Facial Surgery Miami – Video Transcription

This is a video designed to give my prospective patients or patients who are considering surgery with me, some useful information, hopefully, alleviate some of your concerns, answer some of your questions, and make it easier for you to go through this process of getting ready for your cosmetic surgery. This particular video is designed for facial procedures.

I’m going to try and answer as many questions or concerns that you may have and hopefully help you prepare for your operation. Facelifts, eyelid surgery, direct neck lifts for men who maybe don’t have hair, the preoperative workup is the same, and you can find that information in my preoperative video that will give you all the necessary things that you need in order to prepare for your operation.

As far as a facelift goes, who is a good candidate for a facelift? There’s really no right or wrong age almost. Of course, if you’re 35, you don’t need a facelift. Sometimes you can be very thin and simply need some volume replacement. If you’re young, if you’re maybe still in your 40s and you’re starting to contemplate it, as I always mention, please use the number in the video or you can find it on Dr. Karlinsky Instagram. Send me a picture and

I’ll be able to tell you if you actually need a facelift or you’re not even a candidate, and we’ll advise you as to what needs to be done. But if you happen to be somebody who is now at an age where you clearly see facial aging, maybe you see some jowling, your neck doesn’t look tight enough, you feel like your face has really shrunken and you feel weathered, tired, not yourself, you may be a candidate for a facelift.

Now, remember, facelift alone does not address all the problems of an aging face. And most always when I do a facelift, it’s done in combination with other procedures. We call it accessories. And one of the accessories that you can potentially consider if needed is fat grafting to the face. As you may well be aware of the fact that a lot of times fillers are used to replace volume. I’m sure you’ve heard nasolabial folds, cheeks, lips, gels, marionette lines. The same thing can be accomplished with fat grafting. And when I’m doing a facelift, if somebody is fairly thin and has lost a lot of volume, hasn’t been replacing it over time, I always advise my patients to also consider doing fat grafting because fat grafting, just like you’ve heard of fat grafting to the breast or fat grafting to the bottom, fat grafting to the face is wonderful.

It’s a great filler. It is a permanent filler, meaning that whatever fat survives that we transfer is yours to keep. It becomes in the long run, much easier to manage volume loss because, of course, remember, a facelift is not going to stop the aging process, but certainly, it helps tremendously to take you back in time and give you more of a youthful appearance,. But not so much youthful, more refreshed, because the idea is that if you’re 55, you should not be concentrating on looking the way you looked at 20. It’s impossible.

But I always teach my patients, you have to look fabulous for 55. You have to look in the mirror and say, “I love the way I look.” But not look fake, not look strange, not look overpulled. So fat grafting becomes a great adjunct because it really revolumizes the face along with the facelift, allowing me to really tighten the skin, clean the muscles in the neck, and tighten the muscle of the face. And in combination, it’s wonderful.

If you happen to have an issue with your eyelids, maybe upper lids, lower lids, and also required to address that, certainly that too can be done at the same time, again, depending on what things look like. And as always, I ask you to send me a picture so I can advise you better as to what combination will really work best. Now, for facial procedures, remember that you will need about two weeks or so to look pretty normal, where most of the bruising, most of the swelling is gone, and especially if you do have long hair that you can simply let down, the scars become fairly invisible. They become very difficult to see because, of course, we don’t do our facelifts with incisions in front of the ear. They’re all done along your tragus, so from the front. And unless somebody goes like this and looks at the back of your hairline, you typically don’t see those incisions.

Face, in general, has ample blood supply, which means that incisions most always heal very nicely. And after about three to six months, they become fairly invisible. Not in everyone, of course, because remember, everybody heals differently, but you want to give yourself a good two weeks. If you have to go back to work or you have any major events, certainly I want you to give yourself more than two weeks. But within those first two weeks, you do look fairly swollen, maybe a little bit overpulled, maybe some bruising that goes down the neck.

So just keep that in the back of your mind. Now, one thing I do want to mention for my male patients, especially male patients who are bald, don’t have any hair, a direct neck lift becomes a wonderful procedure. It does leave you with a visible scar in the middle of your neck, but typically for men, it’s not so much of an issue because it becomes much easier to deal with a neck scar in the middle of your neck.

You can come up with a reason why you have that kind of a scar, but it’s certainly much easier to deal with than a visible scar along the ear and behind your ear and into your skull in the back. So remember, if you are a male patient contemplating a facelift, I am certainly happy to give you more information about a direct neck lift. You can see pictures on my Instagram, Dr. Karlinsky, and as always, please send me a picture via the number below and I’ll be able to advise you if you can have a direct neck lift. Now, another thing I want to mention to you is the fact that along with the facelift and revolumizing, there’s also the issue of the quality of the skin. Remember that if your skin is very sun damaged, if there is a lot of static wrinkles, wrinkles that are there not because of muscular contracture, but because of aging process, genetics, sun damage, that doesn’t get corrected with a facelift.

In order to correct that either you need to have an aggressive chemical peel or laser resurfacing. And that’s a very different issue. Very often, I like to combine my facelift with a fairly aggressive chemical peel. When you are asleep, of course, you don’t feel it.

It’s a very controlled way of removing the top layer of your skin. And as you’re healing, because anyway, you need 10 days to 14 days to heal, you’re also remodeling the skin. So overall, you get a much fresher look. I hope that this gives you a little bit of help in terms of deciding what you need and whether or not it’s not just a facelift, but you need to consider some accessories to it. In terms of restrictions after surgery, I ask that my patients don’t do any heavy lifting, no bending over. I want you to really take it very easy, but that’s not to say that you cannot get out of bed and move around. That is always extremely important after anesthesia because the risk for blood clots always exists, whether it’s a facelift or a body procedure.

Remember, you’re going to need someone to take care of you for the first couple of days after surgery. And for all my facelift patients, I request that you stay near me, if you’re from out of town or out of state or out of country, for a minimum of one week. You need to be here so, God forbid, there’s any problem or concern, I’m here to address those issues.

The way that I close my incisions are with absorbable sutures, so there is nothing that needs to be removed, and I do not use drains on my facelifts, so that makes it a little bit easier. I also don’t put big bulky dressings. I just use a Velcro strap that goes underneath your chin for support and to hold some dressings around the incisions. You’re able to shower the day after surgery and your follow-up will consist with a 24-hour follow-up, one week follow-up, and then we can do virtual follow-up at one month and three months after your operation.

Please always remember that if you have any major concerns or any issues, if you are from out of town, you will need to come back to see me. It’s a very important part of your surgery planning because sometimes patients tend to forget that this is a real operation with potential risks and complications. Now, just like any surgery, remember, there’s always a potential for infection, bleeding, asymmetry, potential need for revision surgery, poor scarring, anesthesia-related complications, and certainly when it comes to a facelift, we always talk about potential for facial nerve damage where you may get weakness temporarily or even potentially permanent weakness in facial nerves.

I can say that in 15 years of doing this, I’ve never had this issue. I’ve had patients have temporary weakness maybe because of anesthetics or maybe because of the pull, but that risk always exists and I always let my patients know about it, “You have to remember, this is a real surgery.” I hope this helps, and if I can answer any more of your questions, please feel free to send me a message on the phone number that’s listed here, or you can always find it on my Instagram, Dr. Karlinsky. Thanks for watching.