The face and its expressions are the epitome of who we are. Beauty is intimately related to one’s face. Enhancing this beauty is a basic human desire, over the ages people have adopted different ways of making them look more beautiful. Over the past 70 years or so more and more treatments have been developed to reverse the signs of ageing from surgery to simple creams and lotions. The ageing process is being addressed from the molecular level upwards to cellular levels.
Facial ageing is the end product of four factors:
1. Ageing of the Skin, from exposure to environmental factors and natural ageing.
2. The volume loss in the face. As we grow older we lose fat as well as the skin becomes thinner and fragile.
3. Gravitational ageing happens as skin and underlying ligaments are stretched and pulled. This leads to saggy jowls and mouth and dropping neck.
4. Gravity also pulls down underlying fascia and muscles, which slack as we grow older.
A successful face rejuvenation addresses all factors above. The goal standard for facial rejuvenation, the traditional full face-lift, has been supplanted by short scar techniques and non-surgical solutions. A successful facial rejuvenation programme combines several of these face treatments to create a personalised plan and achieve a balanced natural look. The main advantage of short scar face-lifts is not only smaller scars, but also that these are generally performed under local anesthetic with sedation on day case basis. This means a quick recovery, less bruising and swelling is minimized. Another major advantage of these procedures is the natural results that are assured by their intrinsic designs.
S-lift (and other short scar) Surgery under local anaesthetic
More people than ever are now opting for this method of anaesthesia, as it can often achieve better and more natural looking results than when using a general anaesthetic. There are a number of reasons why it is beneficial for the surgeon and the patient. Firstly, it is better for the surgeon to perform such surgery on the dynamic face, so they can make the face move as they want, with no distortion from anaesthesia or anaesthetic tube. Secondly, the patient’s recovery period is usually much shorter and there is no need for a long hospital stay, in fact in most cases this surgery can be performed on an out-patient basis. The patient also benefits from less risk of bleeding, bruising and swelling.
This is the ideal solution for those patients who would like facial surgery but do not want, or cannot have, a general anaesthetic. Patient’s who have had S-Lift surgery whilst awake have spoken positively about their experiences and have been delighted with the results. The S-Lift doesn’t give what is more commonly known as the ‘wind tunnel’ look, where the face looks drastically lifted. It gives a naturally refreshed and youthful look, which is what most patients desire when seeking facial rejuvenation. Combine this with the benefits of using local anaesthesia, you can see why this is becoming an increasingly popular procedure.
* S Lift is used to lift the lower half of the face as well as the upper part of the neck.
* N lift is used to treat the whole neck, including the lower part of the neck, as well as the jowls.
* Macs lift is designed to lift the mid face and upper jowls, that create deep nose to mouth lines, through scars hidden in the upper part of the ear and hairline.
* C lift is used to lift the cheeks through small incisions on the outer sides of the eyes or temple.
* I- lift Involves using threads with tiny hooks to lift and tighten underlying fascia and muscles.
Under the chin lift
Some times in relatively younger patients, only the skin under the chin and central part of the neck is loose with or without pockets of fat. In such circumstances it may be more appropriate to remove loose skin and fat through a small incision under the chin.
Lateral Browpexy
Small incisions in the hairline lift sagging brows and outside eye areas with excess skin in the smile line area.
Midline Browpexy
Through a small incision in the hairline, the frown line area, the skin at the base of the nose and droopy inner brows can be lifted up.
Frown line reduction surgery
This surgery can be performed through small incisions in the eye brow or sometimes in the eye lids. The muscle which creates the frown lines is snipped to reduce its strength. The effect is similar to having Botox but it is more permanent.
Wrinkle reduction in the lower eyelid area
Heat is applied through a small hand held diathermy to tighten the top layers of skin, reducing the looseness and lines in the lower eyelids.
Achieving upper lip lift and fullness
With the effects of ageing the lip can lengthen unnaturally and go thin. Through tiny incisions at the base of the nostrils, the lip height can be reduced, at the same time achieving eversion and fullness.
Non Surgical methods
Various treatments are now available that may be used in conjunction with surgery and each other or sometimes on their own to treat various problems of facial ageing as noted above. We can address problems from wrinkle lines to volume loss to achieving smooth skin by using these methods.
Fat transfer to fill Volume
Fat from your own body can be harvested, cleaned and purified and injected into the face where needed to achieve youthful full appearance.
Volume filling by Bioalkamid
This near permanent filler can be used instead of fat to achieve volume fullness and treat deep wrinkles as needed.
Chin enhancement
Through a small incision under the chin or from inside the mouth, an artificial implant or your own body dermal graft can be placed to make the chin stronger. Sometimes injectable fillers can be used to achieve the same effect.
Easy Facial peels
Different strength chemical peels can be used to treat signs of sun damage to fine lines to deeper wrinkles. The down time on easy peel can be as low as 48 hours and it can be performed in stages over a period of 2 – 4 months. This means the one can be back to work and continue with the normal activities within 24 to 48 hours of the peel.
Wrinkle reducing injections
Bo-tox is now well established in achieving muscle relaxation for the frown lines, lines around the nose, forehead lines and smiles lines at the outside of the eye area.
Lift-tox
In special strengths Bo-tox can be used to smoothen pout and lip lines, for lifting of the drooped corners of the mouth and softening neck bands.
Eyelift without the surgery
The eyebrows can be lifted up by injecting the muscles that pull the brows down, with relaxing injections. This means surgery may not be needed.
Fillers
Various short and long acting fillers can be used in different volumes to achieve fullness of lips, fill nose to mouth lines and winkles. One can use something with smaller molecules lasting 4 months to larger molecules lasting 18 to 24 months and in the case of one particular filler, lasting up to 3 years.
Plumping the Lower Eyelid area
Volume deficiencies around the eye area can appear in the form of sunken eyes, loose skin, tear-trough deformity from corner of eye on the nose side to cheeks and prominence of the orbital bone along the lower edge of the eyelid. These can be addressed very effectively by injecting small molecule fillers and some times in combination with skin tightening treatments.
Fraxel
This is specially designed laser (Fractionated laser) which is used to take away the lines and achieve skin tightness. It achieves this by applying laser heat to thousands of tiny microscopic pots on the skin elevating the areas in between untouched, thus promoting quicker healing.
Thermage
This is radiofrequency heat application with simultaneous application of cold to achieve skin tightness. Thermage treatment tightens and renews your skin’s collagen in all three layers.
The field of facial rejuvenation is full of exciting developments and rapid progress is being made in this area. The trend is towards achieving the rejuvenation with less surgery, less downtime and quicker recovery. However it must be remembered that each one of us is different and unique, and so is our face and its skin. It is also possible that not all doctors and consultants may offer all the treatments mentioned above. Therefore only after consultation with an appropriate consultant, who is practicing these techniques on everyday basis, one can be sure of how best to achieve one’s goals. Only individual treatment plans, tailored to suit an individual’s face and skin can ensure good results and achieve happiness and satisfaction.