Assuage Spa - Fort Myers

Bottom line: The best thing I could have done for myself! I am thrilled with the results. I am 62 and literally my face looks like I'm 47.

What I had: I had almost everything I could have -- face and neck lift, upper and lower blepharoplasty, and fractionated eCo2 laser on my entire face. Although the title of this review is "Facelift", the site only allowed me to select one procedure. The price above is for all 4 procedures plus the cost of the supplies and the medications.

Why I did it: I thought I was aging pretty well. That is, until about 18 months ago. Suddenly I looked like I'd aged a lot overnight. Of course it wasn't overnight, but I went from feeling pretty good about myself to not being very happy with what happened somewhere between 60 and 61. I had very dark circles and big bags under my eyes, no upper eye lids that anyone could see, the usual array of wrinkles on my face (including the vertical ones under my nose and above my upper lip), brown spots on my face, and a chin that forgot to go towards my throat and form a right angle (as it had when I was younger) and instead decided to just hang down like the hypotenuse of a triangle. Yuck!

So, I started researching plastic surgeons. I found Dr. Prendiville's website, and I liked what I saw in terms of his education:
1. he graduated from Georgetown University and Georgetown Medical School,
2. he did his residency at Georgetown and his fellowship at St. Louis University, and
3. he's double board certified by the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the American Board of Otolaryngology (that's eye, ear, and nose).

And I liked the reviews I read. So, I made an appointment.

That was the beginning of a good relationship. The appointment was easy to make, and his staff very pleasant. That first day I met Kelly and Tehjan. Then I met Dr. Prendiville. He was very personable. He asked what I wanted to do, and he did not try to up-sell me anything.

My initial procedure was IPL (Intense Pulsed Light), which Kelly performed a couple of weeks later. The purpose was to diminish the brown spots on my face. I had only 1 IPL treatment. Usually 3 or 4 are recommended, but I decided to have Dr. Prendiville do more extensive work, so there was no reason to continue the IPL treatments.

I met with Dr. Prendiville again, and we talked about what I wanted to achieve. He told me what he could do and showed me before and after pictures of others who had the various treatments. That's how I decided on the 4 procedures I had: the face and neck lift to create a right angle chin-neck and tighten my face overall, the upper bleph so that I could see upper eye lids again, the lower bleph to eliminate the dark circles and big bags under my eyes, and the full-face fractionated eCo2 to eliminate the tiny lines on my face (including the ones between nose and upper lip) and the brown spots and to overall smooth my skin. I chose to do all of these procedures at once because then there was only 1 recovery rather than multiple recoveries. Also, there's only 1 charge for the surgical suite and 1 charge for anesthesia.

Kelly prepared me for surgery by going over the instructions for pre-surgery and post-surgery care a week or two before the surgery.

I had wonderful nurses for the surgery -- Melanie, Emily, and Linda. Melanie prepared me for surgery, Emily was the surgical nurse, and Linda was the anesthetist.

Here are some details about recovery.
1. It really wasn't painful. I know that doesn't sound possible (especially if you'd seen the way I looked immediately after surgery), but it's true.

2. The worst part is the first 2 days when your head is wrapped/bandaged. The wrapping isn't painful but the swelling makes the wrapping tight, and that is quite uncomfortable. Okay, you can call it pain if you'd like to, but it's really more significant discomfort than actual pain. There is major relief after the bandage is removed on the morning after the surgery. I feels SO good! Then they put a new bandage on, and that doesn't feel bad at all. But then you swell some more (which is natural -- people generally continue to swell for the first 48 hours), so by the following morning when they remove the bandage you again feel the relief.

3. Good news! Generally after the 2nd bandage change there is no 3rd bandage. Instead you get a "face bra." This is something that you wear 24/7 until your 1-week check-up. It's complicated to put on -- lots of moving parts because Dr. Prendiville and staff have experimented with the best way to make it as comfortable as possible to wear. My husband came into the room while they were preparing the face bra and took pictures on his iPad so that he could look at the pictures while he assembled it for me. (You need to take the face bra off to clean your face twice a day.) Two great things about the face bra -- it's only for a few days, and if it really starts to drive you nuts, you can unhook it without really removing it and get some relief for a few minutes and then you can easily hook it back up again.

4. Do what you're told to do. These folks know what they're talking about, so follow the instructions -- to the letter. I had no problems with my recovery (other than that I might have healed a little more slowly than others have), and it was partially attributable to the excellent care I received during surgery and partially because I did everything I was supposed to do.

5. Take advantage of the offer to have your make-up done. When you're somewhere around 7 to 10 days post surgery, you can have your make-up done at the Assuage Spa next door to Dr. Prendiville's office. Tehjan runs the spa, and among the many services they offer are make-up application. And the Aestheticians know just which make-up items will do the best job of covering the red (new) scars. The make-up session is free, and you'll look fabulous when it's done. Of course if you want to continue looking fabulous you'll need to buy the make-up. But you're not obligated to buy -- the make-up session is free regardless of whether you purchase anything. it's a nice side benefit to the surgery.

Here are some do's and don't's from my experience:

DO get your hair colored (if you do) and cut about 5 days in advance of surgery. You can't get anything done for 6 weeks after the procedure(s) and no sooner, I think, than 5 days before (although this may be 3 days rather than 5).

DO wear pajamas to surgery and to the next 2 appointments, too. No one cares (you're so far from looking good at this point, you shouldn't care either), and it's much more comfortable than getting dressed. Be sure the pj top buttons down the front -- no going over your head for at least 3 days. On surgery day follow your mother's advice and wear clean panties, because it's all you keep on under the gown.

DO buy a big hat and an inexpensive long scarf to protect your face from the sun. I got my hat at Costco and my scarf at Target. You'll get Vaseline all over the scarf, so don't spend a lot of money on it. You'll want to put the scarf on to cover the bandage and to protect your face from the sun for your first 2 check-ups. After that, you'll want the scarf and the hat to keep the sun off of your face. NO SUN. Not a little sun -- NO SUN! Keep your face in the shade for, I believe, the first 6 weeks. Yes, I know, annoying. But do you really want to go through all of this expense and recovery and then mess it up?

DO be prepared to sleep either in a recliner or propped up in a bed for at least the first week. Yes, it's annoying, but if you lay down you'll swell even more and I promise that's more annoying. I slept in a recliner for the first week and then in bed propped up on many pillows for 3 more weeks. I celebrated my 1-month check-up by sleeping flat, and I was rewarded by looking like Poppin' Fresh the Pillsbury Doughboy the next morning. I went back to sleeping propped up for another 7 weeks. I'm not sure I needed to stay propped up that long, but I wasn't willing to risk it. When I slept flat after those 11 weeks, I had no additional swelling the next morning.

DO have someone to help you, at least for the first few days to a week. Why? (A) Because you CANNOT bend over to pick up anything. Bending over causes blood to rush to your head, and you don't need the discomfort of that or the possibility of bleeding under the skin. (B) You're really not going to feel like doing much for at least the first few days. (C) You're not going to want to move around very much, so someone getting you something to eat or doing dishes is a real plus. (D) If you have bleph, you need to put drops and ointment in your eyes, and it's easier for a helper to do that than it is for you. (E) I can't imagine doing the face bra with all of its pads all by myself -- certainly not for the first few days of it.

DO eat. It's important to eat protein to heal, but don't forget fiber. I accomplished both with yogurt, protein drinks, scrambled eggs, and apples sliced very thin. It's not a bad idea to get a stool softener, because if you don't get enough fiber you'll have to strain, and you don't want to do that (not good for the face!). And stay hydrated. Too little water plus too little fiber and you will be a hurting camper!

DO believe that it's not possible to have too much Vaseline if you've had fractionated eCo2. You need to put tons and tons of Vaseline on your face. Just accept that your hair will be a mess. It's all for the good in the long run. And it gives you something to look forward to when you're told that you don't have to put tons and tons of Vaseline on your face anymore. (You'll want to grab for all of the little wins you can get during your recovery!) Be sure to put something -- Vaseline or Chapstick or something similar -- on your lips ALL OF THE TIME if you're recovering from the eCo2. It's much easier to keep your lips and the corners of your mouth moist than it is to heal them if you let them get too dry. I speak from experience.

DO know that the "ropy" feeling under your chin (if you have the face and neck lift) will go away. It seems to take forever, and then one day it's all nice and smooth.

DO know that the discomfort you feel around your ears when you try to sleep on your side will go away, too. If you have a facelift, the scars behind your ears will be raised and, as a result, are uncomfortable to sleep on. I solved it by simply punching down my pillow where my ear would be. As the scars heal and smooth out, the discomfort goes away.

DO take photos every day. That's because at some point you WILL want to look back at your journey. Also, in Week 4 when it feels like you're not getting any better you can look back and see how much better you have gotten in 4 weeks.

DO be patient. This is a marathon, not a sprint. You'll see some pretty dramatic improvement in the first few days and weeks. Then the improvement becomes incremental. I don't know if it was the facelift or the eCo2 that caused my face to be so swollen (my guess is both), but the result was that I had this incredibly fake smile for awhile -- like one of those women who've had bad plastic surgery. But as the swelling subsided, I started to look like me again -- only younger!

DON'T think there are shortcuts to the recovery process. There aren't -- it just takes time. And looking for shortcuts ultimately may make recovery last longer because it may inhibit healing.

DO have reasonable expectations. If you didn't look like Cindy Crawford when you were younger, you're not going to look like Cindy Crawford after the procedure(s).

DO enjoy your refreshed look. I'm so happy to look JUST LIKE ME, but just like me 15 years ago.

I don't have any photos on this site, but I've authorized Dr. Prendiville to show my before and after photos to anyone with whom he consults.