Jezzebel

Best Thing I Ever Did for Myself! - Seattle, WA

Not Happy with Cheek Lift (Mid-face Suspension) - Scottsdale, AZ

"Not worth it" cares and it is her or his story and doctor so respecting his or her choice regarding naming the doctor is warranted. If you want to know who a doctor is, email the person and ask.

Be sure to thoroughly research a cheek lift and be very careful in choosing a surgeon. Overall, its patient satisfaction rate isn't very high.

Oops! Sorry, description at "Cheek Lift: Not Happy with Cheek Lift (Mid-face Suspension) - Scottsdale, AZ"

Cheeks too big and upper lip too tight.

I hate my smile so much, I smile much less often and I try not to smile big like I used to. Life isn't as fun when one doesn't smile, and what's the point in paying thousands of dollars to look happier and younger only to look dour from lack of smiling?

After reading more, I think what it is called is a Joker's smile. It looks like where the surgeon decided to place the sutures where he went in through the inside corners of my mouth up into the cheek areas provided too little room for my normal, wider smile. When I smile my upper lip pulls so tightly against the gum, and it also looks like there is no place for the corners to go, that instead of turning up in the corners, my upper lip is completely straight across. Hence the Joker's smile.

Like I wrote previously, I think my smile was very pretty before and I would never have agreed to anything that would change it. My surgeon did mention that the mid-face lift would raise the corners of my lips back up some, but he said nothing about any other possible changes. In fact, when I did raise any specific concerns about anything else, he just shook his head and said I had nothing to worry about. The material he gave me to read before hand did talk about all the possible potential problems regarding nerve damage and so on, but when I asked about any of them, he said he never had problems with any of those things so not to worry about it.

A few weeks before the surgery, I talked to his patient coordinator and told her that I thought I was rushing into it and decided I should think about it some more. She assertively insisted cold feet nerves were normal, but everything would be wonderful and I would be so happy that I really needed to trust the doctor and go through with it. I was foolish not to follow my own instincts, because I think now, after feeling sort of pushed into the surgery when I initially had asked for only a consult (as soon as the doctor was finished doing the consult I was taken to the patient coordinator to look at photos and schedule my surgery as though it was given), and then she was so insistent about not letting me back out, I now think she was working on commission. No one in a physician's office who deals with encouraging medical procedures should be working on commission for this very reason.

It's been s full year since my surgery and compared to some of the horror stories other people share, I guess I was lucky not to have my face misshapen, so the skill for achieving cheek balance was good at least.

I haven't even bothered to contact him over it though because when I went back for the revision of something else, he made it clear he had no interest in what I had to say about my self-consciousness over my smile, and he also had no interest in tweaking my eye-lids even though he'd previously said when I went back he would tweak them if needed because doing multiple procedure at once caused so much swelling it is difficult to assess how much eye-lid skin really needs to be removed.

What he was interested in was a $5000.00 laser re-surfing to "finish off" the other work, but my skin is in much better shape than most women my age and two others told me no way was I a candidate for such deep burning of my face. I don't like the shiny look skin is left with either. Because of my ruined smile and what he needed to correct from the first surgery, I decided not to follow his recommendation regarding the face resurfacing, but instead waited to see how the revision went first. I guess since I wasn't there to purchase another expensive procedure, he had no interest in keeping his word about my eye-lids and he didn't care to live up to his written material about caring so much about the satisfaction his patients feel about their outcomes.

However, I wasn't unhappy with my cheeks when I went for the consult and I liked my smile a lot. The only things I asked about were my chin/neck and my upper eye-lids, but the surgeon said he thought my results would be much better with the added mid-face and partial brow lift, so I agreed. That's left me with cheeks I don't care about one way or another and that are actually fuller than when I was younger, and a smile I hate and am embarrassed by. In fact, although I told only a 3 or 4 people about my surgery, in the last year not one single person has mentioned that I look different or that I look good or that I look "rested." I have no doubt it is because they can tell something happened and they don't want to bring it up!

I'm sorry I did it, it wasn't worth many thousands of dollars taken out of savings to pay for it, and I wouldn't recommend this procedure unless there is some major need for it, and even then, be Very careful and ask about this possible outcome. And don't go to any surgeon that makes you feel rushed, not listened to, or whose staff is less attentive than he believes or claims they are.

One year later, my mouth and smile are still the way I described above. I don't smile very much anymore because I don't like my smile anymore.