A Lot Harder Than You Would Think -Toledo, OH

Yep, I'm a hearing ya. I'm only 3 months post op and every day I am less and less excited about my face lift. Things are starting to sag now that the swelling has gone down. My neck I'm the most unhappy with. Didn't get the neckline I was hoping for. Wish I still looked like the last pics I posted, but NO such luck. I not even going to consider doing anything else. This was too much and too long to heal. My neck still hurts to touch and I'm still numb around the front of my ears and areas of my neck.

Sorry you're feeling a little let down (no pun intended). I do think your neck looks better than it did pre-op, but only you can decide if the improvement you see now is enough to have made it all worthwhile (time/money/pain). At three weeks, I'm getting plenty sick of feeling like a pig with its head caught in a stile, but I guess I'll just have to be patient. I actually wouldn't mind if it loosened up some. If the doc had just taken up the skin that was loose down there and not yanked the muscles up so much, I'd have been fine with it. Then again, after my face and brow had been lifted, maybe I would have noticed/hated it more. Best of luck at your visit on the 14th!

Barbydoll you do look much better and it will take up to a year for things to really settle down. I'm thinking your surgeon should have done lipo under your chin and the facelift all at the same time. SMAS and under chin lipo together is very common. Prickly face is normal it means the facial nerves are growing and connecting again,this will get less over time. The latest photo of the crease between your face and neck has happened because your are slightly looking down causing the crease. I'm sure all will settle by the end of the year. Regards La007

Sadly, Laa007, I did have lipo under the chin at the same time :-( Hope you're still doing well!!!

O okay. I hope things improve for you as time goes by. I wish ny surgeon had pulled back my lift a bit more...Im happy but a little tighter would have been better for me. Best wishes Laa007

considering a necklift too. I've had consults with 2 plastic surgeons in Pittsburgh. Anyone from the 'burg' recommend a good PS?

Glad to find this thread -- should have found you guys two months ago, at the end of March, when Dr. Naficy did my SMAS/deep plane lift (with upper bleph, C02 under the eyes, and quite a bit of fat transfer). Man, was that first month hell! Yeah, it's sloooowww going. I'm no stranger to surgery, including three previous neck and head surgeries (for medical reasons), gall bladder removal, and a c-section -- but it's sure good to know that I'm not the only one finding this recovery to be extra hard slogging compared to the others. The bruising was all gone in one month. At two months, all the exterior sutures have healed up pretty nicely: you really can't see anything at all. But the internal stitches -- which are most of them, with this procedure -- are still swollen and inflamed. And things aren't improving nearly as fast as they were a month ago, when I could see major changes week over week. It's been like this for a while, and is going to be like this for a while longer. The internal stitches getting prickly and itchy, which is a good sign that they're dissolving and the nerves are beginning the long process of regeneration. But I did hope that I wouldn't still have so many lumps and bumps by now. Also: depending on how swollen I am, the chin seems painfully tight on some days, and on others it hangs so slack that I can hardly tell I've had anything done (which is, y'no, depressing, given all I've gone through). I'm already suspecting that there's going to be some Ultherapy, Titan, or other skin-tightening in my future, to make my droopy skin fit more firmly onto my new musculature. I do look better, but I don't look GREAT. It's like something out of a Greek myth. The good news is: the gods will let us turn the clock back ten years. The bad news is: they will exact a very stiff recovery price for the privilege. Sounds like a lot of us here are bravely paying it. I keep telling myself: Dr. N makes no final judgments on the outcome until six months have passed, so I'm not going to, either.

Thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly. I'm going to schedule a consultation with Dr. Rubinstein tomorrow. I can't believe how inexpensive yours was, that's great!!! If you had it to do all over again would you still choose Dr. Rubinstein?