SMAS Facelift: Stories

Left side of my face is still hard with brusing and change in the texture of the skin on my cheek area. It is lumpy also. This has been here since right after surgery. The surgeon did revise the left temple area by extending the incision into the temple area and redraping the skin. It looks better than it did - but I have alot of wrinkling around my eyes. It was like the tightened skin was stopped at at this point and pulled to the sides. I had the corrigator muscle cut between my eyes to keep my from frowning as I have formed deep frown lines and kept a headache alot from over using the muscles. 6 weeks later and I can still frown and now I have a knot above each eye in the eyelid that feels about like a pea. I don't know if this is from scar tissue or fat transfer or if it will go away. I hope these will go away without the surgeon having to remove them. The right side of my face has healed great. I also had some fat infected into the area above my upper lip. It has changed the look of my mouth completely. It is like a have a swollen upper lip and it weights down the corners of my mouth. I did not want to change my features - only get rid of loose skin. I hope this continues to go down, I don't look like myself. I am trying to be patient. I returned to work last week and no-one in my office ever mentioned that I looked better or that they thought I had a facelift. The pretty much confirms my fears that this facelift did not have a good outcome. I have a follow up visit scheduled next week. Anxious to hear what the surgeon thinks about my healing and outcome.

Oh dear, that is a lot of complications. I hope your appointment next week sheds some light on what's happening. I see you've already asked a few questions, but please don't hesitate to continue to use the Doctor Q&A Forum for some additional opinions too. If anything, it'll give you some information to take to your appointment next week.

I'll be thinking happy, healing thoughts for you.

You mentioned information to take to my appointment. What would that be? I am open to any help I can get at this point. Thanks.

I just mean the doctors' replies in Q&A, e.g. "I posted my pictures on RealSelf and Dr. W says, from the images, it looks like I might have a hematoma in front of my ear. What do you think?" That sort of thing. It can be really helpful to go in with those sorts of questions. Even write them down if you might forget in the "heat of the moment" (which tends to happen to me! :)