Facial rejuvenation surgeries are no longer a retirement project. A significant number of facelift surgery candidates live active lives, work hard and continue their social lives without slowing down. Therefore, creating a window for this procedure in the hustle and bustle of daily life and getting back to life as quickly as possible are among the priorities of most patients. Of course, each physician's practice is different from each other, you can think of what I have described as the basic information that applies to the process after my surgeries.
I usually perform facelift surgery under general anesthesia and the operation time varies between 3-7 hours depending on the scope of the surgical procedure and the accompanying additional surgical procedures. During the surgery, we try to keep you under as superficial a level of anesthesia as possible. We do not need depths of anesthesia that paralyze the muscles or disable the body's basic reflexes. For this reason, our patients get through the post-anesthesia process relatively more comfortably.
In routine practice, you spend the first 48 hours after surgery in the hospital. The first 24 hours of this is due to medical necessity and the second 24 hours is so that you can feel the psychological confidence of being close to your doctor.
When you come out of surgery, we will keep you under observation in the recovery unit inside the operating room for the first 1-2 hours. Then you will go to your room. When you go to your room, there will be a corset on your face. This corset will extend around the ears, under the neck and over your head, leaving the center of your face exposed. The purpose of the corset is to prevent bleeding under the skin, to enable me to easily open and close the dressing while monitoring skin vitality after surgery and patient comfort. Blood will leak on this corset and your white corset will get dirty. Although some patients are obsessed with cleanliness because my cotton-white corset has blood on it, leaking bleeding is normal and is always observed. Don't worry, you will wear it for 24 hours in total anyway and I will remove your corset on the morning of the day after the surgery.
The first night is usually not very painful, but we still use routine painkillers to minimize a possible painful process. Since there is numbness in the incision sites after facelift surgery, you will not even feel these places, let alone feel pain. The place where pain can be felt is usually the temporal area below the favorite line and behind the ear. These areas are where we fix the deep tissue layers to the ground with permanent sutures and it is quite normal to have mild pain and tension in these areas.
You will have some nausea the first night after surgery. We will follow you for nausea and give you routine anti-nausea medication. Another important follow-up element after surgery is your blood pressure. Hypertensive patients bleed under the skin more frequently after surgery, so we want the blood pressure to be below 140/90. For this purpose, we can sometimes give you medication to keep your blood pressure low even if you do not have hypertension.
The first night we will ask you to get up and walk a lot. Drains will come out from behind both ears, you will attach these drains to the edge of your corset and walk around the corridor. Unfortunately, these walks on the night of surgery are not negotiable. Let's say from the beginning that you should not get up, lie down a little more, or don't move me. Again, we will have you do breathing exercises with a blowing toy with balls on it to remove the edema accumulated in the lungs. Apart from these, you will be fed orally with light foods from the 4th hour of the operation. Needless to say, smoking is strictly forbidden in the first week after surgery.
On the morning of the postoperative day, we will open your corset and do a small cleaning. Your face will remain open from this stage. You will be able to take a bath if you want. At this stage, your face may look too drawn and surgically operated. You will see swelling and slight bruising on your face. Do not worry, this is temporary and will resolve within the next 10-14 days. Please think in advance who will visit you in the hospital. Sometimes visitors can be indiscreet and upset my patients by saying things like "oh, your face is so tense" just to say something. Choosing your companion and visitors is one of the few things I cannot do for you. On your second day in the hospital, you will feel better, you will be bored, don't forget to bring something to entertain yourself like a book/tablet. You can brush your teeth on the second day.
On the morning of the 2nd day after the surgery (if you had surgery on Monday; Wednesday morning), I will remove your drains. It will not hurt you while the drains are removed, please do not make unnecessary stress. After the drains are removed, we will wear the corset for another 30 minutes to prevent fluid accumulation in the drain line, then we will remove it and discharge you. While you are being discharged, accessories such as a large sunglasses, a scarf, a large straw hat will be useful to camouflage your surgical appearance. You can drive after discharge, but I do not recommend it, the world has a thousand different ways. It is best to go with a relative. If there is no one to pick you up, I will arrange a transfer between hospital and home/hotel.
We recommend you to spend the 2nd-7th postoperative days preferably at home. Not under house arrest!!!
Go to the garden, the park. Walk outside in the morning and evening. Let your spouse and friends come and go. You can do small household chores. You can do your work at the computer or desk. We want you to return to daily activities. Just don't exercise and don't tire yourself out, the blood pressure that is still increasing at this stage may cause minor bleeding under the skin. It is not very harmful, but the bruising from these bleeds will not go away for weeks. If you have a cat at home, let me know because we can extend your antibiotic course. While you are at home, camouflage with makeup that can be cleaned with water is free. You can also take a bath 1-2 times a day. Leave the bathroom door unlocked and make sure there is a seat in the shower/tub. The water should be lukewarm. Water, foam, shampoo can be applied to the incision sites, there is no harm. Keep your face clean.
On the 7th-8th day after the operation, you will have your first control examination in my office. In this visit, we will remove your stitches, have a chat and I will see you off. The next visits will be in the first and third months. When you leave my office, there will still be some swelling and edema on your face. Especially the swelling in the temporal area may last a little longer than other areas. During this period, you can get help from your hairdresser about hairstyle and make-up. Light and wavy hairstyles usually camouflage the scars in front of the ears perfectly. It is important to be very gentle when blow-drying. You can dye your hair in the 6th week after surgery.
You can return to work and social life on the 10th-14th postoperative days (unless there is a complication that requires otherwise). We are not saying that your face will be completely healed on these days. For this reason, make-up and hairstyle are very important during these periods. You can apply foundation on the scars. Again, the slight yellowish discoloration left behind by postoperative bruises on your face can be camouflaged with several layers of foundation during this period.
When you return to social life, the most important test waiting for you will be your reactions to the comments of your friends. People who know that you have had surgery usually feel obliged to make a comment. Comments can sometimes be annoying. Adjust your expectations accordingly. Some of my patients dream of receiving comments like "ooooo how much you have changed" when they return to social life, while others expect comments like "there is a change in you, but I could not understand what it was". As a general rule, the more advanced deformation you have on your face before surgery, the greater the change will be noticed. For example, patients in their mid-40s often do not receive any comments. We see the difference very clearly in before and after photos, but even if those around them sense a difference, it will not be easy for them to attribute it to an operation.
The postoperative healing process and recovery time are closely related to the technique of facelift surgery. I generally prefer deep plan facelift surgery and deep plan typically heals faster than subcutaneous plan. In cases where fat injection, mid-facelift or eye contour surgeries are added to facelift surgery, the "surgical" appearance can typically last 1-2 weeks longer. For this reason, in most patients today, for example, we perform deep plan facelift and endoscopic forehead lift surgery in one session and perform fat tissue transfer and eyelid aesthetic surgeries in different sessions during the process. Thus, recovery and return to social life can be faster.
For the first 6 weeks after surgery, I recommend that you do not force the repair lines on your face too much. Avoid excessive mouth openings in this process. You can eat everything, but divide it into small bites and slices. Try not to use excessive facial expressions. For the first 6 weeks, I advise you not to lie face down as much as possible. It is also useful to avoid very demanding exercises and combat/contact sports (such as tennis, football, volleyball, boxing...) for the first 6 weeks.
Around the 3rd month after the surgery, the scars will regress to a level that is usually not very noticeable when you tie your hair back and barely visible even when looked closely around the first year. At this stage, there is no scar that draws attention at first glance.
In the process of recovery and return to social life after facial rejuvenation surgery; There may be different processes than I have described here, depending on the presence or absence of complications, the surgical technique used, the doctor, the individual healing characteristics of the patient, and the dynamics of social and business life. It is useful to review these variations in detail with your doctor during the preoperative examination / information process.
After all, all aesthetic interventions are a break from work/social life.
You should not be late for life because you will be late for work.
Stay with Love, Stay Beautiful
O.B.