Cosmetic surgery modifies anatomy. This may or may not translate into changes of aging. This is no operation that makes a person younger. An operation changes anatomy that may produce the perception of more youthfulness. Some things like typical blepharoplasty can actually make a person look older later in life. So all things being equal, age itself is not a qualifier for an operation. The anatomy is. You have to analyze your anatomy and determine why it is you look the way you do. It may have to do with your facial bone structure, your relative amount and distribution of fat or the amount and quality of skin. These are not strictly age-dependent. Determine what is going to make you happy and then decide with your surgeon the reasonable methods to achieve that. Different patients will require different solutions. Don't fixate on age. Just look at your anatomy.
It's anatomy, not age that counts with a facelift
Robin T.W. Yuan, MD answers: Is 40 too young for a Facelift?
My skin and facial muscles have started to sag. I don't really have wrinkles, but I do have sever Marionette lines. My cheeks are sunken and my eyes look hollow. I've heard and talked to doctors about several lasers and fillers, but realized that at the end the tab would cost as much as a facelift, considering that I'd have to go back every year for more fillers and more laser treatments. They say though, that I'm too young for a Facelift. Any advice?
A: Many 40-year old patients benefit from skillful facelifts
20 years ago, this question would not have come up. It would have been considered inappropriate by most surgeons for a 40-year old to consider a facelift except perhaps in acne patients with skin laxity. Now, especially for patients in the entertainment industry who make their living on air, it is more common than not that they undergo cosmetic surgery, including facelifting procedures.
20 years ago the typical facelift patient would have had been offered a facelift with high lateral pull causing loss of the sideburn and a Nike swoop effect due to uncompensated sagging of the midface, a coronal browlift causing significant elevation of the frontal hairline, and hyperelevation of the central brow causing a quizzical appearance. The significant and widespread resultant loss of hair could immediately create the appearance of age rather than youth. The mantra was often the tighter the better.
Facelift techniques have evolved. Accomplished facelift surgeons can now routinely perform gentle facelifts with preservation of anatomic features. It is possible to preserve the sideburn, the tragus (bump in front of the ear), earlobe shape and cant, and posterior hairline, and to bury the scars so they are minimally apparent.
There are many ancillary procedures and techniques that were not available such as volume restoration with fat or LiveFill (nontraumatized fascial fat grafts); cheek and midface elevation techniques, fat preserving blepharoplasties, hairline sparing brow elevation techniques, many different lasers, lip lifts, etc. The face is now viewed three dimensionally (i.e. 360 Facelift concept) rather than as a surface to span skin across.
The net result for the patient is that the indications for facelift surgery are changing. It is now possible to offer patients significant improvements, even for patients in their early 40's. By no means is a facelift appropriate for every 40-year old; in fact the opposite is true. It is the select patient whose appearance often depends on projecting youth and vitality, who has anatomy favorable for facelifting techniques that becomes a candidate. The differences after surgery are typically subtle. The media are full of examples of celebrities who have had ill conceived surgery. It is the work that you don't see that is most clever.
Contact the doctorA: Facelifts may be appropriate in some younger patients
A facelift may be an appropriate patient for someone in their early 40s is they are showing signs of early aging such as facial laxity, jowls, neck laxilty. More commonly, patients in their late 30s or early 40s may present with signs or periorbital or eye aging and would benefit from an endoscopic browlift, upper and lower blepharoplasty. Of course, this is not for everyone. There are some people in their late 60s, early 70s who may not require anything.
