“I hate my neck, but I don’t want surgery. The last thing I want is a facelift that makes me look pulled!”
I hear this every day and usually end up recommending a facelift anyway, and patients that choose surgery are not disappointed. On the contrary, they are usually pleasantly surprised when their neck does disappear, while their face stays the same. So why is everyone so afraid of facelifts?
The center part of your face is what your friends recognize as “you”. The shape of your mouth, the position of your nose and the shape of your eyes are your trademark. If these areas are not distorted with surgery, you continue to look like you – just without your mother’s neck! Where the problem comes is when surgery attempts to “stretch out” the lines around the mouth or “pick up” the corners of the eyes. This is something that can technically be accomplished, but the results often look artificial. If you keep tension away from these key areas, the results of surgery appear natural.
I am very proud to say that most of my facelift patients in Portland, Oregon love their new necks and jawlines, and are surprised that most of their friends never know they had surgery. They just look like they lost weight or “toned up”. And if the lines around your mouth are a concern, addressing them separately with fillers such as Radiesse, Restylane or Juvederm gives a much more natural result then “pulling” them out with surgery. Like most things in life, addressing specific concerns with specific solutions works much better. Rarely does one procedure address all concerns, and we are fortunate to have several tools that can be used in combination to give the most natural appearing results you deserve. So if you hate your neck, have no fear. Facelifts are your friend.
