possible?
Imagining you’re one of our New York facelift patients for a moment, here are 10 tips we would offer you:
1. Activity: Engage in light activity as soon as you feel ready, on the timeline we discuss with you. You probably won’t feel up for much for a day or two, but after that you can go on short walks and perhaps do some very easy work around the house. Gentle movement boosts circulation, which in turn helps with healing.
2. Rest: It’s important to balance light activity with plenty of rest to ensure your body can concentrate its resources on recovery. Recline in a comfy chair part of the time. When you lie down, elevate your head a bit to help minimize swelling.
3. Medication: We’ll talk about medication during your consultation and develop a plan that’s right for you. While the procedure usually leads to just mild to moderate discomfort post-op, we find that most of our New York facelift patients do best with prescription pain medication taken on schedule for a few days. This helps minimize stiffness and soreness. Of course every person is different, and you may be sensitive to some medication or prefer to bypass prescription painkillers as much as possible. We’ll spend all the time you need on this topic for the sake of your comfort.
4. Incisions: We’ll tell you how to care for your skin and your incisions after surgery. Following these instructions will help skin and scars settle into place quickly.
5. Alcohol: Watch your alcohol intake closely after your procedure as well as beforehand. Alcohol tends to trigger unwanted swelling.
6. Sun: Stay out of the sun during recovery to avoid discoloration of your skin and scars. After healing, you should use a good sunblock daily.
7. Smoking: If you can’t quit smoking altogether, it’s essential to continue to refrain for several weeks after your facelift. Smoking impedes circulation and slows healing—exactly what you don’t want after surgery.
8. Common sense: Think before you introduce any kind of risk to your facial area including heat, infection and stress. For instance, you should postpone visiting a hairdresser for a while, and avoid saunas and steam rooms.
9. The mirror: It’s natural to be excited to see the new you emerging, but try not to overdo the scrutiny. Swelling takes time to resolve, your face may look uneven at first, bruising patterns may be unexpected—all this is normal. Of course, if any aspect of your recovery alarms you, call our office right away.
10. The long term: Like most other kinds of surgery, facelifts can require several months to fully heal. Of course you will be able to go out in public in about two weeks, and no one will be the wiser. But you know your face better than anyone, and you may notice small areas of minor swelling that remain for weeks or months. This is not unusual! Rest assured that any effects of surgery that linger will not be detectable by others.
As you make final decisions about your cosmetic surgery, you may want to consider complementary procedures. For example, people who choose facelift surgery often have a neck lift at the same time, to banish a double chin and re-define the jawline. Eyelid and forehead procedures are often combined with facelift surgery, and some patients elect to have everything worked on at once. Along with a more complete transformation for the right candidate, advantages include cost savings and one recovery period.
There are other less invasive treatments you may want to explore as well. Facelift patients often benefit from skin treatment such as a chemical peel or dermabrasion. Other options include Botox, fillers and more. An experienced, board certified plastic surgeon will work with you to design an optimal strategy for today and serve as a trusted advisor for years to come.
When we discuss options with New York facelift patients, we suggest they view cosmetic surgery as an investment in the future. While the effects of aging will continue, the results of facial plastic surgery last forever. What this means is that you will always look younger than you would have had you not elected cosmetic surgery.
If we can help you in any way, give us a call at 212-570-6080 or simply fill out our contact form.
