Different Types Of Facelift Surgeries: Mini, Cheek, SMAS Scottsdale AZ
Hi, I’m Dr. Dan and I am a board-certified plastic surgeon here in Paradise Valley Scottsdale area for the last 22 years I’m certified by the American Board of plastic surgery.
Today we’re going to talk about different kinds of facelifts, I’m always asked by patients, what are the differences of different kinds of facelifts? And why would I have one versus the other? Well I think the most important thing is to understand that it’s the surgeon that’s performing the facelift that makes the difference. Why they’re performing it is the most important. Newer contemporary facelifts don’t pull the skin at all and when you see celebrities that look kind of strange it’s because their skin has been pulled too tight.
If we go from simple to more advanced the basic kind of facelift that it is the most simple is something called a cheek-lift. Which is actually a skin lift and what is done is an incision is made along the along the ear and the side burned down to the earlobe. That mostly treats just the area beneath the eyes to the jawline and not a lot of people are really great candidates for a cheek-lift. The reason being is it doesn’t treat the neck, it doesn’t elevate the facial fat, and treat the jowls. So those patients that have very nice skin that are generally to 40 – 45 Â or less are nice candidates for a cheek-lift. The nice thing about that is a simple procedure the recovery is very quick about a week and that can be done in the office under local anesthesia. People also talk about that as being a mini facelift.
The difference between a mini facelift and a more advanced facelift is like I said the amount that it treats. A mini facelift is basically that cheek lift and again it’s a simple procedure that can be performed in the office. It gets you many results so that’s why it’s called a mini facelift. In some people that’s a great procedure and the beautiful thing. It can be added with fat transfer or laser, so it can be a pretty  comprehensive procedure that’s done in the office.
The more contemporary advanced facelifts is something called a SMAS facelift. That’s what I do most of and that’s what the modern facelift consists of. Really what it is, is a procedure that addresses the lower face to that area beneath the eyes down all the way down the neck. The incisions for that are at the sideburn inside the ear along the back end of the hairline. Usually a small incision beneath the chin the beauty of this procedure is that the facial fat is elevated to give people a much more voluptuous youthful look giving back the youthful curvature of the face.
The recovery for that procedure is a bit longer it’s usually all the stitches are out of about 10 days or so. People are swollen and occasionally bruise. I think that people can interface with the with their family or friends at about ten days to two weeks. That is really the gold standard procedure the beauty of that procedure is that you can also do it with some eyelid procedures. Also do a brow lift, you can do fat transfer to areas where you’ve lost some your facial fat. It’s really is the gold standard procedure. When people talk about a full facelift oftentimes they’re talking about having the brow lift done along with the eyes and that facelift. That is a different term but the three different kind of faces that we just talked about with the skin lift, the mini facelift, Â and the SMAS facelift which is what I do most commonly. Thanks a lot.
