Facelift: Stories

This has been a nightmare. I was attempting to correct the skeletonization of my cheekbones that had occured during a short scar facelift a year earlier. The endoscopic subperiosteal midface lift converted my still lovely face into a twisted, dysfuntional wreck.

The damages: Left-sided hemi-paresis and atrophy(Brachman score 3/6 due to injuries to the zygomatic, buccal, and mandibular branches); right-sided synkinesis due to multiple small nerve injures around my nose and mouth (this caused my mouth to pull up into a sneer (off-center philtrum), nasal valve collapse, and an inability to flare nostrils); very marked atrophy of both temples and zygoma due to trauma to the deep temporal fat pads; injuries to the left temporalis muscle and trigeminal nerve which resulted in prolonged pain and atrophy; marked facial assymetry; a deep gnawing pain syndrome of the left zygoma; and numerous other more minor (but noticible) problems. No one should suffer like this. I would advise anyone to forego this procedure.

Even if no injuries had occurred the esthetic outcome would have been terrible anyway since the surgeon created hard rolls of tissue beneath my eyes that cause them to look sunken and this was done unevenly with the right side up higher than the left. There are also odd zygoma lumps as well as canals running diagonally up my cheeks. In all, a disaster.