A SMAS facelift involves repositioning the muscle that contribute to droop in addition to the excess skin. There are several ways to perform a SMAS facelift and the best way to find out what is best for you and the pricing would be to visit with several board certified plastic surgeons in your area.
This is a very important question about #Facelift, thank you.SMAS stands for: Superficial Musculo-Aponeurotic System. This refers to a facial layer linking all facial expression muscles and their interconnecting collagen between each of them, the fascia. All of those are organized as a thin sheet. All those muscles also send little collagen bands to the overlying skin so pulling on the muscles will also bring the skin up in a lift.Pulling the skin alone is faster for the surgeons yet, there is a higher risk of unnatural results. We have all seen the "wind-swept facelift" on #PlasticSurgery television shows where the skin alone was over-pulled, creating unnatural horizontal lines in the cheeks or over the temple regions.For this reason, I always perform a SMAS lift and a skin lift, applying more tension on the deeper muscle layers and allowing the skin to redrape naturally. Only then I excise the excess skin and close the skin with minimal tension.The SMAS also includes the neck muscle called the platysma: I find it important as well to correct the separated muscles in the midline as to prevent recurrence of the "turkey bands" 1-2 years post facelift surgery.I also commonly add some fat grafting and stem cell transfer as part of most of my facial procedures for a complete yet natural rejuvenation. Pulling alone does not replenish the loss volume that we see with aging.I asked my patients to plan 2-3 weeks of recovery for the SMAS facelift or 3-4 weeks if fat transfer is added.I perform all kinds of facelifting procedure but only with the SMAS lift will you get longer-lasting results.Please read my blog on "To SMAS or NOT to SMAS".Hope this helps!#DrMarcDuPere, #Toronto plastic surgeon
